Outlier: "People don't rise from nothing."
1.) Something that is situated away from -Malcolm Gladwell
or classed differently from a main or related body.
2.) A statistical obeservation that is markedly
different in value from the others of the sample.
or classed differently from a main or related body.
2.) A statistical obeservation that is markedly
different in value from the others of the sample.
Author's Purpose:
Gladwell's purpose for writing The Outliers was to inform reader's on how successful people achieve success through the help of others, practice, and opportunity. He also wanted to get rid of our society's crude perspective on how outliers become successful. A crude perspective might be, "Bill Gates is successful because he's really smart", but Gladwell wanted to go further than that generalization. He wanted to know how Bill Gates became successful, not just assume. Gladwell then researched Bill Gates' past and culture, and learned why he was successful. Bill Gates came from a wealthy family and went to a private school that had computers, which was rare in the 1950's. He had the opportunity that no other kid did his age to have the use of computers so young, and this gave him the boost to be successful. Not only did he have opportunity, but he also had practice. Gates said he spent his time, "programming practically nonstop for seven consecutive years" and Gladwell states that Gates "was past ten thousand hours" which is the amount of hours to be a master at something. Gates' success was an resulted from "accumulative advantage". He was given the opportunity at an young age to use computers, and he got the practice that made him better than the rest of the programmers. "He didn't start out an outlier, he started out just a little bit better," says Gladwell. And throughout this book, Gladwell proves this theory for all of the outliers, stating that they had something, whether it was accidental or on purpose that pushed them towards success.