Outliers: The Story of Success

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Editorial Reviews:

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.

Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...

1 out of 5 stars

Not Even a "Book" November 21, 2008
127 out of 170 found this review helpful

I know this is likely to be a minority position, but I think this "book" just isn't very good. I was disappointed after reading it. So even if you think that Gladwell's brand of books is the bee's knees, read this review if you want an alternative take on this particular work. Although I agree that much of people's success is due to privilege, this McDonaldized version of information, this "booklet", is itself is an inadequate account of the thesis proffered by Gladwell. Keep in mind of course that this review is my own reasoned assessment, and that I understand that many do not share this position.

A short summary: Gladwell's basic thesis is that, in order to be successful in life (i.e. an "outlier" beyond the norm), being lucky and being privileged matter. However, anyone looking for any self-help should go somewhere else, notwithstanding the highly misleading subtitle, "the story of success." (Unless perhaps you are a Korean airline pilot, then Gladwell might be able to help you, since there is a lengthy excursus on pilot error). Oh, also being very talented does indeed matter, but not as much as we think, and practicing a lot matters, but it is probably too late since you had to start young enough to put in 10,000 hours. There you have it.

There are a lot of problems with his "book". In general, unlike some other critical 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 counter arguments, 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; disorganized and disjointed. This is a short book (about 48,000 words according to my estimate), 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. (An "outlier" is a statistically rare occurrence, such as being really tall or short. It is not synonymous with success, as Glad mistakenly implies. It can also mean extreme failure, but this is not addressed at all). Beyond being incorrect, 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? How does such a concept shape our thinking or understanding of the world? 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 concatenating wikipedia entries and other, superior works into a dime store novel, or a Mcbook. Now onto wikipedia....

2) Thin and dubious citation list. Nearly all of the graphs and tables in the book are from wikipedia! I laughed when I saw this. I know, it is a popular 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 the superficiality of the full analysis. Also, many of the news sources are just online slate articles, etc., and no one topic consists more than one citation. 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 (google scholar abstracts, newspapers, book reviews, wikipedia). 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 (Unfortunately, I still can't understand why it isn't a national bestseller. I heard that Lareau's latest book has sold only about 10,000 copies). Then there are about three economics articles that are examined in detail in the first half of the book: articles looking 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. Sometimes these citations are very far removed. For example, Gladwell cites as if it were a first hand source an article written wholly in French and published 32 years ago, and this French article was seemingly derived entirely from another book that quoted and translated for Gladwell. It appears that Gladwell simply took the pre-made quote of the scientific study and mentioned that. It is Gladwell's lack of knowledge of any of these subjects that makes me doubtful that he really knows what he is telling us. Behind the words it feels like a quicksand foundation. It feels more "truthy" than "true."

3) This book does not consider ANY exceptions, and it involves almost no critical thinking on the part of the author himself. So not only is there no original contribution on the research front, there is no critical examination of the ideas and findings of others. Instead, scientific findings from a few, isolated 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, and since no one study is conclusive. 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 (spoiler alert: skip next paragraph if you want). But this is one example of many.

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 Drunkard's Walk." I would recommend ANY of these books to anyone. Gladwell 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! And many of them were written by experts because, hey, maybe writing a non-fiction book requires a lot of work. 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. Gladwell's account is an odd sundry collection of musings, flitting from one unrelated topic to another, and which consists of a few sound bites that, after a moment's thought, I would doubt are true. There is no underlying "thread," and the themes he addresses aren't clearly illustrated or well argued. His promise of a book on "success" remains unfulfilled as well.

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 the empty space to look at it all at once. 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, and at the end of the journey you realize that the joke is on you. Similarly, the title to Gladwell's "anecdotology" 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, and after reading the manuscript you might feel a little duped if you were expecting something substantial.

I should say that Malcolm Gladwell is one lucky man to pull off getting this book published and sold. Gladwell is making millions, so why should he care? He is the quintessential post-modern anti-writer, cobbling together pieces and ideas without the ability to edit, cohere, and critically examine the findings. The book is an outlier for sure; unfortunately, its quality is on the far left side of the curve, while it sales record is pushing much too far to the right. Give your money to the numerous other writers producing much more substantial work.

5 out of 5 stars

An interesting look at what gets success November 18, 2008
59 out of 85 found this review helpful

In this wide-ranging third installment of Malcolm Gladwell's exploration of how people and social phenomena work, the New Yorker journalist takes a close look at what constitutes high levels of success. That is, what makes people at the top of their respective fields get there? As we've come to expect from Gladwell's previous books, the answer to the question is a bit complicated.

He says that upbringing, culture and even random luck have something to with success, but there is another important quality that anyone can control. Two chapters are dedicated to the "revelation" that IQ is only a baseline quality and success has little to nothing to do with having a high IQ or a low IQ. Rather, success is substantially a product of cultivating a high degree of what Robert Sternberg calls "practical intelligence" or what most refer to as "emotional intelligence."

Gladwell uses the example of Nobel laureates coming from unknown schools as often as ivy league schools. At this level of mastery IQ is no longer a factor. Success has little to do with where you were educated and everything to do with your level of practical/emotional intelligence and willingness to put in the 10,000 hours of practice required to reach mastery of your field.

All in all, it's an interesting read that isn't too heady and goes by pretty quickly, as the interesting anecdotes are what you would expect from Gladwell.

Another book on the topic that I strongly recommend because it has been really helpful to me in actually applying what Gladwell teaches in my own life (for my own success!) is The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book.

5 out of 5 stars

Seeing the forest instead of the trees November 19, 2008
47 out of 75 found this review helpful

Life is not fair. This small, fascinating book proves that it is not really a pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps world. There are unnoticed biases and predetermined traps for the innocent everywhere. The successful have "hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies" that are doled out unfairly.

