Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

This week I finished reading the popular book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It was an interesting read, and I do not think Malcolm hit upon a groundbreaking idea in this book, he revealed his evidence in an engaging manner.

For example, he argued that software moguls like Bill Gates were not just smart and driven: they were there at the right time and at the right place. There is truth to it, no doubt, as any biography of Bill Gates quickly reveals. He is after the myth that everyone who has been wildly successful deserved it completely. That myth has another, tacit, nefarious corollary which is Calvinistic in nature by saying that those who have not been wildly successful have no one to blame but themselves. Europeans and Asians do not need convincing that such idealized vision of success, the rags to riches story, are not what they seem.

Consider how the number of billionaires in China has ballooned. Have the Chinese become more ambitious all of a sudden? Of course not. They can now be entrepreneurial in a limited capacity, that's all. In a country where the government officially owns everything, wealth is precarious indeed.

One example Malcolm cited was hilarious. Jeb Bush, son of George HW Bush and brother of George W Bush repeatedly stated that he was a self-made man during his campaign for the governorship of Florida. And no one called him on it. Such is the implicit assumption about successful persons in the US. This belittles the accomplishments of truly self-made men such as Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln.

Malcolm does not offer a final word or advice -- but I would say this, as I have said to others -- Do the best to put yourself in the best position to make the most of the opportunities that come your way. Hardly groundbreaking and I don't think all of my staff has liked hearing that, but that's just how it is.