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I've only read Outliers and David and Goliath, but I really enjoyed them and feel that they provided some tangible benefits in how I think about things. Could

• specialist 6y ago
  My opinion flipped the other direction. Which totally surprised me. I used to dismiss Gladwell's "insight porn" (h/t lordnacho). But now I feel like he's a pretty effective advocate, popularizer of views and policies that I agree with. Briefly, he's punching up. Michael Lewis was the catalyst to reassessing Gladwell. I just frikkin love his Against The Rules podcast series. Briefly, he argues that we do better, both as society and individuals, with referees and coaching. Then I listened to a handful of Gladwell interviews. A long form chat with Lewis. Book tour stops for Talking with Strangers. I thought: Huh, Gladwell doesn't sound too bad. So I started listening to other Pushkin Industry podcasts. I especially love historian Jill Lepore. So I guess my TLDR is: I reevaluated Gladwell because he's now working with two people I really admire. Virtue by association.
• Robin_Message 6y ago
  It's years since I read and then binned any of his books, but to give a concrete criticism of Outliers: Anders Ericsson, who conducted the study upon which "the 10,000-Hour Rule" was based has written that Gladwell had overgeneralized, misinterpreted, and oversimplified his findings. https://web.archive.org/web/20190320062202/https://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/guest-post-the-danger-of-delegating-education-to-journalists-k-anders-ericsson/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190320062202/https://radicalsc...