Outliers: The Story of Success
Ratings549
Average rating4
I think by now most of us know “overnight” success isn't overnight, but I had no clue how far back “overnight” success goes. This book is simply INCREDIBLE!!
There were some painful moments, about individual's social class and cultural heritage, that somehow found it's way to my feels (ouch!)
I guess some of over-generalization can be scrutinized by someone like N.N.Taleb, but it tries to introduce a new perspective that is valuable on it's own, mostly regardless of statistical accuracy of examples.
You know, this sucker was a book I was forced to read for school, so you can imagine my surprise when I actually enjoyed it. Plus, it's non-fiction which I have previously hated.
With that said, this book has put back my faith in the genre.
Granted, that may just be a testamant to my nerdiness, but I really enjoyed this book. It was fascinating and has left me asking even more questions than I had originally started with.
BLUF: This isn't a self-help book, it's an OpEd/Pop Science piece.
“Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities ...”
Plot: Outliers follows the premise that people only became successful because of the opportunities provided in their life. This includes anything from the time of the year or era they were born to family background to the lucky breaks. While there is a controllable factor in success (practice), Gladwell argues that it must be coupled with other factors in order for success to occur.
My thoughts: After reading this, I'm not really sure why my father recommended this to me to read. I feel like the success of books like Freakonomics has us (my father and I included) excited for any book that explains social science in a readable and entertaining manner. Many readers (ahem.. me) take this information at face value and fail to realize any skews or dissents as they are not discussed. My point: take this with a grain of salt.
While this book's emphasis is on successful people being formed by group effort, I think it's unfortunate in the sense that it causes readers to say “Ahh, THIS is why I must not be successful.” Why try to be successful if success is based on factors outside of your control? It's a demotivator and a concept that can be used to justify one's lack of effort.
Concepts Discussed: Opining aside, Outliers presents an interesting argument about success. Malcolm Gladwell offers some ideas that seem pretty self explanatory: high general intelligence doesn't take you far if you don't have practical intelligence, practice in a trade or skill is necessary for mastery, and culture plays a major part in who we are and how we behave. Other ideas you may be hearing for the first time: how you were raised, arbitrary cutoff dates (schools, sports, etc.), and “what your parents do for a living, and the assumptions that accompany the class your parents belong to” matter.
Summary of Examples: Gladwell discussions include Bill Joy, Bill Gates, The Beatles, Steve Jobs, Chris Langan, Lewis Terman, Oppenheimer, Joe Flow, Alexander Bickle, Maurice and Mort Janklow, Regina and Louis Borgenict, the Howards and Turners, Gert Hofstede, Alan Schoenfield, and himself. Arguments are detailed with the use of sports and school advantages, Jewish immigrants, cultural legacies, rice farmers, and the KIPP Academy along with brief life bios for some of the individuals listed above.
Oh, BTW: When asked, “What do you want people to take away from Outliers?” Gladwell answered “My wish with Outliers is that it makes us understand how much of a group project success is”.
Interesting stuff and concept, easy to read, encourage to flip to another page. Enjoyable content and great summary.
Insightful, entertaining but it suffers the same problem that author quote in the book, namely - confirmation bias. Author chose only those subjects whose story matches his theory.
This book helped me look at success differently. Throughout the reading, I found myself analyzing my own backgroun, trying to piece together where I, or my ancestors, had gone wrong and what was done right.
A great read!
This book was really fascinating and some parts were close to mind blowing but in the end I feel like it just reiterated the obvious fact that if you want to be successful you have to work hard. Still, I feel that I've learned a lot and definitely have gained a comprehensive knowledge of how success works. My favorite bit of the book was the “10,000 hour rule” chapter because I am currently studying Japanese and it's motivating to know that if I just keep studying and working hard for 10,000 hours, I could become an expert. Thanks Malcolm Gladwell! :D
P.S. The chapter on plane crashes COMPLETELY reminded me of Cabin Pressure
Interesting and thought-provoking read, as all of Gladwell's books have been so far.
Unfortunately, the thoughts they have come to provoke are wondering how provable his theses are and how I would go about fact-checking them. There's a fine balance between too much proof, causing tedium, and not enough, causing disbelief. What he says about success rings true - but is it?
As a person who likes to analyze and dissect statistical patterns and anomalies, I found this book to be right up my alley. Don't be scared away, though, because Outliers is not a “numbers” book; rather, Gladwell points out some fascinating correlations and explanations that are worth your while to read and ponder.
