Outliers Essay

“People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn't they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines... There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters,”Bill Gates. The world’s youngest billionaire is the hard working, intelligent Bill Gates. This man independently started his own computer company and built it up to a 230 billion dollar empire. Bill Gates changed the way the world uses computers by building his company, Microsoft, from the ground up,

Success has been pondered over for centuries. How does one gain success? Is it worked for or is it only designated for a special few? Looking past the multitude of self help books that have been written, many like Malcolm Gladwell have begun to consider factors beyond just “working for it” as a contributor to success. One of these factors are cultural legacies. Though it is true that cultural legacies can be extremely powerful and that we should acknowledge them when considering someone’s success, it should be evident that the extent of power culture has is less than what Gladwell proposes. The place someone originated from has extremely influential effects on how that person thinks and acts, and in turn how they gain their success. The culture they grew up with becomes deeply rooted in their minds and results in different thought processes that shape the mindset they have while developing into an individual. However, Gladwell overestimates how powerful

Becoming successful is what most people aspire to be. Most people fantasize the dream house, car, and having the dream job. Even though success is viewed so highly, not everyone can be successful. Malcolm Gladwell explains that idea throughout his book Outliers. Gladwell’s chapters contain endless amounts of evidence that support his claims exceptionally well. But, Michiko Kakutani, a critic for New York Times, exposes Gladwell’s evidence as unreliable and unconvincing, and upon further research, Gladwell’s faults grew deeper. Even though Gladwell provides an extensive amount of evidence, that evidence is one-sided and relies on suggestion.

"The Sports Gene" by David Epstein takes on the debate of nature versus nurture by using a Donald Thomas a new high jump who is already good and Carlos Mattis who practice all his life just to be good. The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell uses the augment of 10,000-hour rule and preparation by basing his research at the Elite Academy of Music in Berlin. Control means "the power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events." "The Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell makes a more convincing argument than ''The Sports Gene" by David Epstein answering the question how much of our lives do we control? To begin, in "The Sports Gene" by David Epstein he takes different position on control.

Given the task of conceptualizing a man who truly changed the realm of technology as we know it today, my mind secludes one person. That person is Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer, now known simply as Apple. For this rhetorical analysis, I will be using three biographies/profiles about Jobs including “The Real Genius of Steve Jobs” by Malcolm Gladwell with The New Yorker (June 19, 2017), “Jobs’ Biography; Thoughts on Life, Death, and Apple” from NPR (October 25, 2011), and “Steve Jobs” from Biography.com (April 28, 2017). Precise attention to the audience, purpose, and tone, allows all three of these profiles to vividly explain and represent Jobs as the truly exceptionally minded man that he was.

“And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle” (Jobs). At Stanford University’s 2005 graduation ceremony, Steve Jobs was invited to give a speech that would serve an impact on those beginning their lives. Throughout the speech, Jobs elaborated on the background story of his life, successes, and failures, which all pertained to the true purpose of his speech. His stories and lessons had the ability to grasp the audience due to his consistent use of pathos, repetition, antitheton, and logos, all of which were enveloped into a short and simple structure that supported his statements regarding how individuals should live their own lives. Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement speech contains rhetorical devices that all contribute to his exertion of life-changing advice that could benefit all individuals of society striving for success.

Steve jobs demonstrated to the world just how fundamental technology is in our developing environment. He exemplified a successful and innovative leader, especially in the face of failure. One could argue that although Steve Jobs was an extremely influential businessman of his time, he had numerous tragic flaws. Egotistic is a word that describes this illustrious worker. Credit for ideas were never given to the instrumental “behind the scenes” intellectuals, and without the them, he may never have been so successful. While he was working for Apple, people would always struggle with the individualistic approach he had and would often times complain about his boastful nature. He exhibited qualities that made his dislikable, however without Steve Jobs the iPhone, a

Through a series of different tests, Gladwell concludes that we have all too easily bought into the myth that successful people are self-made. He says people “are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” Gladwell explains an outlier as a person “who doesn 't fit into our normal understanding of achievement.” According to Gladwell, great men and women are beneficiaries of specialization, collaboration, time, and place. An outlier’s recipe for success is not personally achieved through hard work, but through opportunity and time on task. I actually agree with Gladwell’s view of success. People can work their whole life towards a goal and never achieve it, but if they know of an opportunity, a legacy, or a specific way to achieve this goal more efficiently, they can be successful. Examples are children being born in the early months to be better at hockey, working on a specific task for 10,000 hours to become proficient, and proper training and excellent communication while flying an airplane.

An outlier is someone like Bill Gates. How does one become an out of the ordinary success? This book studies the stories of outliers, and see how they relate and differ. There are many factors that come into play. To summarize, these outliers have ambition, opportunity, and skill. They were born at the right time, in the right setting, had access to improve skills that many didn’t, and capitalized on those opportunities with ambition. It is interesting how someone’s setting influences their opportunities. Although, I believe the ambition leads to these opportunities. While, the mindset leads to the ambition.

I wondered how this person lives, what rules he follows and how he managed to achieve such heights in all his endeavors. There is a bunch of articles about him on internet, and in this speech I have compiled the rules of life of Elon Musk, his attitude toward food, alcohol and productivity.

In fact, I have found that many of the most influential people in today's society were those that stood out the most. Having a unique passion, or characteristics that gave them the motive and ability to thrive. Steve Jobs is a perfect example of being different and thriving because of it. He is often referred to as one of the most instrumental people in the advancement of technology, and was often praised on his unique ability to create futuristic technology. Yet, many do not know the full story, and do not realize that he was often critiqued on his “crazy” ideas and “obsessive” personality prior to his success. Yet, he never once took the remarks to heart and continued to make various advances in the technological field. Eventually becoming one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time, and building a business that has stood the test of time. As Coco Chanel, a famous designer and businesswoman put it, “In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.”

Throughout history, society has expanded and thrived around the idea of new innovation, discovery of unexplored areas, and the invention of products that would revolutionize the world for centuries to come. These innovations would be used for centuries before another would finally be made to take its place. However, ever since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, with the introduction of novelties such as television and the Internet, the world has begun to drift in a different direction: one based around constant access to all information. This desire for new information led to a widespread desire for novelty, which businesses were able to use to their advantage, successfully conning millions of people out of billions of dollars each year.

According to Bhardwaj (2017), Elon Musk has an INTJ (Introversion, Intuition, Thinking, Judgement) type of personality trait. His decision-making isn’t emotional. It’s logical. Elon Musk is very work oriented and works curiously and incuriously to improve his future. According to Rodionova (2016), Elon Musk is working 85 to 100 hours per week to complete his targets. It is not good for your balanced life but that is how an INTJ personality type entrepreneur works.

Bill Gates is not only a genius, but also an innovator in education, technology, and philanthropy. A prodigy, Bill Gates shares an education fact with Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and even his competitor Steve Jobs: no college degree. Instead, he devoted his time to his passion for technology, going on to create the most profitable technology company in the world. For much of the past decade, Gates allocated both his profit and attention to philanthropy. Evidence of his innovation, industry and curiosity can be seen at an early age.

Musk once said “Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks, every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing, you know that… you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.”(Brown 2013). This proves that he has the discipline to get things