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Outliers: The Story of Success | 
 enlarge | Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
List Price: $27.99
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Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 2
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0316017922
Dewey Decimal Number: 302
EAN: 9780316017923
ASIN: 0316017922
Publication Date: November 18, 2008 (New: This Week)
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, November 2008: Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."
Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots' culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math. But there's more to it than that. Throughout all of these examples--and in more that delve into the social benefits of lighter skin color, and the reasons for school achievement gaps--Gladwell invites conversations about the complex ways privilege manifests in our culture. He leaves us pondering the gifts of our own history, and how the world could benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their remarkable potential. --Mari Malcolm
Product Description
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.
Brilliant and entertaining, OUTLIERS is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 Do you have outliers working for you? November 21, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This new book from Malcolm Gladwell will make executives think twice before they cut budgets on training that improves employee's skills. Malcolm shows us that the greatest talents can be developed, and this is certainly true in corporate America. As he says in Outliers, talent should be "thought about as something a company develops, rather than something that is `acquired'. He goes on to say that the most skilled individuals in a profession are made and not born.
Ability, according to Gladwell, is just one factor in success. He points to research that suggests that once you have enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. What's more, the people at the very top don't just work much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.
Practice does make perfect. The greatest athletes, entrepreneurs, musicians and scientists emerge only after spending at least three hours a day for a decade mastering their chosen field. This idea - that excellence at a complex task requires a critical, minimum level of practice - surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is a magic number for true expertise: 10,000 hours.
Outliers: The Story of Success suggests the importance of investing in communicating company mission, culture and skills. "Look around Wall Street, or what's left of it today," he says, "and you'll see lots and lots and lots of people from Goldman Sachs. That's not a coincidence. It's because they took their mission to invest in people seriously."
Gladwell argues that the state of today's economy is the perfect time to invest in talent development. "When it's easy to make money, you have no incentive to think about development of talent. Now, you're forced to." I couldn't agree more. Outliers is a great book and a fun read.
Another book (in the same style Gladwell uses in Outliers) that is also outstanding and I strongly recommend is The Impulse Factor: Why Some of Us Play It Safe and Others Risk It All
An intelligent, insightful look at unusual events and successful people. November 21, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have to admit I am a fan of Malcolm Gladwell's. I was impressed by his previous book, Blink, although I was was slightly disappointed towards the end of that book as I felt he was rehashing earlier examples and issues to make the book a little thinker than it otherwise would have been.
Outliers has no such problem. In fact, I would have been more than happy if he had been able to write another hundred pages. I devoured Outliers, and would happily recommend it to my family, friends, and enyone else who has any interest in anything remotely related to people. In fact, I will be giving a copy to my father for Christmas.
Citing many references, he explains how many people who seem to be successful are so not because they are purely talented, but because of a series of events which occur beyond their control, which those people with appropriate talent, drive and ambition, are able to take advantage of. Many such people happen to live in the right location, were born in the right year, go to the right school, or even born to parents of certain skin colour. They also have a lot of help and support from many people.
And counter intuitively, many of those who seem to be talented and high achievers, are simply those who have had the opportunity to achieve ten thousand hours of practice. If you are not as talented, it is not necessarily because you lack the talent, it is because you didnt put in the time, literally. The pianist example is very revealing.
As a non Caucasian, I connected with this book in several other ways.
I felt proud when he explained why Asians seem to be so good at Mathematics and such hard workers.
I could understand relate to his last chapter on the influence of skin colour. A Caucasian would not have been able to have such an insight. And yet it is written in the way the rest of the book is written, explaining clearly, without venom, and without political correctness, how the attitudes and actions of those in the past allowed certain things to happen in the future, which, in turn, lead to a successful individual.
This is a fine book. It is mind opening, with lots of details, yet is easy to read.
I most heartily recommend it.
 Not Even a "Book" November 21, 2008
9 out of 16 found this review helpful
I just got this "book", having not read Gladwell's other two, much to my chagrin. Sorry to be harsh, and though I agree that much of people's success is due to privilege, the book itself is a very bad account of this thesis.
There are a lot of problems with his "book". In general, unlike other reviewers, I actually think that this "book's" premise has elements of truth to it. Actually, a lot. My main issues with this "book" are its 1) poor presentation, 2) poor citation list, 3) lack of careful consideration of evidence against the specific arguments in the book, and 4) the simple fact that there are other treatments that tell the same thesis in a much better manner.
In fact I put "book" in quotes because it doesn't read at all like a veritable book to me. Think of it more as a collated series of "musings", "anecdotes" and "wikipedia" citations, because those are a shockingly large section of the thing, whatever you wish to call it. Let me list the ways, if you are not convinced that this is a book not worth buying. I will leave quotes out of "book" in case you still wish the opposite to be true.
1) Poor Presentation: This is a short book, like the others by Gladwell, so your dollars per page is quite high. Also, the concept of outliers is mentioned in the beginning somewhat superficially, and then it is mentioned at the end, but rarely within the book itself. However, this is a superficial treatment of the term. What is its history, in statistical theory, in the social sciences, in modern society? When did the concept of the outlier arise? Conversely, when and how did the concept of "normalcy" arrive? Instead of an interesting treatment of this general concept, the book reads like a few slightly connected but really disjointed essays on a sundry assortment of topics. It is almost as if Gladwell wandered in the social science section of Border's bookstore, picked up ten books at random, skimmed them and wrote a book review of each one. Then smack on one word "outliers", and there we have another bestseller! It consists more of collating wikipedia entries and other, superior works into a dime store novel. Now onto wikipedia....
2) Most of the citations here are from wikipedia! I know, it is an important internet source, but to flip in the bibliography and see a morass of urls looks and seems very lazy. This isn't bad per se, but the bibliography reveals how superficial the full analysis actually is. Also, much of the news sources are just online slate articles, etc. In other words, I'm not sure if I believe much of what I read. It appears a few interviews were conducted for the book, but these are not cited or sourced, and in fact the interviews add very, very little to the book's actual content. For example, he interviews the "smartest man in the world," Chris Langan, but the interview consists of quips that appear identical to youtube clips of Langan. Gladwell also interviews Bill Gates, but the actual content mentioned in the book is treated much better in a biography of Gates that Gladwell cites. Ditto with Gladwell's discussions of the Beatles, Oppenheimer, etc. Read those biographies if you want something good, or read the Amazon book reviews, since Gladwell's treatment of them is far more superficial, covering a few pages on each topic before he breezes onto the next.
I would guess that a full 80 percent of the book's contents come from available online content. The rest of the material really just comes from one nice book, Annette Lareau's "Unequal Childhoods," a far superior book if you want a deep look at social inequality. Then there are about three economics articles that look at 1) age and educational attainment, 2) age and sports, and 3) summer school inequalities. Google scholar will provide just as much detail, or perhaps a wikipedia article on the achievement gaps in schooling. In short, the research is superficial and it betrays a writer who isn't really willing or able to dig deep into the material to provide us with something new or informative. Do a wikipedia search, folks, and you will find a lot more than what this mini-book offers.
3) This book does not consider ANY exceptions, and it involves almost no critical thinking on the part of the author himself. Instead, scientific findings from a few papers are uncritically taken as gospel. This is dangerous and it constitutes bad social science. Knowledge is a SYNTHESIS of many, many studies, since statistical correlations can exist by accident. Beyond this, some of the arguments don't make very much sense. This is particularly true when considering the "cultural legacy" arguments on Asian kids and ability.
Somehow, Gladwell has a disquisition on rice paddies and we are supposed to conclude that this is why Asians are good at math. He also claims Asians are good at math because numbers are easier to pronounce in Chinese. Huh, come again? If that's the case, then why do Asian Americans who never speak Chinese do well in school? If a "work ethic" determines Asian success, then why didn't the Industrial Revolution start in China? Why is the "rice patty work ethic" a larger determinant of mathematical ability than the "Protestant work ethic"? Each point that Gladwell makes leads to unanswered questions like this, spinning ad infinitim. For a better account read Jared Diamond's books, which brings me to the fourth point.
4) There are many books that address similar issues in a much better fashion. My advice: go to a bookstore, look at a few of the books Gladwell cites, and then buy those books intead. For example, read any popular account in inequality. Read Johnathan Kozel's "Savage Inequalities." Read Lareau's book "Unequal Childhoods," which Gladwell himself states in the bibliography is a wonderful book. Read Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel." On the opposite of "Outliers" read Kevin O'Keefe's interesting book, "The Average American." On randomness in our lives, read "Black Swan." Or the best book on randomness, "The Drunken Walk." I would recommend ANY of these books to anyone. OGladwell raves about several biographies on Gates, Mozart, Einstein, and he mentions them briefly. Read those far superior books he cited. What do these other books have in common? They include a) original research (archival, history, or journalistic data), b) deeper analysis, and c) actual engagement of other writers on the topic. They are books! Gladwell, in this company is neither a social scientist, a journalist, or a deep thinker.
So what is Gladwell, and what are to make of his "book"? I strongly advise anyone NOT to read it, or if they have to, sit in the bookstore for about 20 minutes and read the intro, the conclusion, and skim the rest. Yes, it is very skimmable. Then leave the book on the shelf, go home, and wait for Amazon to send you any other book on a similar topic. You will feel much less empty afterwards and you will have read a much better book than this. Gladwell's account is an odd sundry collection of musings, flitting from one unrelated topic to another, and which consists of neat soundbites of info. There is no underlying "thread," and the themes he addresses aren't clearly illustrated or well argued.
