Outliers

In this stunning bestseller, 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. 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 reveals the secrets of software billionaires like Bill Gates, why you've never heard of the smartest man in the world, why almost no star hockey players are born in the fall, why Asians are good at math, what made the Beatles the greatest rock band and, why, when it comes to plane crashes, where the pilots are from matters as much as how well they are trained. The lives of outliers follow a peculiar and unexpected logic, and in uncovering that logic, Gladwell presents a fascinating blueprint for making the most of human potential--one that transforms the way we understand success.