Outliers: Book summary & analysis

Gladwell argues that success is tightly married to opportunity and time on task. He states that it takes approximately 10,000 hours to master something and that gives me comfort. It helps me feel better about my many failures at initial attempts to master things (like glazing pottery, algebra, Salsa......more

When I think about Malcolm Gladwell, the first phrase that comes to mind is "less than meets the eye." At first glance, his work seems thoroughly researched, even visionary at times. Beginning with a few maverick, counter-intuitive insights, he often ends with an affirmation of consensus, but it is......more

Occasionally insightful, but Gladwell's science is pretty junky. His reasons for success change by the page. And he cherry-picks examples to exactly fit the scheme under consideration. Plus, he's obsessed with callbacks and summary statements that only showcase the faulty connections between ideas.......more

Malcolm Gladwell's new book reads like a series of cocktail-party anecdotes. Whether the book is a mere fluff piece or something more is open to debate. At its heart, it has two themes: (1) That success depends not just on talent but opportunity, and (2) that success (and failure) also depend on the......more

I can save you the trouble of reading the book: smart people don't automatically become successful, they do so because they got lucky. This rule applies to everyone including the likes of Bill Gates and Robert Oppenheimer. That's it. That's what the whole book is about. Gladwell looks at case after......more