“Everything we have learned in Outliers says that success follows a predictable course. It is not the brightest who succeed. [...] Nor is success simply the sum of the decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities - and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them. For hockey and soccer players born in January, it's a better shot at making the all-star team. For the Beatles, it was Hamburg. For Bill Gates, the lucky break was being born at the right time and getting the gift of a computer terminal in junior high.” (Gladwell, 2008, 267).
I particularly enjoyed the chapters that focused on hard work (10,000 hours is the magic number), Asian cultures that play a negative factor in a number of fatal airplane crashes while also excelling in mathematics, the idea of being “good” vs. “best”, and the ill-effects of summer vacation.
Less interesting to me were the chapters about the rise of Joe Flom and the people of Harlan, Kentucky - though Gladwell makes valid points, so these are not wasted pages or words.
Definitely one of the better non-fiction (non-biographical) books I have read.
This book offers a fascinating perspective as to how “outliers” became the exceptions to the rule. The points he brings up are ones that I have never really contemplated and overall found this book to be such an interesting read. I liked that Gladwell provided plenty of statistical data to support this propositions as well as numerous interesting anecdotes digging into the personal lives of the examples he uses. I have a few people in mind who I'm going to recommend this book to already!
Dávám pět hvězdiček, protože podrobný výklad dopadu tzv. relativního věku změnil můj pohled na mou výkonnost, a vnímání sebe sama v dětství a totéž mění při posuzování mých dětí. Závěr knihy je argumentačně slabší, ale i pro ty první kapitoly stojí zato.
Interesting, but I think it had a bit of a narrow focus at times and I found myself asking “But what about...?” too often, as it overlooked other aspects of what it was examining.
This showed so many interesting things that I'd never thought about before. A very cool book.
This book is excellent. It's fascinating, insightful, sometimes even shocking and always entertaining. If you don't read it, you're really missing out on some great research and writing.
Why four stars? In my less-than-humble opinion this book, or rather this author, has the same problem as other books I've read by smart, insightful authors, I agree with their research methods and findings and even most of their conclusions, then they step into the realm of political or economic policy and I go nuts.
In this case it didn't happen until the interview after the epilogue in the audio version of the book. Gladwell, who by the way, is an excellent narrator (it makes me slightly sick that he is so good at everything he does) is explaining his premise–that success is not entirely the result of an individual's grit and brilliance, but is also heavily influenced by their ancestors and environment. Fine. I have read the book and it's a position that I understand and respect. Then he says something along the lines of:
“the idea if that if you make it to the top of your profession you deserve a salary of $20 million a year because you're the one responsible for getting to the top, why shouldn't you be richly rewarded? ... and I think that idea is completely false, it's completely false and it's dangerous.”
This is part of his “bedrock philosophy as a human being.” Again, I agree with him on the point that people who end up at the top of their careers were likely helped by environmental factors similar to those that helped Bill Gates, Rockefeller etc. But to say that we, the people who weren't in their position and didn't make it to where they are, have some right to say what amount of money they should or shouldn't earn or possibly even a right to some of their money is ridiculous! Sure, they had help along the way, but their success is still fundamentally their success. Bill Gates could have had all the same luck but still never made anything of his life. Instead he, and not anyone else, recognized an opportunity and took advantage of his position for his, and all our benefit. Limiting his salary doesn't mean that there is less money to go around for everyone else.
If you boil it down, what Gladwell is basically saying is the same thing you hear on an elementary school playground “NO FAIR!” Nothing in life is fair. Everyone knows it. You make the best of what you have and try to be happy for, and learn from, those who have more.
It is disappointing to me that Gladwell uses such a well written and otherwise brilliant book as a thinly veiled justification for income redistribution.
Gladwell loves a good story based on some semblance of the connectedness of the world. And he's such a good storyteller that the reader can't help being carried along with his ideas. I read and loved Blink. I read and loved The Tipping Point. Now I've read and loved Outliers. But are any of these valid if they are studied carefully and scientifically, rather than anecdotally?
Outliers seems grounded in basic American common sense: People are successful when they work hard. (And, it helps, when circumstances are fortuitous for their success, he adds.) I'm still thinking, hard, about the last chapter, which concludes with a study done on students' reading and math acquisition over the summer months and during the school year. The study splits up children according to their SES: low, medium, and high. Here's the startling conclusion: low and middle SES kids learn MORE during the school year than high SES kids. Odd. And, further, in the summer, low SES kids learn little or even lose ground while high SES kids make tremendous gains.
Gladwell certainly knows how to tell a good tale.
I've read all of Malcolm Gladwell's books and this is his most thought provoking. It's about providing opportunities that could lead to success, and what those opportunities could be in different contexts.
