Book Review: good readin'

Malcolm Gladwell- Outliers.

The book provides solid and honest analysis with great examples, but has a somewhat dishonest conclusion. I enjoyed the Tipping Point and Blink (recommend the former, you could pass on the latter); this book is nearly on par with Tipping Point.

Cons:
The book wreaks at many points of left wing social engineering spew. Gladwell commits the fatal flaw of having a political agenda in mind while conducting the analysis rather than leaving conclusion to the reader. His conclusion is that American Exceptionalism, the Horatio Alger/Ben Franklin rags to riches types of stories have nothing to do with the individual's choices, but more to do with (as the commies like to say) your teachers, your coaches, your community.... all the usual rot that lefties love to preach about everyone having to contribute to the common good.

While the examples he provides are compelling, they aren't conclusive; he completely fails to examine the non- outliers; ie based on Gladwell's premise you are more likely to win powerball then be the best at what you do by your own choosing. Anyone having seen families where adopted kids (at birth) were raised along side other children with different parents will see his conclusion to be complete bullshit. For every Bill Gates- there's a trillion janitors with the same opportunities.

Gladwell examines exceptions and attempts to form rules; this is where the book falls apart. Any decent legislator will tell you: you don't form broad public policy based on rare outliers. This is exactly the mistake that Gladwell makes...

That said, the book is a very compelling read- and as an outlier in a field of my own, I came to a very different conclusion from his presentation. Speaking for the best of the best of the best- you don't win by accident- it's a conscious choice 24/7 to constantly identify and eliminate obstacles. Gladwell touches this point on the 10,000 hour rule- and then ignores it. As anyone who has dug, scratched, clawed and fought their way to the top knows, there are plenty of opportunities, excuses to NOT put in 10,000 hours of effort into your work. All of the other people "where I'm from" chose to not make the decisions I did.

Pros:
The book points out something which will be familiar to low level computer programmers; that is the effect of how winners are able to capitalize on the accumulation of small advantages. This is iteratively leveraging the fraction of a penny Richard Prior socked away through floating point rounding errors in Superman 3 (also done in Office Space). In a socio-economic sense, REALLY REALLY REALLY successful people find those advantages and relentlessly exploit the hell out of them. They are passionate, (down right scary) and there is a fire within them to pursue perfection that does not burn in 99.999999 percent of the rest of the population. You can't buy that, you can't coach that, you can't teach that. It just occurs. When it does occur- Gladwell's examples demonstrate what is possible.

Winners will take any facet of their existence (including a disadvantage) and turn it into an advantage. Winners will not accept defeat, winners (for some reason unique to only them) know that only one person has the power to make them quit; it's the person you brush your teeth with every morning.

I found the book intriguing for another reason as well- I've been pondering the concept of multigenerational wealth for a few years now. Presuming the likes of Bill Gates Sr and Warren Buffett don't succeed in redistributing all the family wealth between generations, I've been trying to determine HOW one raises their children to start from where parents left off in rising w/in an ownership style of society while avoiding the "sandals to sandals" in 2-3 generation phenomenon. Gladwell's examples provide a good groundwork for how parents can accomplish that.

Even with that knowledge- it always comes back to the line in Chariot's of Fire: "You can't put in what God left out."