Most of us know this. But Outliers shows us the patterns to this phenomenon, the data behind the unfairness. And author Malcolm Gladwell uses compelling stories to make his case.

The prevailing wisdom on success holds that it is an individual activity available to everyone. Someone that excels either works harder or smarter or was born with more natural talent. The secret can't be something as innocuous as your birthday. But for Canadian hockey players, it is. Boys with birthdays closest to the January 1 cutoff date for picking teams are overwhelmingly chosen as the "best players," and given tremendous opportunities. This makes them truly better, not just older and more mature than their December-born playmates.

In one engrossing story after another, Outliers proves with simple, elegant logic that success occurring through individual merit is a myth. It actually depends on more than the individual. You have to look at the bigger picture, at the forest instead of the trees.

It was fun reading about Jeb Bush insisting that he is a self-made man, that he got ahead by his own individual pluck and determination. This from a man born to a United States president, brother to another, and grandson to a senator and wealthy Wall Street banker. Gladwell points out that this is "thinking that cannot be described as anything other than delusional."

Another interesting book in the same vein: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives.

I couldn't put Outliers down. It's riveting.

Here's the chapter list:

Introduction: The Roseta Mystery

Part One: Opportunity
1. The Matthew Effect
2. The 10,000-Hour Rule
3. The Trouble With Geniuses, Part 1
4. The Trouble With Geniuses, Part 2
5. The Three Lessons of Joe Flom

Part Two: Legacy
6. Harlan, Kentucky
7. The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes
8. Rice Paddies and Math Tests
9. Marita's Bargain

Epilogue: A Jamaican Story

1 out of 5 stars

Worthless! November 20, 2008
40 out of 69 found this review helpful

The usual story about highly successful people focuses on intelligence and ambition. Gladwell argues that instead we should look at things around them - family, birthplace, even birth date.

"Outliers" opens with information about Roseto, Pa, where inhabitants had minimal heart disease. Gladwell posits this is because of their sense of community. A statistical perspective, however, tells us that outliers are expected and may or may not signify anything. Credibility for Gladwell's assertion requires careful comparison of communities with and without a high sense of community, with other variables randomized.

Gladwell then moves to Canadian hockey and observes that 40% of the best (league) players were born between Jan-March, 30% between April-June, 20% July-Sept., and 10% between Oct-Dec., a phenomena related to youth-league age cutoffs and their impact on practice. Gladwell then slides over what he calls the absence of similar findings in the U.S. as due to not as dramatic a selection process. Problem - American youth baseball and football have similar age cutoffs as Canadian hockey. Thus, his thesis is contradicted.

On to computers. Gladwell reports on a University of Michigan freshman that became addicted to computers late in his freshman year, and concludes that his later success was due to increased amount of practice obtained programming. But what about those who started school ahead of him? What about new computer trainees that quickly surpass their more experienced peers?

Gladwell sees Bill Gates' success as further proof of some sort of "practice makes perfect" explanation of his and Microsoft's success. Reality, however, is that Gates' and Microsoft's success are much more attributable to Gates' innate business talent than skills he learned practicing programming. Specifically, Gates' decision to BUY DOS from another firm, rename it MS-DOS, and LICENSE it to IBM - thereby becoming the industry standard and handicapping IBM's ability to compete with Microsoft. (Microsoft is known for buggy, cumbersome programming; its "vaporware" business strategy - new product promises made without reality, have also played a bigger role in the firm's success as users would rather wait for Microsoft than take the chance of changing vendors and incurring incompatibility problems.

Readers have no means on knowing how, or if, Gladwell cherry-picked his "evidence." Academic experts, using a highly structured approach, have repeatedly concluded that intellectual performance (a component of success) is 70-80% hereditary, again with random outliers. Gladwell should read their works.

5 out of 5 stars

"He is no great heir that inherits not his ancestor's virtues" - Proverb November 18, 2008
21 out of 33 found this review helpful

Most books about the extremely successful, the "Outliers" of the title, start from birth or childhood and work forward. Gladwell's latest book starts with the successful individual and works backward, to surroundings of childhood, quirks of timing with birth, and on to parents and earlier ancestors.

In doing this, he is attempting two things. The first is to demonstrate that an entire genre of "how to succeed like x" biography is misplaced, or at least incomplete. Instead of discussing how to emulate the many characteristics that, say, a person like Bill Gates possesses (smarts, ambition, etc.), the most important step is often left unsaid: be born into a family and circumstances like Bill Gates was. This aspect of the book is Gladwell at his best. Gladwell is more of a master storyteller than a researcher. My favorite parts of Blink and The Tipping Point were the stories of individuals Gladwell used to illustrate his theses. If anything, he focuses on individual stories to a greater degree in Outliers, and this makes the book fast reading and entertaining while remaining thought provoking.

Gladwell's second goal is more ambitious. He starts from the supposition that circumstances of birth and ancestry have a huge influence on success. From there he seeks to uncover ways in which we can manipulate our surroundings to make success more likely. This is ultimately not as successful (although still entertaining), and it is where Gladwell's limitation as more of an aggregator of others' research may be apparent. This lack of primary research will put off some readers, but, since Gladwell never claims that this is a meta-analysis for a peer reviewed journal, I think that is judging the book by the wrong standard.

I find Outliers to be a well-done example of a genre (think Freakonomics, Sway) that uses a combination of anecdote and hard science to both entertain and to provoke thought. If, after a book like this, I am able to examine everyday phenomena in a new way afterward, I consider the book a success.

4.5 stars.

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