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While reading Gladwell's book Outliers I got the distinct impression that you could effectively argue against his thesis, that successful people are only succes

by jcnnghm 17y ago

While reading Gladwell's book Outliers I got the distinct impression that you could effectively argue against his thesis, that successful people are only successful because of their circumstance, without changing many words in his book. What Gladwell fails to understand is that what makes a person an outlier isn't that they happen to have expended energy getting good at something that people want, it's that they took the time and effort to get good at something to begin with. What makes a person an outlier is the dedication and motivation to truly become an expert at something. For example, in his book Gladwell says that Bill Gates is a victim of circumstance, and gives examples of that circumstance. One example was that Gates frequently snuck out of his parent's house in the middle of the night to ride a public bus to a local college where he worked on an unused computer terminal. Similarly, Gladwell tells a similar story about Steve Jobs, in which he looks up Bill Hewlett's number in the telephone book, and calls him to ask if he can have some spare electronic components to construct something for a school science project. What makes those two outliers isn't that they had the opportunity to do those things, it's that they actually did them. In both cases, they created an opportunity for themselves, then seized the opportunity. They didn't just created one opportunity, however, they created and took advantage of hundreds of opportunities, each time further leveraging their cumulative advantage. If it was truly just circumstance, then everyone living within bus distance to a college with an unused computer, and everyone with a telephone and a phone book should have founded Microsofts and Apples.

ique 17y ago
Your second paragraph here is exactly how I interpreted the book. They are not Outliers and special in any way, they are merely successful because they had the stamina to put in the 10,000 hours he talks about. The entire point of the 10k hour rule is that anyone can become an expert and be successful if they just stick with it and do what it takes. That's the reason there are no true Outliers.
- statictype 17y ago
  >The entire point of the 10k hour rule is that anyone can become an expert and be successful if they just stick with it and do what it takes. That's the reason there are no true Outliers. Having that single-minded focus and dedication needed to put in the 10k hours makes you an outlier. I think what I actually took away from that theory is that people value innate talent as a premium and hard work as a commodity - something anyone can do if they just put their mind to it. But I think it's really the hard work that separates the really successful from everyone else, not the talent.
  - ique 17y ago
    >Having that single-minded focus and dedication needed to put in the 10k hours makes you an outlier. Then doesn't that in a sense make it the talent you're talking about? I think we're just splitting hairs here, I'm pretty sure I mean the same thing as you :)
- manbearpig 17y ago
  Which is why the 10K hour rule is absolute nonsense. It is meant to sell books by appealing to talentless individuals that make up the vast majority of the population. If you spend 10K hours playing tennis starting from childhood, you would not be a top pro. The only people who do that are those who already had talent and were successful at an early age based on that talent. That's the Outliers loophole. You can't find people without talent who spend 10K hours doing something, so therefore talent must not exist. If you can't understand this then there is just no hope for you. Outliers is simply a book to let losers feel better about themselves. That's all. Bill Gates is an extremely talented individual. It took going through Math 50 at Harvard to tell him that they were actually people in the world markedly smarter than he. A lesser individual in Bill's circumstance would not have been able to do what he did. They would have learned to program and become a mediocre career software engineer somewhere, which is what I think the vast majority of this site's readers are. Sure, keep telling yourself you're just as talented as Gates. Pathetic.

by jcnnghm 17y ago

ique 17y ago

Your second paragraph here is exactly how I interpreted the book. They are not Outliers and special in any way, they are merely successful because they had the stamina to put in the 10,000 hours he talks about. The entire point of the 10k hour rule is that anyone can become an expert and be successful if they just stick with it and do what it takes. That's the reason there are no true Outliers.

statictype 17y ago
>The entire point of the 10k hour rule is that anyone can become an expert and be successful if they just stick with it and do what it takes. That's the reason there are no true Outliers. Having that single-minded focus and dedication needed to put in the 10k hours makes you an outlier. I think what I actually took away from that theory is that people value innate talent as a premium and hard work as a commodity - something anyone can do if they just put their mind to it. But I think it's really the hard work that separates the really successful from everyone else, not the talent.
- ique 17y ago
  >Having that single-minded focus and dedication needed to put in the 10k hours makes you an outlier. Then doesn't that in a sense make it the talent you're talking about? I think we're just splitting hairs here, I'm pretty sure I mean the same thing as you :)
manbearpig 17y ago
Which is why the 10K hour rule is absolute nonsense. It is meant to sell books by appealing to talentless individuals that make up the vast majority of the population. If you spend 10K hours playing tennis starting from childhood, you would not be a top pro. The only people who do that are those who already had talent and were successful at an early age based on that talent. That's the Outliers loophole. You can't find people without talent who spend 10K hours doing something, so therefore talent must not exist. If you can't understand this then there is just no hope for you. Outliers is simply a book to let losers feel better about themselves. That's all. Bill Gates is an extremely talented individual. It took going through Math 50 at Harvard to tell him that they were actually people in the world markedly smarter than he. A lesser individual in Bill's circumstance would not have been able to do what he did. They would have learned to program and become a mediocre career software engineer somewhere, which is what I think the vast majority of this site's readers are. Sure, keep telling yourself you're just as talented as Gates. Pathetic.