I've never read the Gladwell you refer to, although I know who he is. Over the last several years, I believe several studies have come out claiming it takes 10

I've never read the Gladwell you refer to, although I know who he is. Over the last several years, I believe several studies have come out claiming it takes 10 years to build up expertise. Just a couple years ago there was a survey study that purported to review the literature and found the consensus to be 10 years/10,000 hours, although I can't find it with a cursory search and don't make a habit of tracking citations of things I read. A quick Google search did find published papers referring to this phenomenon, though, e.g.: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118000156/abstract http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118000156/abstrac... Not being a specialist I'm not qualified to evaluate whether it's "solid" or not. Did Gladwell not cite sources? That seems crazy. Edit: I believe I was thinking of the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance.