Book Review : Outliers- The Story of Success

I just finished reading (over the extended weekend) Outliers: The Story of Success, written by the writer - and the world's favourite "drugstore sociologist" - Malcolm Gladwell, author of bestselling works: Tipping point and Blink. The core essence of the book is the idea that men of great abilities and achievements did not get there by only their own efforts but that many of the ingredients and determinants of success are often beyond the control of most people and highly dependent on the opportunities presented by society and cultural legacies.

The author weaves together anecdotes and case-studies of various successful businessmen, academics, scientists and lawyers to support his assertion that successful people are not necessarily outliers with indecipherable secret formulas, but products of a complex interplay of personal effort (e.g. the 10,000 hour rule), unique opportunities (a 13 year Old Bill Gates was fortunate to attend a private school with a more powerful computer than many universities at that time) and enduring cultural legacies (Asians are generally smarter than most other people due to their increadible work ethics, which is in turn necessitated by the demanding nature of the primary occupation of their ancestors: rice cultivation).

The first part of the book: Opportunity describes the unique advantages enjoyed by many successful people, which ensured that they had a deeper and more meaningful preparation - than most of their competitors - for the careers and/or goals that they later embarked upon. He stated that Bill Gates probably had logged in over 10,000 hours of programming time before he was 19 at a time when most people his age had never even being within a 10 meter radius of a computer in their entire lives. To illustrate the importance of opportunity in developing successful people, he mentions a case of a man with an IQ of 190 (Albert Einstein's was a mere 150!) who spends his time on a horse farm, lacks a college degree and has spent his entire adult life doing a string of low-income jobs such as ranch hand, bouncer etc. The answer is simple: Einstein had access to people, systems and institutions that provided him with a platform to develop and display his talents, while the 190 IQ man had nothing in his life or background to help him develop and display his abilities. As the author wrote about the man: "He had to make his way alone, and no one — not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses — ever makes it alone."

The second part deals with the effect of history or cultural legacies on our abilities to achieve great things and he asks a simple question: why do Asians (particularly Chinese) seem to beat almost everyone else at Mathematics and Science?. Is it because they are smarter than everyone else?, the author's simple answer is simple: Cultural Legacy. The Chinese were primarily rice farmers for much of their history and rice cultivation is an infinitely more demanding activity (which requires a mastery of various sophisticated value-addng tasks) than wheat cultivation which was the norm in Europe (or yam, Cocoa and cassava cultivation in West Africa!!). This has resulted in Chinese and Japanese people being more comfortable with having highly demanding work schedules and School Calendars that last more days in the year than most people in the world!

Overall, it was a very enjoyable book as it makes a good attempt at explaining the sources and characteristics of success and successful people. According to the author: Success "is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky"