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Outliers: The Story of Success Paperback – June 7, 2011

by Malcolm Gladwell (Author)

4.6 36,992 ratings

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In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Back Bay Books
Publication date

June 7, 2011
Dimensions

5.55 x 1.15 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

0316017930
ISBN-13

978-0316017930
Lexile measure

1080L
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Popular Highlights in this book

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Success is the result of what sociologists like to call “accumulative advantage.”
Highlighted by 12,574 Kindle readers
Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.
Highlighted by 10,443 Kindle readers
But what truly distinguishes their histories is not their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary opportunities.
Highlighted by 8,613 Kindle readers

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"In the vast world of nonfiction writing, Malcolm Gladwell is as close to a singular talent as exists today...Outliers is a pleasure to read and leaves you mulling over its inventive theories for days afterward."―David Leonhardt, New York Times Book Review

"The explosively entertaining Outliers might be Gladwell's best and most useful work yet...There are both brilliant yarns and life lessons here: Outliers is riveting science, self-help, and entertainment, all in one book."―Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly

"No other book I read this year combines such a distinctive prose style with truly thought-provoking content. Gladwell writes with a high degree of dazzle but at the same time remains as clear and direct as even Strunk or White could hope for."―Atlanta Journal Constitution

About the Author

Malcolm Gladwell is the author of five New York Times bestsellers: The Tipping Point,Blink, Outliers,What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath. He is also the co-founder of Pushkin Industries, an audio content company that produces the podcasts Revisionist History, which reconsiders things both overlooked and misunderstood, and Broken Record, where he, Rick Rubin, and Bruce Headlam interview musicians across a wide range of genres. Gladwell has been included in the Time 100 Most Influential People list and touted as one of Foreign Policy'sTop Global Thinkers.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (June 7, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316017930
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316017930
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1080L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.55 x 1.15 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #755 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5 in Business Decision Making
- #7 in Decision-Making & Problem Solving
- #17 in Popular Social Psychology & Interactions

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4.6 36,992 ratings

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Malcolm Gladwell

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Malcolm Gladwell has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1996. He is the author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw. Prior to joining The New Yorker, he was a reporter at the Washington Post. Gladwell was born in England and grew up in rural Ontario. He now lives in New York.

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Chelsea

Great book

Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2024

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I’ve heard a lot of people mention this author, and I understand why after this book. A very interesting dive into the question of what makes certain people stand out while others don’t,—even if they are talented.

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Mitchell Vega

A collective sigh of relief from gifted underachievers everywhere

Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2012

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It's funny - despite my general openness about personal matters, this is probably the subject I am least comfortable talking about. When someone is a genius, you go through the first 20 years of your life constantly trying to hide it so as not to be seen as a pointdexter, sycophant or snob. "Oh, it must be so HARD to memorize a complicated song in one day or ace all your tests without studying, tell me more about the problems in your life" you imagine 'friends' sneering behind your back, rolling their eyes. The effortless ease with which highly gifted people take on tasks is actually a highly calculated veneer over the same frustrating obstacles as others without seeming arrogant while doing so. The enormous expectation to not just do one's best but to constantly dominate your previous record and everyone else's leads to the eventual sinking realization that there simply is not room in this world for more than one "the best". As both popular science and psychology are starting to confirm, being a genius is in no way a predictor of life success despite every individual's good fortune and efforts, and Malcolm Gladwell's book 'Outliers' is the best and most accessible explanation I've read as to why.

