Comments on: Malcolm Gladwell's story of failure

"Outliers," the new book by "Tipping Point" author Malcolm Gladwell, is subtitled "A story of success." It's a fine book, but the story is actually about failure.

[sdandrew75]

Not only is it a book on failure, it is entirely useless. I read it on a long flight, when I finished, I closed the book, stared at it, read the front insert, the back of the book, and must have had the most puzzled look on my face because the guy next to me asked: "Good Book?" The only response after 30 seconds of uncomfortable silence was "I don't know, I still don't know what the point was". I mean, if you really want to spend 50 pages learning about his grandparents and mom, then it's a great book. If you actually thought you would learn something interesting, try one of his other books! I guess he has a contact to publish a couple of books, and he just wanted to knock one out real quick.

[alegr]

The point was that he could make money by convincing some losers to buy and read his book.

[camp88]

If one considers all the Yankees who had foreign-born parents or English as a second language, or who had a name that Torre and Buck had difficulty pronouncing, then one could probably field an all-star team.

Besides, that, simply establishing the conditions for success is hardly the same as a guarantee of success. While it takes at least ten thousand flight hours to develop the skills to succeed, it only takes an hour of complaining and making excuses to fail.

[rfelgueiras]

Well put. I guess it just depends on your general outlook. If you tend to have a negative outlook to things, you may only see it as "why you're not great" manifesto. I saw it as a collection of theories of what made talented people exceptional.

Still trying to read Tipping Point without falling asleep.
I just feel these books could impart their message better if they were cut in length by two-thirds.