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.