Outliers: The Story of Success is the latest best-selling book by Malcom Gladwell, author of Blink. It describes the impact of culture, opportunity, and environment on the extraordinarily successful. For example, it provides an explanation for the success of Bill Gates, the Beatles, and Joe Flom. It also provides an explanation for the lack of extraordinary success of some for whom extraordinary success seemed likely. If you are interested, here’s a New Yorker article with a similar premise.

The premise of Outliers is that extreme success is driven more by opportunity than talent. This means that our cultural background can give us small advantages that accumulate almost like compound interest over the course of our lives. Gladwell argues that the typical understanding of outliers in society is wrong. He claims it is easier to believe that the Hollywood hero is heroic based on some inherent quality rather than hard work, seized opportunity, and a little bit of luck. He believes that inherent talent is emphatically not the real story of success.

In a very broad sense, I agree with Gladwell’s assessment of extreme success. Success looks more like Batman than Superman. For those who haven’t kept up on their comics, Batman was a human like everyone else on the planet, but he was wealthy (opportunity) and had a random tragic event shape the course of his life (luck). Then he dedicated himself to his craft (hard work) and became a superhero crime fighter. On the other hand, Superman was an alien from another planet who, quite simply, was more powerful than everyone else. Now, Superman clearly had to choose to be a superhero and he had to make sacrifices along the way, but his overpowering natural gifts represent the typical way people view those who have achieved extraordinary success.

Aside from this broad agreement, I take issue with the way that Gladwell defines success throughout the book. ‘Success’ is described as everything from making the championship game in a junior hockey league to being one of the 75 wealthiest humans to ever walk the face of the Earth. Sure, if you want to be a founding partner in one of the world’s top five law firms, you’re going to have to have a few lucky breaks along the way, but what if your definition of success is living the upper middle class American dream? It’s never clear just how far ‘beyond normal’ Gladwell believes his premise holds.

One great example that stretches the ‘beyond normal’ limit is Gladwell’s discussion of the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) in the context opportunity over talent. KIPP schools are open-enrollment public schools for traditionally under-resourced urban areas. They are intense. Students at KIPP schools spend far more time working, learning, and doing homework than in traditional public schools. They have also had dramatically better results. Imagine that: If you work harder, you achieve more.

Gladwell argues that we can manufacture ‘success’ by paying attention to cultural legacies and understanding the importance of providing opportunity. This is where the book becomes transparently political. The thesis seems to evolve into a rainbow wonderland where we are all capable of extreme success. Of course, this all depends on what he really means by ‘success.’ It’s idiotic to think that we can all be professional athletes or one of the 75 wealthiest people ever. (Hint: there are more than 75 of us.) Not everyone will be lucky enough to fit all the background criteria and cultural landmarks necessary to have tons of opportunity staring them in the face. Some things cannot be controlled; some things, such as hard work and discipline, can be.

What the book really needs is a clarification of what Gladwell means by ‘success.’ Without this clarification, the book loses cohesion and it becomes unclear how broadly applicable the ideas described really are. In some stories, he clearly shows that hard work and discipline are necessary, but not sufficient, for extreme success (Bill Gates, Joe Flom). In other stories, he advocates that we can all achieve extreme success by simply manipulating our cultural environment (Korean Air, KIPP). In one story, he tells the story of Christopher Langan as someone who is apparently unsuccessful (or at least as someone who hasn’t lived up to his potential). These disparate stories make the book feel like more of a collection of anecdotes about different types of success than a single “story of success.”

All in all, it’s a very entertaining book, but I recommend reading it with a critical eye. It’s important to understand the definition of success for each story and to separate things that can be controlled from those that cannot be controlled.