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Outliers: The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell

Discussion: 2016-Apr-May-Jun

Why we're reading this: November 17, 2008
TNS: author at round table and book mentioned
[close] November 17, 2008
TNS: author at round table and book mentioned

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Dec 27, 2018 Jeffrey rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: psychology, business-management

Engagingly written, with several interesting stories throughout. Thats about all I have to say that is good about this book.

As a work of scholarship, even for the popular press, it has little to say of particular note. At best it is a statement of the overly obvious. Success, especially the kind of incredible success of people like Bill Gates, is incredibly complicated. Its not just talent, but also hard work and opportunity...incredible success is an accumulation of factors...earth shattering. Engagingly written, with several interesting stories throughout. Thats about all I have to say that is good about this book.

As a work of scholarship, even for the popular press, it has little to say of particular note. At best it is a statement of the overly obvious. Success, especially the kind of incredible success of people like Bill Gates, is incredibly complicated. Its not just talent, but also hard work and opportunity...incredible success is an accumulation of factors...earth shattering. At worst it is a dangerous misconstrual of the nature of skill development and what it takes to reach the loftiest of heights in any given field, leading to conclusions supported only by anecdotal evidence (Christopher Langan didn't become Robert Oppenheimer only because he wasn't given the chance to...right, totally) and severe glossing-over of what expert skill acquisition entails. How many children have been forced into doing activities they don't like, or show any proclivity towards, for extended periods of time just due to the perpetuation of the myth that all it takes to be the next LeBron James is "putting in those 10,000 hours"?

Should we as a society work to make developmental opportunities available to all, so that we may give everyone the same chance to succeed in a given field instead of erecting largely artificial barriers to success? Obviously. But the same argument can be made without implying that the opportunity is all that is required for any given individual to excel.

Thats just the first third of the book.

After that the book becomes a rambling incoherent mess of points that have little to no connection to the original points argued at the beginning of the book, delivered with what seems like a surprising amount of racism and stereotyping that perpetuate other myths regarding the advantages and disadvantages of one's socio-economic background. He repeatedly ascribes success to individual's humble origins, describing poor and disenfranchised beginnings as a strength which directly led to their success. This is completely ridiculous. There are decades of data that show that coming from such backgrounds is no advantage and the ability to find some handpicked stories of individuals who can pull themselves out of the poverty cycle is not in any way proof that such backgrounds are an advantage. Such a position unintentionally works to reinforce the views held by many that there is no relative advantage for coming from more stable backgrounds. Not to mention the tangent he goes down with Jewish lawyers and clothiers in New York where this point is made contradicts his larger point that background matters and having access to resources and opportunities matter. ...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Alison Hamel rated it liked it

Decent read. Gladwell really gives the reader something to think about. I agree with his thesis: success does not exist in a vacuum. A lot of circumstances have to be just right for a person to really flourish.

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