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Jonathan's Reviews > Outliers: The Story of Success
Outliers: The Story of Success
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Here's what I earlier. I have to admit to the more I think and talk about the book, the less I think of it. It all seems too superficial.
A pretty interesting book, albeit with not quite as many "knock me over with a feather" moments as Blink. It starts off with a bang, as he discusses amateur hockey teams and how it was noticed that virtually all the players on an Under-18 hockey team came from the first three months of the year. Turns out the age cutoff is January 1 in Canada, so the older players (those born early in the year) advanced further due to their slight maturity advantage which continued to multiply, as they got better training, put on better teams etc.
This subject hits close to home, as I am a soccer coach and heavily involved in my daughter's soccer league. My oldest has a birthday at the worst possible time, just a few weeks before the cutoff date, while the younger one has a birthday the month after the cutoff date. So far, it hasn't seemed to slow the older one's progress, but it is something I will certainly keep an eye on. Gladwell's suggestion is to have multiple cutoff dates, so other ages can play against others of the same age. Doesn't seem likely though.
He also explores how the timing of your interests can really change things. Something as simple as how available computer time was to early pioneers like Bill Gates and Bill Joy. Certainly, in the late 60s and early 70s, the amount of keyboard time these guys had pales in comparison to what would be available just a few years before that. He also talks about a major law firm in New York that benefited from getting the kinds of financial cases the other law firms wouldn't deal with, only to explode in popularity as the money days of the 80s and 90s struck.
I thought the book felt like it suffered from data mining, in that there didn't seem to be enough exploration of other equally successful groups that may not have had the same advantages. But still a fascinating look at what kinds of thing influence success, whether we think about them or not.
A pretty interesting book, albeit with not quite as many "knock me over with a feather" moments as Blink. It starts off with a bang, as he discusses amateur hockey teams and how it was noticed that virtually all the players on an Under-18 hockey team came from the first three months of the year. Turns out the age cutoff is January 1 in Canada, so the older players (those born early in the year) advanced further due to their slight maturity advantage which continued to multiply, as they got better training, put on better teams etc.
This subject hits close to home, as I am a soccer coach and heavily involved in my daughter's soccer league. My oldest has a birthday at the worst possible time, just a few weeks before the cutoff date, while the younger one has a birthday the month after the cutoff date. So far, it hasn't seemed to slow the older one's progress, but it is something I will certainly keep an eye on. Gladwell's suggestion is to have multiple cutoff dates, so other ages can play against others of the same age. Doesn't seem likely though.
He also explores how the timing of your interests can really change things. Something as simple as how available computer time was to early pioneers like Bill Gates and Bill Joy. Certainly, in the late 60s and early 70s, the amount of keyboard time these guys had pales in comparison to what would be available just a few years before that. He also talks about a major law firm in New York that benefited from getting the kinds of financial cases the other law firms wouldn't deal with, only to explode in popularity as the money days of the 80s and 90s struck.
I thought the book felt like it suffered from data mining, in that there didn't seem to be enough exploration of other equally successful groups that may not have had the same advantages. But still a fascinating look at what kinds of thing influence success, whether we think about them or not.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
November 15, 2008
–
Finished Reading
December 5, 2008
– Shelved
December 11, 2008
– Shelved as:
non-fiction
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Corliss
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rated it 4 stars
Jan 23, 2009 01:20PM
I just started reading Outlier. I have to admit, it is harder to get into than "Blink" and "The Tipping Point". I have to wait and give my opinion after I finish.
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I have to agree with you. The idea was interesting and he kept it going until about the half of the book where he got sidetracked into cultural differences and oh so many anecdotes. Interesting but not satisfying.
(it's my hobby to respond to 7 months old reviews ...)I thought the hockey chapter started from one of the debatable arguments. Because having a one year handicap is just one of the many things that can keep you from reaching the top. Considering other factors, like genes, family values/status/interests, what coach you're assigned to, and so on, all contribute to making birth date a less significant factor. And I'm trying to find the paragraph where he says just what that factor is, and I can't find it, and I think it's because it would be low enough to defeat the whole argument.
That said, I liked most of the other chapters, even though the second part was not as crisp as the first. And I found even the first chapter interesting because it made me search for cases where somebody's qualities eventually prevail over an obstacle like having a negative head-start.
