Comments on: Book Review: Outliers, the Story of Success

By: alexa

alexa — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 02:16:00 +0000

I loved this review. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I used it as a reference for a report in school. I gave credit, don’t worry. Also, I’m a 12 year old seventh grader whose teacher is a lunatic and told us we should be able to understand all of it and not be bored with the novel.

By: Knowledge vs. Applied Skills: Can't Have One Without the Other | SQLRockstar | Thomas LaRock

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:52:23 +0000

[…] That’s one of his assertions in “Outliers: The Story of Success.” I’ve written before about that book and I found myself thinking about it again the other day while at TechEd. My thought was this: […]

By: Wanna Get Good at SQL Server? | SQLRockstar | Thomas LaRock

Wanna Get Good at SQL Server? | SQLRockstar | Thomas LaRock — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:01:23 +0000

[…] his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell mentions about how most people need roughly 10,000 hours of training at something before they are an expert. Despite my disagreeing with many of the book’s […]

By: Book Review: The Tipping Point | SQLRockstar

Book Review: The Tipping Point | SQLRockstar — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:19:09 +0000

[…] least one of the readers to my blog (either Mom or Dad) should recall how I previously did a review of the book Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. At some point it was suggested to […]

By: Stephen Wynkoop

Stephen Wynkoop — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:05:03 +0000

I agree with ALL of your assertions in the review. EVERY point you make is well-presented.

I read the book too – the 10,000 hours thing stood out in my mind as “hmmm… really?” – it seemed to me at least like the author was suggesting that’s all it took. Put in the time and magic happens to make the opportunities appear.

You make the point though that there is more involved than that. Sure, I get it that mastery may be possible, perhaps even LIKELY, but certainly not GUARANTEED in that timeframe. I can almost promise you that even given 50,000 hours, I won’t be a great violinist, for example.

Fun read, but almost as much for the mental arguments with the book as for the content presented. When I was reading it, I almost got to the point where I wondered if that was the point of the book…?

Great review!

By: Brad Corbin

Brad Corbin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:09:14 +0000

I’ve actually heard that the perception that Asians are “good at math” is really a US myth that comes from the fact that only the TOP engineering students from China/Japan/etc get the opportunity to attend US colleges. Not exactly a representative sample. Can’t remember where I saw that discussed…