5 ms·

Isn't it the whole thesis of the Outliers book?

• blogimus 16y ago
  Yes it is.
• sports_guy 16y ago
  Hard Work + Luck. The right circumstances let Gates have access to the right technology where he could then put in 10,000 hours of hard work etc.
  • ruang 16y ago
    Luck is a necessary but insufficient condition.
    • vannevar 16y ago
      I think most lottery winners find luck to be quite sufficient. I think what you mean to say is that luck is by definition scarce, so depending solely on it showing up is likely to be a losing strategy.
• klochner 16y ago
  Fooled by Randomness also hits on this theme, and it's not nearly as annoying as a Gladwell book.
• petenixey 16y ago
  I actually didn't take "right place and time" to be the sole theme of Outliers although I did think the confusing way in which the book was written suggested that. I read from it a combination of the two. In a rambling way it said that in order to even be eligible for an "outlier" outcome you needed to have done the 10k+ hours but that doing the 10k+ hours was not enough. i.e. Skill & work is necessary but not sufficient to end up building an outlier result like Google/Apple/Facebook/Goldman Sachs etc.