In my view, Gladwell gets paid WAY too much to do what he does. If I had to characterize his vocation based on my reading of this book, I would say that he is like the Matt Drudge of book writing: he collates from the internet (mostly) a series of sundry assorted articles to which he contributes nothing save a flashy title page and one source to glance at it. The bold letters, the wild exclamations appear to be something new, but after reading this book you will likely feel more like one of the visitors to P.T. Barnum's museums. The sign exclaiming that an exotic "Egress" is around the corner is merely a door out, with nothing at all inside the museum. Similarly, the title to Gladwell's "anectodology" is nothing more than an empty dictionary definition slapped haphazardly on a random collection of citations and quotes from superior works. There is nothing more than that absurd title.
I should say that Malcolm Gladwell is one lucky guy to pull off getting this book published and sold. It is more like an internet e-book sold by someone like Gary Trudeau. Gladwell is making millions, so why should he care? The book is an outlier for sure; unfortunately, it's quality is on the far left side of the curve, while it sales record is pushing much too far to the right.
Can you, too, become a super star? November 20, 2008
5 out of 10 found this review helpful
First, full disclosure: I know Malcolm Gladwell. He was a guest speaker in my course "Creativity and Personal Mastery" at Columbia Business School and he held my class spellbound. I LOVE his pieces in the New Yorker and his earlier books.
Gladwell uses the same technique in writing and speeches, and it is a hugely effective technique. He begins by presenting an intriguing fact, a VERY intriguing fact. He then presents a bunch of other, equally riveting, related facts so we now have a very fascinating theme. He then lays out some obvious possible explanations and knocks them down. He follows up by presenting some not-so-obvious-but-still-plausible explanations and knocks them down. And, finally, he presents the "real" reason and bolsters his case. Usually, but not always, this reason seems indisputable when he is done with his explanation.
In Outliers he begins by noting that immigrants from a particular Italian city have remarkably low rates of heart disease. He proposes and knocks down several possible explanations like diet, exercise, genetics etc. before honing in on his explanation and I won't spoil the book for you by giving this away.
I have a Ph.D. in Marketing and spent years as a professional market researcher so I am quite qualified to comment on his assertions. From the standpoint of rigorous experimental design his explanations fall down. There are numerous intervening variables that have not been considered or even identified. Some of the reviews have attacked him on this score. All of them have missed the point.
Gladwell never professes to give you revealed truth. To fault him for this is silly. What he does do, time and again, is to give you a point of view that you had probably never considered. He stretches your mind and gives you the same feeling of awe stout Cortez felt when gazing on the Pacific Ocean for the first time. THAT is the real value of his books. And he has a damnably engaging style of writing.
In Outliers he makes the case that in many fields - ice hockey, computer programming, law, mathematics, business - our traditional notions of inherent talent are flawed. Other explanations, and again I won't give the game away by revealing these, are more powerful and likelier to be "true".
He makes his case so compellingly that you feel amazed that you never thought of it. He would have made a great trial lawyer.
So get this book and enjoy it. Just don't think of it as the ultimate answer for any of the complex issues he considers. Even though non-fiction it is a page turner and there are copious notes at the back for those who wish to explore further.
There are occasional factual errors. For example, he asserts that only Bobby Fischer became a chess grandmaster in less than ten playing years. Sergey Karjakin, Parimarjan Negi and Magnus Carlsen all did it in less time than Fischer and remain the three youngest persons to reach that level. However, such errors are few and in no way detract from his theses.
 Huh? November 20, 2008
8 out of 20 found this review helpful
At the end of the day, in the larger scheme of this thing we call life, this and the other books by Gladwell are a whole lot of nothing about nothing. His perspective is just that. His perspective. Personal perspective is NEVER the truth. Ever. That's an easy concept to understand. You might have to do some self research on the topic, but it's worth the time investment if you truly want to "find the truth". And isn't that what most of are attempting to do anyway?
Any one of us can pull together enough data and string it together in the attempt to support our point of view or our argument. That's traditional debate. Most authors of these "types" of books use a debate type format to support their ideas. And does that make them the firm foundation of truth? I think not.
Why waste your time reading about his theories which add up to nothing and instead continue to live your life as it comes at you and succeed because it's firmly rooted and set in your mind to seek your own truth, and not some theory that someone else who just happended to find a publisher, discovered their "clever" side and now stand on the altar of self perception.
I sure hope we're a lot smarter than this. Is this the continuation of the dumbing down of the World? I think it is. Why don't we start using our own ideas and form our own truths, which will ultimately make us and the world we happen to live in a better place. More drivel from another "so called" expert, is.........nothingness and valueless! It's actually limiting. Is that what you're looking for?
Geez!
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