Outliers
Gladewll gives uplifting and unusual perspectives on certain successful people in this book. Analysis of sucessessful populations is difficult due to survivorship bias, and the author makes no attempt to so this scientifically; it reads as a self-help book filled with feel-good stories.
Success Stories
The author gives examples of people becoming successful due to luck. For example, Bill Gates having access to then rarely available computers as a child gave him an edge as a programmer. Though obviously there was no luck in Gates' choice to invest his time on computers.
Systematic Biases
Canadian school children are grouped by birth year which gives January kids almost a year's growth advantage over December kids. January players are hence perceived as being better and are given more attention.
This advantage snowballs as their extra coaching makes them better players as they grow up. Gladwell makes the case this explains the skew in birthday months for professional Canadian Hockey players.
Takeaways
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It (apparently) takes (10,000 hours of) deliberate practice and dedication to become an expert in something.
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Success is not only a function of intelligence. Once you are good enough at something your social skills and ability to capitalise on situations play a bigger role.