Outliers: The Story of Success – by Malcolm Gladwell
This is the 3rd best-seller that Malcolm Gladwell has written, and 3rd that I’ve read. I like this one the best, and I highly recommend it. Outliers is a book about how usually people’s environments are responsible for their success. Famous and rich people did not reach their loft heights because they’re that much more talented than everyone else, but because they were in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills.
For example, professional Hockey players in Canada typically have birthdays in the first few months of the year. This is because when they were young, the few months of age difference was a big deal since Jan 1 birthday players were playing on average against players a year younger than players born Dec 31. Since the “better” players are picked for all-star teams, and thus practice much more, they naturally become better.
Consider Bill Gates. When he was 13 years old in 1968 he got access to a computer in Junior High! He lived walking distance from University of Washington, and found ways to access their computers, including walking there at 3am to use it until 6am since it wasn’t scheduled during those hours. Thanks to where he was born, and obviously his dedication, Bill Gates was already an expert in computers by the time he was in college. Many people say the pivotal moment in computer history was when the Altair became available for hobbyists to program in 1975, when Bill Gates was the perfect age. The perfect age because he was old enough to be a computer expert, and young enough be able to start a business. Steve Jobs was born in the same year as Gates.
The book also introduced me to other concepts such as:
- To be considered an expert in a field (music, programming, sports), you must have 10,000 hours of practice. It’s little-known that the Beatles played at a strip club in Germany for several months, playing 7 days a week, for 8 hours at a time. They became experts at playing pop music in their band at a young age, and had to try a variety of music since their sets were so long.
- Intelligence is important, but only up to a point. If you look at people who’ve changed the world, they’ve been smart, but not necessarily the smartest. Once you pass a certain “smart” threshold of IQ, the higher you go doesn’t make as big of a difference as your circumstances, or other skills.
- Certain areas, like the US South, have a “culture of honor” society, where maintaining your reputation is significantly important. Juries will find defendants not-guilty who stand up for their honor by killing those who insulted them.
- Plane crashes have been on the decline recently because they’ve realized that sometimes copilots were not able to communicate effectively. In certain regions, they would ask the pilot a vague question about a perceived problem rather than directly identifying it. A plane crashed because the pilot told the tower “We’re running out of gas” instead of something more precise.
- Success in education comes from hard work. Chinese people have a history of working in a rice field, where the more care you give, the better the results. It’s hard work, and they do it non-stop. Other regions of the world plant in the spring, and harvest in the fall, and are more relaxed at other times. This culture may be why Asian cultures score so well in math. In a study, schoolchildren said they would give up on a hard math problem after 30 seconds to 5 minutes, with the average being 2 minutes. Gladwell suggests that if they would just work through it rather than giving up, many more people would understand math. Kids should spend more hours in the classroom, and kids need to spend more time on a tough problem before giving up. US school years are generally 180 days, and Asian school years 220 days.
- Part of the gap of richer/poorer test scores may be due to parents helping out during the summer months. Parents of wealthier kids see it as their responsibility to help their kids learn so they continue to teach, or at least have educational activities, during the summer. Poorer families see it as the teacher’s job to educate the child. When kids are tested at the beginning and end of summer, richer kids are shown to have learned a lot in the summer, and poorer kids effectively nothing. Is it possible that our schools aren’t the problem, but the motivation from home, and the number of school days is what’s causing the math gap between US kids and Asian kids?
Note that Gladwell’s tone is that an individual isn’t as important as the circumstances. This seems to me to be a very pessimistic view. I think that he shouldn’t have been as dismissive of the amount of hard work, raw skill, and dedication required by nearly everyone in his stories. I don’t think I would have woken up at 3am to use a computer.
I don’t know what the takeaway is for me personally. Obviously if you’re a pilot or a school administrator you have some action items. Chance favors the prepared, so we need to become experts, and be prepared for opportunities that come our way.
Scores:
- Interesting: High
- Informative: Medium (not original. Gladwell’s a story-teller, not a researcher)
- Engaging: High
Note, my book notes are probably more for my own benefit than yours. Complex topics are hard to summarize in a compelling way.
May 20, 2010
Pingback: Book Review: Steve Jobs | Investing Journal