I realized that the book was due to the library tomorrow and it wouldn't let me renew it, so I read the whole thing in one sitting today, and it is a very, very, very good book. Extremely well-researched. Clearly and simply written, in a tone that strikes the perfect pitch between documentary-like academia and when your smart friend talks to you with great verve about an interesting discovery. Incredibly insightful and incisive.Author Malcolm Gladwell introduces his book in this video on Amazon.
Outliers are those who have been given opportunities – and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them. For hockey and soccer players born in January, it’s a better shot at making the all-star team. For the Beatles, it was Hamburg. For Bill Gates, the lucky break was being born at the right time and getting the gift of a computer terminal in junior high. Joe Flom and the founders of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz got multiple breaks. They were born at the right time with the right parents and the right ethnicity, which allowed them to practice takeover law for twenty years before the rest of the legal world caught on.
Read it. It's a quick read and well worth the time. Even the epilogue, which details the circumstances in which his own success was created and how it applies to the world, is excellent and captivating.
No comments:
Post a Comment