Outliers: The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell’s third book Outliers is about success. Specifically it’s about what makes someone successful. Is it hard work? Dedication? Obviously these qualities are integral to achieving success. But according to Gladwell it’s much more than that. In fact he writes that where you were born, when you were born, and even your ancestry have just as much effect on becoming successful as intelligence, drive, or whatever other words we use to describe successful individuals.

Gladwell explains that the month a child is born can lead to greater opportunities in sports and academics, just by virtue of ending up older for your class or the sports league you’re in. He finds links between what year a person was born in and striking it rich in the computer industry and becoming a successful Jewish lawyer in New York. He writes about how a disproportionately large portion of the wealthiest people in history were all born in a ten year period in the mid-19th century in the eastern United States. I found this fascinating. The reason was opportunity. In order to become successful, the people Gladwell discusses in the book were all given opportunities that others didn’t have. And with that opportunity came the ability to practice their craft, whether it was sports, computers, or law, and by spending more time honing their skills they were able to achieve unmatched success.

I found Outliers very interesting, and Gladwell’s style is easy to read. He tells stories, which makes it a different kind of non-fiction book. My main nitpick would be that some of his conclusions seem to be coincidences as much as a proven point. Small sample sizes could be skewing the data he presents. And some of what he writes does seem rather obvious in the end. I mean it isn’t surprising to read that a successful person had more opportunities than someone who hasn’t achieved the same success. But it did make me think, which is what any good book does. This was my second venture into Malcolm Gladwell’s writing, having read his first book The Tipping Point as well. And having enjoyed these two, I look forward to checking out his other book Blink at some point in the future.

Next up: The Road, my fourth adventure with Cormac McCarthy and his lack of punctuation.