Outliers: The Story of Success

The premise of Outliers is that those highly successful people that we think of as being special humans, "outliers", actually are the products of a series of lucky breaks, cultural inheritances, and being in the right place at the right time. Gladwell discusses how birthdays greatly influence the chance of making it in a early tracked sport like hockey or soccer. He looks at Bill Gates and how he was born in the right year, right place, and had the right community to allow for his success. He also shows that some people who we think of as being born with innate talent, like prominent musicians, actually work very hard to achieve their success.

All of his theories seemed anecdotal to me, so I'm not sure that they would all hold true show more across the board, but I think his point is valid. One thing I kept thinking, though, is that even though these highly successful people undoubtedly had a lot of help and luck along the way, it isn't as though every person who has that set of circumstances will succeed. He didn't convince that there isn't also something a little special or different about the people who achieve the greatest success. The easiest example for me to critique is the one about musicians who succeed by putting in 10,000 hours of practice. I think this is probably about right. I'm a professional musician and consider myself a "success" in that I did get a full time job playing french horn, something that isn't all that common. Looking back, I think I'd easily practiced 10,000 when I won the audition that got me my job. But, I can compare myself to other horn players whose practice habits I know intimately (often spending hours daily practicing next door to each other in college music buildings) and I know many people who put the same or more amount of hours as I did in to practicing the horn that did not end up getting a job playing horn. This is to point out that the formula may work backward, in that all professional musicians may have put in 10,000 hours of practice, but it isn't necessarily a prescription for success. Not every musician who puts in 10,000 hours of practice will also become a success.

Overall, I liked this book. It was an audiobook read by the author and I thought it was well-read and gave me a lot to think about. I was engaged the whole time I was listening. show less

I would advise being wary of getting over-excited by this book. It is popular social science journalism, distilling the findings of others with just a hint of breathlessness. Yet it still has great value.

As with so many compendia of recent research, the data is shoe-horned into a general thesis which probably grossly over-simplifies the facts of the matter.

Gladwell is trying to tell us that we have gone too far in believing our own myths about success and that chance and history have far more influence on how we achieve than we think. So far, so well argued.

He demonstrates his case very well but he fails utterly to question the social construction of 'success' We have here that odd thing that is quite fashionable now - the questioning show more of Western ways of doing things without ever really questioning our aims and objectives as Westerners.

'Outliers' will please the puzzled and confused progressive liberal looking for a way out of the dilemma posed by the evident failures of a meritocratic and egalitarian ideology.

Progressives dug a whole for themselves with 'blank slate' thinking and now find themselves uncomfortable with the rather obvious fact that their society seems to be falling apart and that this threatens their somewhat tenuous hold on things.

Needless to say, they cannot question their own core values and so they must - like Hitler in the bunker - blame their charges or - in a less unpleasant but patronising manner - regard their charges as children who require more discipline.

The talented do not work hard enough but this is not their fault because of 'society' and 'history' so these wise progressives must intervene and change the circumstances.

This is the panicky contemporary drift of a failed bourgeoisie to ensure that its values are not merely imposed on society but that '68 be reversed and old-style authoritarian methods be reintroduced without actually ever admitting failure.

In this context, and as so often with 'bourgeois liberals', Gladwell wants his cake and to eat it. He wants the return of old virtues but he wants a progressive society and that's where the shoe-horning comes in.

But he is right about two truths - if you want conventional success, there is no substitute for making your luck work for you with intense hard work (his 10,000 hours of practice) and if we want a 'productive society' then we may need to change the luck of the lost talented.

But he does not get that his model of 'success' - a neat bourgeois one reflecting the rise of his own black British family - is an ideology and that there may be costs of consequence to the interventions required to change the game of chance in favour of his values.

In short, a top-down progressive vision of what is right and proper is based on a particular class stance - the educated minority middle class winner in a progressive socio-political game where it is assumed that what must be achieved is a rise to the top of a hill owned by others.

It is a dominant ideology but it is not the only one. It begins to show its true colours in an account of a boot camp of a school in Brooklyn where parents compete, understandably enough, to turn their children into junior mandarins at the expense of play and pleasure.

Read this in association with his account of social psychological research into the difference between ambitious middle class parents and working class deference and culture and you are beginning to see what the game is - all must be bourgeois if we are to be equal!

We might call this socialism-lite without the real redistributive bits. Milk and water socialism, designed to find the kids with an IQ over 120 and make them work for bourgeois order through effective social 'intervention', making parental ambition work for the social.

Can society only develop the undoubtedly lost talent in the working classes by making the working class think like the middle class, using positive discrimination if necessary to drive change, and by removing young kids from their birth culture to the culture of the master class?

This now prevalent attitude in the metropolitan Anglo-Saxon middle classes is a sign of panic that the reverse is, in fact, happening - that, in the internet age, the 'virtues' of hard work will be lost and society crumble.

What they really fear is a transvaluation of values where 'success' might not quite mean what it has meant since the Protestant revolution and printing was made widespread, that is, a ratcheting up a ladder of property-owning with one's cultural status based on book-learning.

The book is riddled with a hidden anxiety. Social psychological 'facts' are drawn into a game where society demands the use of all talents to meet its needs, using the claim that such a demand is in the interests of the individuals concerned. But this claim is dubious.

I was one of those 10,000 hour kids through an accident of history and personality and I then spent 30 years unwinding the absurd value system involved. It did me a great deal of good in terms of the forms of society, a great deal of bad in terms of the substance of the person.

It should not have to be an either/or - the successful particiopation in the social at the expense of the individual's questioning and searching substance - but that is what we have.

To develop an ideology of the social where the individual is defined by the social alone is as absurd as an individualist ideology where society is defined by the individual alone.

This book is one of a number of contemporary intellectual marker texts where fears engendered by individualistic baby boomer failures are simply resulting in a lurch to the neo-social right - much as Fabians caused a lurch from the alleged failures of Victorian individualism.

The middle classes as narcissistic libertarians or as authoritarian nannies changes nothing in terms of the base line here - a greater population guided by the ideology of the few.

The middle classes became rich on the market and, now that it is turning on them, they are frightened of it ... the propensity of any class to create ideologies of power based on particular readings of 'science' is never-ending.

Gladwell's account of the Brooklyn School broke my heart as I saw yet another generation of kids, this time minority black, being driven into the state of becoming social automata.

This is a world where it is to be regarded as noble and great to become an accountant, a well paid servitor to capital. Or rather - it is enough to rise comparatively ... every worker or minority child who 'rises' also endorses the power of the class they rise into.

It matches the equally depressing story of 'genius' Chris Langan which Gladwell correctly interprets as an indictment of social failures by parents and teachers. Gladwell fails to understand fully a magnificent example of triumph not only over adversity but towards creativity.

Gladwell rightly points out that a personality aspect of Langan, created by his condition, played a major role in his bad luck but he misses the social policy implications.

Instead of driving the brightest from their cultures into a new culture through force-fed education, a higher education would be to work with the population - all the population - on its own ability to understand itself, engage in critical thought and become assertive.

Ay, there's the rub. What self-aware bourgeois liberal actually wants a population that is self-aware, critical, questioning and assertive? This is the same liberal elite that is busy cutting deals with obscurantist traditional faiths at home and abroad.

Cut under the skin of liberal progressive culture and you find a fundamental and very old-fashioned fear of the 'mob' that has been suppressed under 'Leftist' ideology for half a century but which rises like the fear of Bane in 'The Dark Knight Rises'.

Bane is the nightmare of this class - unknowable, effective, intelligent, brutal, vengeful - and the hidden sub-text is the fear of retribution. Social science's purpose today is to manage this monster rising from the deep - which, of course, is a fiction.

I may not agree with Langan's account of how intelligent design is possible but it has to be said that I, as a confirmed existentialist materialist, found his account (on the internet) of how it might be conceivable to be the first persuasive account that I have ever come across.

In other words for all the negativity in his life and suffering, Langan is his own man and not the creature of another. This is what we should be creating - autonomous, responsible individuals - not automata trained into submissive props for a crumbling order.

Langan is a triumph against the odds but I fear that the attempt to help a select group of humanity through what amount to progressivist terror tactics will simply create a sub-nation of fearful sheep, trying to manage an increasingly resentful and not stupid mass.

The real way forward simply involves sufficient redistribution of resources and protections to allow the talented to find their own path where they can do their 10,000 hours at what they love. But, er, that would mean cutting into the nest eggs of the middle classes ... oops!

Others may choose simply to live and love without inordinate pressure to meet the 'competitive advantage' ideological demands of those who are already winners and fear becoming losers. And why not if they can pay their way through sufficient work.

The new social sciences certainly give us important insights - the work of Nisbett on cultural difference and cultural baggage is of the greatest importance if only because it shatters the universalist nonsense on which our liberal friends have relied to date - but they are guidance notes and not commands.

The aims of humanity are not and can never be scientific or commanded by social science. When social scientists start offering fixed advice, one must always ask 'for whom' are these commands made - the claim that they are commands for the individual are usually spurious.

This is still a very useful book - each chapter is filled with important insights - but it is vital that such books draw us towards independent thought and do not become a substitute for it. show less

In Outliers, Gladwell has turned out another fascinating, thought provoking work, this time tackling an issue that I’ve personally struggled with: the American myth of the self-made man. If you’re like me, then you’ve grown up believing that hard work and talent automatically equals success, but Gladwell sets out to demonstrate that this is not true. Instead, he argues, we must not discount the power of environment, community, and cultural legacies because these factors play just as large a role as hard work and talent in predicting someone’s success. This argument appeals to me both as an anthropologist and as someone whose real world experiences have led to dissatisfaction with the traditional, widely-perpetuated formula for a show more successful life. But, whether you agree with Gladwell’s conclusions or not, Outliers is still an extremely interesting book that will make you think about the world in new ways. I highly recommend it.

Also, Gladwell does an excellent job of narrating the audiobook, which includes a short interview with him at the end that is well worth listening to. show less

Being an outlier means being a non-conformist. One hears this kind of advice all the time. So many people buy into conventions that they forget the reasons behind the conventions.