Impressing people without even meaning to is one of the earliest memories I have in life. After devouring all of the chapter and picture books I could get my hands on at pre-school age, my parent's classics and old science textbooks (or at least the ones I could reach off the bottom shelf) seemed the next natural step. Dad frequently retells a story in which he asks me as a toddler how I got to be so smart; I replied "good genes". Public school has no idea what to do with a kid who signs up for kindergarten being already able to read novels, play piano sheet music and execute batch files in DOS. I was tested at age 7 with an IQ of 163 upon entering the second grade, having already been skipped a grade ahead as well as being a year younger still due to having a September birthday. This conflict between being significantly younger than my peers at a critical age of development and also several standard deviations more intelligent than them was to be a continual source of strife. I begged and pleaded with my parents not to hold me back, not understanding the implications of being so much less emotionally mature than my peers. On the first day of class I got sent to the principal's office for taking my shoes off and refusing to put them back on. At 9, the teachers were fed up with me reading or drawing and 'distracting others' in class but also couldn't fail me when I was getting perfect grades, so I was pulled out and sent to a private school for the gifted, where after a year of constant boredom (diagnosed and medicated as ADHD) and other behavioral problems my teachers treated me as a class scapegoat and suggest that I be better off homeschooled or back in public school. These events marked the beginning of a long scholastic career of underachievement, contempt of authority, and befuddled administrators who weren't sure whether I belonged in the gifted program or Special Ed.

I was lucky enough to be born into a white, middle class family in one of the most highly educated and prosperous parts of the United States. My parents were psychology majors who read all the right books and took all the proper steps in terms of nurturing the development of a gifted child without stifling or overloading me. So why am I not in the same percentile of overall life success as I am in test score range? Gladwell goes into the many statistical reasons why the high-IQ child is no more likely to become successful than any other child when demographic influences are controlled for, some factors as completely out of our control as being born in the wrong month of the year. He also gets down to what I believe is the true difference between successful and unsuccessful people, the willingness to work hard. If I had been self-disciplined enough to put in the hours academically to master unfavorable subjects with the same voracity with which I took to computers, art, music and reading, plus a less cynical attitude towards the school system, I might have gotten a full ride scholarship to any of the best universities in the world. As it is, I'll have to settle for a community college degree acquired at age 19, being published and owning my own business by 21, and knowing that if I do desire to learn a new skill at any point in life, the only thing standing in my way is myself. (Though, as a side note, I definitely pick up new skills a lot slower than I used to as a child and find myself stymied more often, indications that my IQ has dropped either from aging or drug/alcohol use, something that I try to compensate for with extra patience).

Though it will always be embarrassing and awkward, I've gotten used to the incredulous stares and people asking "how did you do that", though I never had a particularly good answer. "Lots of practice, the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time, and luck" is the old standby, though it sometimes felt insincere. Now, thanks to 'Outliers', I realize that's not an overly humble explanation of genius. If I ever have kids, I will not subject them to a barrage of tests in order to find out exactly how "special" they are. I will accept that they are special simply on the virtue that they are them, listen to them to find out what they truly love to do and push them to achieve high but realistic expectations. And that's my advice for children of all ages - do what it takes to be whatever you want to be and do the hell out of it.

109 people found this helpful

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Keith A Kenny

Some informative insights

Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2023

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Gladwell is a popularizer and simplifier. He makes some clever observations and misses a few. After giving a wave to creative success, he moves on to his preferred brand, money, and salesmanship of oneself and one's products. Chinese students are good at math. Why? Not because their mothers drill them (Tiger Moms) or they spend twice as much time on homework as Western-raised children (and three times as much as African-American-raised) but because numbers are single syllables in the Chinese language and their culture rose on three-crops-per-year rice harvests that demand precise placement. Oppenheimer beat out other geniuses because he sold himself to his interviewer. Getting the timing right for business start-ups or for entering school programs isn't deep insight, nor is spending a lot of time learning your kraft. "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice." That said, I enjoyed Gladwell's easy style and sales pitch.

4 people found this helpful

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Mario Kosseifi

Great condition

Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2024

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Even the first one didn’t arrive. I got refund and purchased another one and it is in a great excellent position

Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2024

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I’m not a big reader but I do genuinely enjoy this book it’s very interesting

One person found this helpful

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Vinay D. Cardwell

Who do you know who has made it on their own? If they have they are a liar!

Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2010

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Outliers-The Story of Success. I really enjoy the writings of Malcolm Gladwell. I read this book for the 2nd time, this year and wanted to share it.

So can you really just make it on your own? Malcolm says no!

In Outliers Malcolm goes about and stated that people don't just make it on their own but every single one is reliant upon others. This goes back to to how we are all so dependent upon our groupthink culture and how we are all so interrelated.

