Outliers: The Story of Success

"Outliers: The Story of Success" by Gladwell is an entertaining, quick read. Some of the insights are "Duh", but most are: "Hmm, hadn't thought of that." I liked it.

Another terrific book by Malcolm Gladwell, filled with unusual research and keen observations of human behavior conveyed using a clear, varied and persuasive examples of how and why some people succeed...or not. Smart guy--great read-- interesting observations. I listened to Gladwell read it himself on audiobook, which I found a great stress-reliever during long drives. (Review from the award-winning author of Your Present: A Half-Hour of Peace: A Guided Imagery Meditation for Physical & Spiritual Wellness

Gladwell's insights are helpful in some ways in describing a very small percentage of the popular outlier stories. But I think it places a little bit too much emphasis on luck and opportunity rather than on gift, intellect, and pure skill. For example, he goes into great detail about how Bill Gates was so lucky to be where he was at the right time, in the right location, knowing the right people, and having access to the right things. However, I think if you put someone else in Bill Gates shoes, events would not be guaranteed to turn out the same just because that `someone else' was in place of Bill Gates luck and opportunity.

In other places of the book, his insights are helpful at understanding the present issues with education and the trends among cultures in the differences in educational level. His explanation of why Chinese kids are smarter due to their hard life at the rice paddies and the Chinese language in itself seems to help grasp the advantages they have over other cultures. I also thought his 10,000 hours explanation was insightful on how hard work pays off in any activity or hobby or sport.

Overall, though, I think Gladwell's insights are brief and very high level. There are a lot more reasons for the success stories of the people described in his book than the sole reason of luck/chance/opportunity. Some people make their own opportunity. The examples in the book seem to only support his thesis and disregard the other thousands of success stories that didn't rely so much on luck. The book is also very un-analytical in each idea that is presented. To say that this book helps grasp the major trends in present society is to break down society in very simple terms and disregard all the other variables, no matter how small, out of the equation. The book is also very one-dimensional as every story or event results in the same theme, the same thesis, and the same idea. Gladwell's insights are really his insight, singular, because all he has done is write several chapters on the same scene of a story.

Gladwell has taken what would be a few ordinary blog posts and added enough eloquent fluff to them to make them into a book. There is probably a good deal of truth to his conclusions, but the evidence is much weaker than he wants you to think.

For his claim that 10,000 hours of practice are needed to become an expert, he doesn't discuss the possibility that the causality often runs the opposite way: having the talent to become an expert creates a desire to practice a lot. He gives at least one example where the person seemed to lack expertise before getting the 10,000 hours of practice, but it's not hard to imagine a variety of immaturity-related reasons why that might happen without the amount of practice causing the expertise.

I'm confused by his claims about how much practice he thinks the Beatles had before becoming successful. He points to somewhere between 1,200 and 1,800 hours of practice they had by late 1962 (which is about when Wikipedia indicates they became successful in the UK). Gladwell seems to say they weren't successful until they came to the US in February 1964. He implies that they had 10,000 hours of practice by then, but I don't see how he could claim they had much more than 3,000 hours of practice by then. So calling the 10,000 hour estimate a rule appears involve a good deal of exaggeration.

That was pretty much the only revelation I had by reading this book. The high rating goes to the amount and kind of research that went into explaining why successful people are the way they are. Mr. Gladwell has a knack for making dull statistical data interesting and entertaining. It's fascinating to learn about how one's date of birth can seriously affect his hockey career, or academic excellence for that matter. It was also great to reaffirm what we already know about the role of culture and community in the success (and failure) of the individual.

The book was mostly reiterating what most educated people know about success. Even the revelation I had about the 10,000 hour rule is nothing more than the old adage "Practice makes Perfect." The stories the author uses to support his findings are in and of themselves a compelling read. I certainly enjoyed reading them and re-learning why common sense and perseverance are the only true measures that will bring you success in the end.

This is a great book of entertaining statistics and not a how-to to success.