It's not about where (or even whether) you went to school. The diversity of the people who established and/or are running the nine breakthrough companies is simply astounding. The group includes: a former college professor and Ph.D in mathematics (Jim Goodnight at SAS); two Harvard MBAs (Intuit's Scott Cook, who is also a Bain Consulting alum, and Tom Tiller, once one of General Electric's rising stars); a guy who finished his associate degree (Tom Golisano at Paychex); and Scott Edmonds, who hit the bricks right out of high school in Virginia and rose to become CEO of Wall Street darling, Chico's. Not only is Bob Funk, the CEO of Express, an ordained minister and cattle rancher, he's also the elected chairman of the Federal Reserve's Conference of Chairmen, which advises the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.