Arta reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Liels bulshit
Published Oct. 4, 2009 by Taurus.
Outliers Fueras De Serie Por Qu Unas Personas Tienen Xito Y Otras No
4 stars
(182 reviews)
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. Brilliant and entertaining, OUTLIERS is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.
ano reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Dropped due to junk science. Two stars for being thought-provoking and easily digested.
nix reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I don't think this book is 100% right, but I think it's very compelling and well worth the read.
Matthew Royal reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Exceptional humans are only exceptional because of the accident of their birth-circumstances giving them access to tools, education, and attitudes that make them exceptional. And 10k hours in anything makes you an expert. Therefore, successful people deserve their success because success only happens through the merits of hard work applied for a long time. In fact, success is inevitable given enough time doing something, and the confidence to assert yourself, and the social background of successful parents.
Largely, Gladwell's thesis has low predictive value, so I suspect it's overfitting to his examples. If anything, it's a meditation on the contradictory pre-conditions for success. Gristle for thought with low nutritional value.
lijadora reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I expected this book to be entertaining only (Gladwell is a good story teller). Anything more would be a bonus.
I was not disappointed. I even read interesting claims, backed by some research and 'anecdotal evidence'.
Fionnáin reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'GoodReads'
3 stars
As a big fan of Gladwell's podcast I looked forward to this book eagerly. the early sections do what he does best - tie together data and theory to form a coherent picture of outlier events and why there is always an amount of luck involved in achievement. However, the book has flaws, even in the early sections, such as the lack of comparative analysis and the use of selective statistics. Overall, I loved the premise, the sentiment and most of the writing but felt the weaknesses let the book down.
Cam reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
A solid and interesting book with a great idea on the nature of success. I felt like I didn't get the whole story most of the time, but the conclusions were still true.
Jiří Eischmann reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
A brilliant book. A lot of interesting facts, connections, and opinions.
Ikwezi reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Probably my favorite of Gladwell's oeuvre, but surprising amounts of filler for a book so short
Balise reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
I feel... conflicted about it. Thoughout the book, he holds the thesis that success is not a matter of extraordinary talent, but of "enough" talent, the right circumstances and a lot of work. So far, so good; why not.
What Gladwell does extremely well is tell anecdotes, funny stories and the like. He's funny, he's engaging, his examples are well chosen and usually quite fascinating. (And by the way, I think [b:What The Dog Saw|6516450|What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures|Malcolm Gladwell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344263875s/6516450.jpg|6708278] is better in that regard).
What he also does well is to make you think and look beyond the "usual" stories, giving some additional info and make you wonder what, in the end, is really relevant (probably all of it, in some measure).
What annoyed me most, however, was the nagging feeling of "yeah, you're trying to show me statistics, but you're not really convincing at that, are …
I feel... conflicted about it. Thoughout the book, he holds the thesis that success is not a matter of extraordinary talent, but of "enough" talent, the right circumstances and a lot of work. So far, so good; why not.
What Gladwell does extremely well is tell anecdotes, funny stories and the like. He's funny, he's engaging, his examples are well chosen and usually quite fascinating. (And by the way, I think [b:What The Dog Saw|6516450|What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures|Malcolm Gladwell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344263875s/6516450.jpg|6708278] is better in that regard).
What he also does well is to make you think and look beyond the "usual" stories, giving some additional info and make you wonder what, in the end, is really relevant (probably all of it, in some measure).
What annoyed me most, however, was the nagging feeling of "yeah, you're trying to show me statistics, but you're not really convincing at that, are you?". I mean, I have no idea whether the stats hold or not. But the way they are presented in the book, it feels more like anecdotal evidence and Texas sharpshooter fallacy (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy). Again, I'm not saying the facts are wrong; I'm saying that after reading the book, I have no idea if they are right or wrong. Which is very annoying.
So in the end, I end up with a book that I actually enjoyed reading (because of the cool anecdotes and stuff) but that annoyed me greatly on the statistical/scientific content. And I suck at stats. So, yeah... conflicted.
Mark Anderson reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Gladwell is succinct and persuasive here in his argument that success and talent have less to do with individual personality and effort and more to do with where and when and within what context one happens to be born. I think his argument is convincing, as I think it dovetails quite powerfully with Jared Diamond's environmental resources = cultural advantage argument in "Guns, Germs, and Steel."
chrisamaphone reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Gladwell's storytelling almost compels me to believe his thesis. This book is a lot of fun, but I think worth taking with a dose of salt.
Renaclerican reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
A book with a great start that unfortunately ends with a fallacious conclusion.
At the end of the ninth chapter, the author asserts that there would be twice as many hockey players if we had two cut off dates. This is ridiculous. It would of course mitigate the bias of age (i.e. what month you are born would not have such a big impact on getting selected). At best we would have marginally better players (though it is quite possible that some other arbitrary cutoff would replace the old one). There can be only so many NHL teams and therefore so many professional players.
He also asks, what if a million teenagers had access to the same advantages as Bill Gates, how many Microsoft would we have today? Well, it's quite obvious from his own argument that if so many had the same advantages, Bill would simply no longer be …
A book with a great start that unfortunately ends with a fallacious conclusion.
At the end of the ninth chapter, the author asserts that there would be twice as many hockey players if we had two cut off dates. This is ridiculous. It would of course mitigate the bias of age (i.e. what month you are born would not have such a big impact on getting selected). At best we would have marginally better players (though it is quite possible that some other arbitrary cutoff would replace the old one). There can be only so many NHL teams and therefore so many professional players.
He also asks, what if a million teenagers had access to the same advantages as Bill Gates, how many Microsoft would we have today? Well, it's quite obvious from his own argument that if so many had the same advantages, Bill would simply no longer be an outlier, and there would probably be no Microsoft. (This is not necessarily a bad thing, the combined contributions to society from these teenagers might be greater than those of Microsoft, a company with dubious achievements).
Ultimately the biggest let down is that this book frustratingly refuses to address the subject of inequality. If outliers are, basically, those who got lucky among those who were capable, then what implication does this have for social policy? Is it reasonable that these outliers amass extraordinary amounts of wealth when fundamentally their contributions are the result of chance (not exclusively, of course. Outliers are all hard working individuals, my point here is about the difference in renumeration compared to other similar yet not as lucky individuals). Tyrants are outliers as well. And we could do without them.
Pentapod reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Gladwell has the talent of making even potentially very dry data and research sound interesting. Although I liked his first two books better, this one is no exception.
Gladwell looks at our society's popular beliefs about success and those who succeed, and questions the assumptions that you probably didn't even realize you're making. Although he does cherry pick his examples to fit his points, he nonetheless raises some very interesting and thought-provoking ideas.
Wagburger reviewed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Review of 'Outliers' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
'there is no substitute for time on task'.
Fascinating, first Adobe eBook, which seems an appropriate way to scan a TED Lecture celeb.
