Title: Outliers Author: Malcolm Gladwell To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success—the fortunate birth dates and happy accidents of history—with a society that provides opportunities for all.
It seems that some of the arbitrary advantages could be made more egalitarian but lucky breaks in history would be harder to handle since no one knows what the lucky break is until years later. I am sure all schools would like to have had computers earlier so their kids could ‘play’ on them as did Bill Gates, but alas it is not possible.
Usually for the valleys to be filled the hills must be leveled, giving all the kids equal access to computers probably would have meant Bill Gates would not have had the access he had cause it would have had to be shared with others.
Title: Outliers Author: Malcolm Gladwell We pretend that success is exclusively a matter of individual merit. But there’s nothing in any of the histories we’ve looked at so far to suggest things are that simple. These are stories, instead, about people who were given a special opportunity to work really hard and seized it, and who happened to come of age at a time when that extraordinary effort was rewarded by the rest of society.
Being at the right place at the right time really helps but many other people are also there at that same time. What differentiates the successful is the willingness to work hard enough to exploit the opportunity.
Title: Outliers Author: Malcolm Gladwell “I was very lucky,” Bill Gates said at the beginning of our interview. That doesn’t mean he isn’t brilliant or an extraordinary entrepreneur. It just means that he understands what incredible good fortune it was to be at Lakeside (High School) in 1968.
Extraordinary Talent + Extraordinary Opportunities = Success
Title: Outliers Author: Malcolm Gladwell Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.
That 10,000 hours thing again.
