I picked this one up at the Bangkok airport and haven't been able to put it down! ( )

WOW...What a great book! A book that you would want to read over again to give you inspiration and insight of what success is all about ( )

This is a study of how people achieve success across all spectrums of life.

The inner flap starts with the question "Why do some people succeed far more than others?" and follows with the statment that to understand hos some people thrive, we should spend more time looking around them.

There were a number of interesting examples presented such as how kids who were the oldest by a number of months were the "best" when being considered for the next level of hockey and how individuals susch as Bill Gates were at the happy intersection of the PC coming to be and having passion in programming.

While these are legitimate lines of thought, there are just as many exceptions. The title of Outliers is really mis-leading the individuals portrayed were more a function of their environment and part of the "masses." Better subject matter would be of the indviduals who were contrary to the "trend."

Lastly, a good percentage of those portrayed were household names -- Bill Joy, Bill Gates, etc. I would have been more interested in reading about successful individuals who weren't so well known. ( )

We are all looking for the formula to success...Gladwell let's you in on a secret in this book...there is a formula...but you have a limited hand in manipulating it to your advantage... ( )

I found Gladwell's premise to be intriguing, and his stories engaging. However, I think that in the end, he proves to his reader that he has proven nothing. How so? Well, he sets out to prove that Outliers are not people of great stature or skill, but that they have been given great opportunities to work hard. He sets about explaining the circumstances behind a whole set of success stories. When it comes down to it, it leaves me thinking... 'Okay, everything happens for a reason. Did you think that I though anything in this world was truly random and without cause?' In a way, he discredits his reader. Obviously, even a great genius or an outstanding person needs some sort of opportunity to open up to prove themselves. Yes, great people had mothers and fathers and grew up at particular times in history. Yes, it is no surprise that all the great lawyers of this era all were born around the same time. And it isn't much of a surprise that all the leaders of Silicon Valley up to this point were about the same age. Great. And? So his next book will be about the second generation of Silicon Valley greats or great lawyers of a new era and they'll all be about the same age too. Fascinating.

All this being said, he is an engaging writer and some of the stories really are fascinating, so it might be worth a read anyway. Just nothing all that earth shattering in the philosophy/sociology department. ( )

A remarkably easy book to read, it definitely makes you think. It adds a new dimension to the old genetics vs. cultural debate, bringing in the element of luck. If you're a determinist you'll like it, but it's definitely also a proponent of hard work. ( )

It was quite enlightening. He looks at things from a different perspective which is kinda fun. I did learn a lot from this book - I never knew how much more impact hard work had on one's success than did innate talent. I didn't realize that the fact that Western languages named numbers differently actually puts speakers of these languages at a Math disadvantage. I didn't realize that cultural behavior patterns can play such a major role in one's success.

Anyway, it makes me want to go put my 10,000 hours in and see just how successful I could be. Or maybe it makes me regret that I haven't already put in my hours because now it's too late for me to be a 'genius' at anything. ( )

I enjoyed this book. I have always been fascinated by outliers - those people, or data points, that don't fit the trends. Why are they so different from others? Gladwell does a good job making a compelling case that no one's success is solely by their own efforts - they were lucky, and stood on the shoulders of giants (or their parents were lucky). As a psychologist I might fault his reliance on anecdotes - but, the point is often unseen except in anecdotes. The last chapter, about the details that made his own family successful, is particularly moving. ( )

'The Tipping Point' and 'Blink' are both marvellous; however, I've spent the last three years working as a teacher, and although both books were illuminating they weren't especially directed at me. 'Outliers', a book about what makes some people successful and others not, was just the book I've been waiting for. I devoured it in a day and a half, and I know that I'll return to it many times in the future, because it's literally packed with incredible information and world-changing ideas (not necessarily Gladwell's own, mind you - and that's an important caveat. Gladwell is a very skilled disseminator of information to the public, and without him these ideas might not get the wide readership they deserve. However, the credit for the content of this book really belongs to the originators of the ideas themselves, and thankfully Gladwell includes pages upon pages at the end of detailed notes so that you can, if you wish, look up the originals). ( )

This is an interesting book, and for the most part well writen. It shows success in a light; that of chance based on being at the right "place" at the right time (or the wrong place at the wrong time for non-success). The middle section of the book did not hold my attention as much as the begining and end, and I felt the twinges of boredom when reading this bit. ( )

well researched and thought-out, outliers teaches the reader about the success stories of many people and cultures. gladwell offers the conclusion that the people he examines as "successful" are not so because of inherent reasons but rather they have access to certain opportunities or values that make them stand out. ( )

Fantastic, inspiring, interesting, absorbing. ( )

he makes a very persuasive arguement that success isnot due to ability, but being at the right place at the right time. does it mean all those motivation gurus have to give up their day jobs?
it must make depressing reading for them. their whole livelihood is at stake. if u r in the wrong time, all ur hard work and striving will be no use. so who needs these motivation gurus advising on how to be a success.

Great book for all to try. I have referred many people to this one. I think it can help folks look at achievement a different way. ( )

Outliers explains what factors come together to make some people successful when others aren't. Gladwell discusses time of birth, ethnic and cultural legacies, parenting differences between those in the middle and lower classes, and the 10,000 hour rule. While he doesn't make recommendations for overcoming factors that may hinder success, his insights should help those who are looking to improve schools, businesses, and others who see stumbling blocks in the way of success. Gladwell's writing grips and holds the reader to the end of the book. - CKL

A really marvelous, eye-opening collection of statistics presented as stories .... very few books change how you see the world. this is one of them for me. ( )

I've read Gladwell's other books and this fell right in line with what I was expecting. I'm not sure if now I feel justified in not being some kind of musical genius or computer programmer, etc. or if I'm sad that the odds were stacked against me! I found the chapter on the airplane crashes most intriguing - I wonder if I'm allowed to ask how well the pilot and co-pilot know each other and how much sleep they got last night when I take my next flight? ( )

Another Gladwell success story (pun fully intended).

This time Malcolm Gladwell looks at the factors that take people from mediocre to great, and questions the prevailing American myth of the "self-made man." No one is "self-made;" instead we are all products of our family history, our circumstances, even, in some cases, our date of birth. Gladwell's book reminds me of the saying about a butterfly sneezing in Hong Kong changing the course of history around the world, but brought down to the individual level.

What Gladwell fails to address, however, is the complete capriciousness of opportunity. He discusses that Bill Gates became the computer success he is because he was the rare child who had a "modern" computer terminal and mainframe available to him to "play" with in the late 1960s. But the other kids in Bill's class had the same computer, yet only Gates became, well, Bill Gates. What if instead of of that computer terminal, Martha Graham had taken up residence in Bill's town and offered free dance classes in a state-of-the-art dance studio? Would Bill Gates have become just another doctor, or lawyer, or accountant, and one of his classmates become a modern dance master?

Gladwell's book is readable and thought-provoking and should not be missed. ( )

As usual with pop psych, there's a whole lot of 'All things being equal' (which they're not) and 'Opponents of this theory say' that's written out of this account of why some succeed and others fail. It also ignores nonverbal, animal charisma which I think is a fairly important factor in relative success.This book in particular of Gladwell's work would make a good stalking horse for beginning students learning to critique research. I still like reading him for the quality of exposition and the references (here, on J. Robert Oppenheimer and yet another study of childrearing that comes up with separate working-class and middle-class codes, cf. Bernstein, Brice Heath, etc.).

How success works. Another Malcolm Gladwell book, thoroughly researched, clear and concise writing, like his other books it draws you in and fascinates you.
The essential story is there is no miracle of success, it's a combination of lots of hard work and enough good luck. You do need some special qualities like persistence and imagination, but it seems that for most successful people it's about having enough of the right experience when the big opportunity comes along (which of course it might never do).
The great thing about it is it's not wishy washy nonsense based onsomeone's pet theory, it's got statistical rigour - Gladwell is reporting on in-depth work by others. The findings are not all intuitive, though they make sense when explained.
An excellent book. ( )

Outliers is a well-argued polemic against the tendency in America to state that the cause of success is hard work and/or talent alone. Malcolm Gladwell convincingly makes his case that such a tendency does not square with the data and that when it informs our policy, it can often be harmful.

This is a quick read because each sentence has a purpose and drive. Also, you will blaze through this book because Gladwell starts off with stories about people and directs our attention to how scientific research and a more acute perception of the facts of our lives can more fruitfully explain these human stories and, in turn, our lives.

Through it is not stated as such, I think the focus on our lives is by design. For me at least, the motivation for racing through this book was to understand what factors contribute to success and, with such an understanding, how to lay claim to it.

Finding out that talent or hard work alone do not make you successful is somewhat liberating. That discovery casts the impression that there are other, not fixed, ways available to pursue success.

A problem I have with this book is that Gladwell's clarity and search for answers makes him conveniently not develop worthwhile counter-arguments to his conclusions. In doing so, he takes complicated phenomena--humans and what makes them successful--and makes them less complex by omitting important elements.

For example, David Brooks has said that Gladwell omits the idea that individual concentration and focus is by itself important for success. Gladwell merely would bracket those concerns under a talent or a product of the will. Also, in order to tell the story of success, we need to know where we are going. Gladwell needs to honest tackle the question of what success is and not take it for a given as a product of meaningful work or Somerset Maugham vision of happiness, a house on a hill in Canada.

So, while Gladwell has argued successfully against the talent-centric or hard-work-centric view of success, I still think he has work to do for a well-rounded explanation of what makes you successful.

Good book, fun read. Starting place for looking more into questions of what is the 'formula' for success, or at least what are the ingredients. ( )

Malcolm Gladwell has done it again. In a book both provocative and informative, Gladwell helps us to understand achievement is not only about hard work, but cultural legacy, and being in the right place at the right time. Indeed, when a person is born can predetermine their chances at a place on an elite hockey team. Where a person is born can determine their ability to commandeer a jumbo jet if need be.
Gladwell's revelations may be startling for some, but what is most impressive is his ability to talk about culture in a way that is straightforward and not burdened by politically correct parleying. In a climate where we are supposed to be having unencumbered discussions about culture, Gladwell's book is a step in the right direction. He looks at several examples of cultural legacy with an objective, yet not passive, eye.
As other reviewers have commented, there is a noticeable absence of female "Outliers." While Gladwell does have a wonderful section about his grandmother, it is disheartening that Gladwell didn't take the opportunity to examine a well-known female outlier, particularly since it would have supported the "working against hardship" vs. "timing" hypothesis so well.
That said, we would do well as a society to take notice of what Gladwell reveals and summarizes in this book, as it largely accounts for huge achievement gaps in our educational landscape and our inability to move freely about the socio-economic strata in both the world and the U.S. ( )