Comments on: Outliers, Opportunity, and Luck

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:39:58 +0000

I don’t have the cite, but an actual academic article on high-level expertise stated that, invariably, high-level expertise require (a) early exposure to high-level coaching, (b) daily/almost daily practice with good feedback, (c) over at least a decade.

Basically, Mozarts are one-a-century phenomenons, and even he had extremely early exposure to excellent training.

By: Richard H. Serlin

Richard H. Serlin — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:20:38 +0000

There's no question that luck is usually a part of success, but effort, ability, and perseverance are also huge. Take perseverance; if bad luck makes you half as likely to succeed, but you attempt four times more, then you are still twice as likely to succeed. Preschool should not just be free, so that, "many less-than-stellar parents might be induced to utilize it."; it should be mandatory, just like K-12, given the importance of education, especially early education, to productivity, decreased crime, and increased national wealth. Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman writes extensively on the high returns of early education. See for example his report with Dimitriy Masterov, "The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children".

By: Steve Roth

Steve Roth — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:29:43 +0000

“think not only about how to increase opportunity, but also about whether a bit more redistribution from the lucky to the less fortunate would be just.”

But the redistribution does itself create both justice *and* more opportunity–thinking of not only a safety net, but a springboard.

Give thirty million more Americans a place to stand, and they’ll move the world.

Your prescription to greatly increase the EITC is one excellent suggestion. Redistribution via education, health care, infrastructure, etc. are equally so.

Among many other advantages, they serve to vastly increase the labor market flexibility that free-marketers are so enthusiastic for–but from the labor side.

By: kamajii

kamajii — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 05:48:40 +0000

I’m a strong believer in the dictum ‘success happens at the intersection of preparation and opportunity’. I would argue that one could substitute the work ‘luck’ for success, but I believe the operative word in all the examples mentioned is preparation. Certainly Gates, the Beatles, Flom and any NHL level hockey player bear that out.
One might also argue that we already offer preparation in our existing education system, unevenly perhaps, but still, a basic liberal (college) education offers preparation for students to recognize and follow their talents. The Greeks believed a liberal education was preparation for life.
Other factors, which seem common across Gladwell’s examples are motivation and native talent. His examples are all high-achieving, extraordinarily talented performers whose preparation would have made luck out of a variety of opportunities. None of them are one-trick ponies.