Gladwell seeks to critique the standard story of an outlier’s success. As normally told, outliers start doing there own thing; they work really hard and persevere; then in the end, they end up successful while all the world is envious of them; their story is one of individualism. Gladwell seeks to bring to light that while this may be true, there are social structures at work helping the person along.

“No man [or woman] is an island,” wrote John Donne in the sixteenth century. Such is still true today, Gladwell admonishes us. We are the products of how our show more environments shape us. In order to succeed, we do not need to be different; instead, we need to grasp to make the most of the opportunities presented to us. He illustrates his point through telling interesting stories about topics as varied as hockey players’ birthdays, computer technology, slavery in Jamaica, and the interaction of ethnicity and plane crashes. These stories show what he means by the fact that we are all dependent on social supports to some degree. Success is not just a choice of the will; it is the product of a society.

Some, particularly in America, might be defensive about their own individualism while reading Malcolm’s writing. We must be clear that Malcolm is not saying that individual choices and personality play no role. What he is saying is that society plays a role, too. We must pay attention to one’s culture and to plain luck as well.

This book is an interesting read for leaders. It is not a sociological study and does not contain a depth of academic rigor. It seeks to inspire mainly by story and anecdote. It’s a good reminder to get our minds off of ourselves and our personalities and onto things that really help out the people next door, in the next cubicle, or in the next suburb or town. show less

Here's not a self-help manual for the layman wanting to be successful but, a fascinating essay explaining how 'outliers' that is, 'men and women who do things that are out of the ordinary (...) -geniuses, business tycoons, rock stars, and software programmers' managed to accomplish the great deeds they have accomplished.

Now, we all know that hard work, dedication, passion, stubbornness and persistence are key to every successful and ambitious endeavour. Malcolm Gladwell, of course, is far from denying that -on the contrary! A whole chapter is actually dedicated solely to the famous 10,000 hours rule. But, and here's a big BUT, what set apart any Tom, Dick or harry reaching his goal and, whose successful to the point of being idolised by show more millions of fans and/or transforming radically a whole field or, even, societies at large, are a set of circumstances that, he breaks down here in a fascinating book.

Indeed, Gladwell demonstrates in fact that, every such above average success is not only down to cultural heritage -both familial and/or societal- but, also, historical circumstances that make valuable the skills acquired by some individuals. Thus, if he insists on the importance of the Matthew effect and, the growth mindset necessary to achieve, he also shows that those are not enough to accomplish feats beyond the ordinary. The passion entertained and, the practice/training/hard work poured into that passion through golden opportunities coming along one's way must also, in the end, serve the particular needs of a particular society at a particular time.

What's the common point between the pioneers of the software revolution and major leagues Canadian hockey players? Why is it that, of all the wealthiests persons that lived across the whole human history, most belonged to the same generation of the same country (born in the 1830s in the USA)? How come that, in the 1970s, Jews came to owed the biggest legal firms in New York and, thus radically change the way litigation laws are practiced? Well, pay close attention to the subtitle: 'THE storY of success' (my emphasis). Indeed, in every case there's one pattern and it always remains the same. Uncovering it, Malcolm Gladwell delivers here a fascinating and revelatory book.

'We pretend that success is exclusively a matter of individual merit. But there's nothing in any of the histories we've looked at so far to suggest things are that simple. These are stories, instead, about people who were given a special opportunity to work really hard and seized it, and who happened to come of age at a time when that extraordinary effort was rewarded by the rest of society. Their success was not just of their own making. It was a product of the world in which they grew up.'

Or, again:

'Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.'

Relying as much on individual stories as on scientific data and statistics, 'Outliers' is also a deeply warm and human read. The chapters on geniuses for instance, where the author delves into Lewis Terman's experiment on children wih very high IQ and how they turned out is, not only moving in some way but, also, very relevant when it comes to educational issues.

Fantastic, and a great page-turner. show less

I would rate this 5.5 stars if I could. I've never read such a fascinating, "you need to look deeper" analysis of the world around us. Every chapter is begun with a seemingly bizarre, false or unbelievable statement about what sets some of us apart. Then, in a smooth, pleasurable, step-by-step analysis, Gladwell shows us why he feels the world is that way.

Biggest takeaway from this book? The 10,000 hour rule. Even while our upbringing and the environment has a huge impact on our success in life, I love the viewpoint (and the documented research proving) that success is the reach of someone willing to work hard enough for it.

Outliers is an exploration of the nature-vs-nurture debate whereby Malcolm Gladwell dares to pull the cover off some widely-held beliefs, revealing a truth as much surprising as it is troubling. He ruminates on his own career path while exploring the factors that do - and do not - determine the likelihood of any particular individual's "success".

Characteristically, the book is a series of colorful and diverse stories which Gladwell uses to illustrate his point; that is, that success is determined much more by one's context than any individual initiative or innate endowments. His magic is in his ability to weave together such disparate research to create a compelling story that will both shock and delight.

Outliers is a pleasure to read show more and likely to change the way you look at the world. show less