The Matthew Effect

So being from Canada I like hockey and the Great One-Wayne Gretzky. Its interesting how he states in the book that the majority of players in the NHL are born earlier in the year due to peewee league age cut off dates. Don't believe me look at page 20. Huh, so when was Wayne Gretzky born-Jan 26, 1961. Gordie Howe-Mar 31, 1928. Bobby Orr-Mar 20, 1948. Interesting and then check out Czech soccer player on page 27 and it starts to make sense. Birth dates do make sense.

The 10,000 Hour Rule

Do you remember Jan 15, 2009? Maybe not, but you you might know the Miracle on the Hudson.

You see no average pilot could have landed that plane safely. Why would I say that? You see Mr Gladwell states in the book that there seems to be a rule that sets the average man apart from the experts, the 10,000 Hour Rule. you see the Beatles got their first gig in Hamburg Germany at a strip club. They said that they played here day and night and before they made their big break for America and playing on the Ed Sullivan Show was appox 7 yrs. and this is of playing almost everyday of their early lives. Bill Gates spent the majority of his early years messing around on computer. He was beginning to write code since he was 13.

All we ever hear about with these people of influence is what they accomplished with their talents, but we never hear about their time spent in development. You see those years are what equate to the 10,000 Hour Rule. This is roughly 10 yrs.

So why did I mention the Miracle on the Hudson? You see Capt "Sulley" Sullenberger was calm, collected and knew what he was doing, why? He had over 25,000 hours of flight.

The Trouble with Geniuses

He also mentions that a person is only so smart to a certain point to where there seems to be the law of diminishing returns on how smart they are. That point is around an IQ of 120, after that it doesn't matter how high you score. He gave the example of the genius of Chris Lanagan and his socially awkwardness and lack of people skills. He may have been a genius but he was no Oppenheimer. Robert Oppenheimer who helped build "The Bomb" was also a genius but had what was called practical intelligence. He tried to poison his teacher and got off by talking his way out of it. How, well he was raised with intellects and around socially susceptible people, not like the farm boy Chris Lanagan was. You might be smart but your background and years of development do count.

Legacy

So does being from the South really make you want to fight more than being from the north? Culture of Honor. Does being a Korean Pilot make you more careless when it comes to flying a plane? When is it okay not to be polite when you are running out of fuel? How does the Geert Hofstede theory size up to other countries to one another? Does it make us weaker or stronger? Does the Asian way of counting numbers make them smarter at math because its quicker? Does working on Rice Paddies really give you a stronger work ethic? Can't you get that from just reading a book? Does the KIPP program really make inner city kids Ivy League contenders? How? And if Aunt Daisy didn't go to the Chinese shop keeper, Mr. Chance, to give her a loan to get off the island of Jamaica to go to school in England would Malcolm Gladwell have been given a chance to come to America and become the great writer that he is?

You see our lives are all full of these interesting questions, but the one thing that is certain that Gladwell makes is that we are not self made, but formed by our surrounding, our ancestry, and practiced trades. We are all dependent upon one another.

8 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Fun, easy read about the importance of opportunities

Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2024

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The book opened my eyes about people I thought were just outliers. I just thought they were innately smarter, more athletic or more talented. I didn’t realize how important opportunities were to these “outliers” and how sad the consequences of not providing opportunities to people willing and able to take them. I would recommend this book to educators, historians, sociologists, and folks interested in expanding opportunities to those deserving them.

2 people found this helpful

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Vances

You Must Have

Reviewed in Canada on February 23, 2024

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"Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell explores the factors behind extraordinary success, arguing that individual achievement is influenced by a combination of talent, opportunity, and cultural context. Through case studies and analysis, Gladwell challenges the notion of the self-made individual and emphasizes the importance of recognizing the role of external factors in shaping success.Highly recommended

Mariana Ponce

Gran lectura

Reviewed in Mexico on January 13, 2024

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La condición en la que lo recibí fue inmejorable así como el tiempo de entrega. Este libro me mantuvo picada de principio a fin, disfruté mucho cada capítulo y me hizo querer retomar el hábito de la lectura.

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Renata P.

Entrega ótima. Produto perfeito.

Reviewed in Brazil on November 5, 2023

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Entrega ótima e produto perfeito.

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