David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like Gladwell's fresh perspective on the world, especially when he presents data about historical events that reframe our understanding of the world. On the other hand, I do feel like he is especially susceptible to seeing the world through his own political lens, and it comes through in his writings. Why does this bother me? His whole message is to question your assumptions and even your intuition about the world. To hear his bias in his message is incongruous with his purpose. Do I think his books are therefore false, or not worth your time? Absolutely not. They are good books. This is just something that bugs me in the books of his I have read so far.

On to this content specifically: looking for situations where diminishing returns have become negative returns is a valuable insight. His example of university education resonated with me personally, and several of the other examples made perfect sense. It did fall a little flat on a few examples though. Were the Reynolds in CA really overly vengeful compared to the descendants of Mennonites in Winnipeg? What about the pre-event crime rates in both locations? Crimes per capita? While I get what he was trying to show, it was less convincing when he didn't address those questions that would also lead to very different approaches. Similarly, what other factors might have caused the apparent failure of 3 strikes in CA? Was it really a bad idea, or did another condition exist, before or after the law was put into effect, that produced the less effective outcomes mentioned.

So in the end, this book does its job because it made me think of all these impacts. My 14-year old son started reading it, and was especially impacted by the concepts around wealth and raising kids. This is the type of thinking that will help generations, I believe.

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So while I think that this concept is groundbreaking, and challenges our conception of success, I think that Gladwell's conclusion is a bit off. He successfully makes the case that there are other factors to success than hard work and natural talent, but his conclusion is that because other factors exists, outliers aren't the outliers believe them to be. They are just regular people. I have an issue with that. Yes, access to technology, a specific cultural heritage, or fortuitous timing may have played a part in the success stories we are all familiar with, but their hard work and natural talent ALSO play a part. The outliers are still outliers, even though they had outside factors working in their favor.

For example, he loves to tell the story of Bill Gates, and his unprecedented access to a computer terminal in 1968. However, there are precious few of us that would have taken full advantage of that resource, so it seems obvious that Bill Gates was still an outlier. Why didn't all of the other kids at that school start rival software companies? They didn't drink in the opportunity that was there. Would Bill Gates have built Microsoft without access to that terminal? I don't know, maybe not. Would that terminal have produced a Bill Gates without the personal dedication, intellect and entrepreneurial grit that showed up day after day and night after night to tap on its key? I don't think so. Bill Gates, and most of the other examples he cites are amazing individuals, and while they did have special opportunities, we should also recognize that they were special too.

The other conclusion I disliked from the Outliers book was the one that Gladwell never stated. He never said it outright, but the logical conclusion that came from his narrative is that if you didn't have the special circumstances that his subjects did, you had no chance of success. His saying (paraphrased) that successful people were not unique, but rather a product of their cultural heritage, timing and unique opportunities is a defeating thought pattern. Why would I strive to succeed at anything in life if I couldn't identify some way in which I was special? Moreover, if any of his subjects had shared his viewpoint, they probably would not have worked hard and would have missed their unique opportunities. I feel this is an incorrect conclusion. A better conclusion would be to ask what unique heritage, talents and circumstances are in front of me, and how can I magnify them? Where should I put my NEXT 10,000 hours? Unfortunately Gladwell never raises this question, nor does he give any substantive guidance to this end.

Gladwell is benefiting from the 20/20 vision offered by the past, processing the data, and stating what he found, and I do not argue his observations. But the application of that information is lacking, so for me this is only a 3 star read. It is fascinating, but in its current delivery only serves to promote a defeatist attitude toward life and our opportunities. It does not prompt what I believe are the positive traits of hard work, personal development and the upward mobility that is the American Dream.