4 ms·

Thanks for this. It sounds like a good reason to read Outliers. I've seen it recommended a lot but haven't wanted to read it because I really struggled to get a

• dorchadas 8y ago
  I've read all of Gladwell's books (with the exception of his collection of essays), and found most of them to be similar to that. Just lots of semi-unrelated points that halfway got brought together into a somewhat coherent argument. Outliers was the exception, even though it does follow the same mold in a lot of ways (it is, after all, written for a general audience) Mainly because he does break it down, and shows that the people we usually think of as having "big breaks" and such really had opportunities that most other people won't get to have. For instance, he goes on to deconstruct the whole "Bill Gates dropped out of college" cliché by stressing that Gates had unprecedented access to computers when he was younger, thanks to having a well-connected and well-off family and friends. This led to him being able to acquire the skills he needed without college, etc. etc. It was nice to see that story turned on its head instead of being used to tell people that "Hey, you can be rich too and you don't need college" (granted, not everyone needs to go to college, but too often this was used to justify talking people out of going, from my perspective). He also uses the book to discuss the 10000 hour rule towards mastery, and it is fun in light of that.