Book Review: Outliers

WOW – talk about a book that makes you stop and think.  This is a book about the best of the best, the people or groups that are so good - they are “outliers.”  They are so much better or different than the rest of us - that they are almost impossible to ignore.

Why were the Beatles arguably the most successful band in history?

Why did Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have so much success?

Why are Asians so good at math?

Why are most Canadian hockey players born in the first half of the year?

If you are like me – you read that last question and went, “huh?”  Exactly. 

Shouldn’t the most talented players who work the hardest also be the best hockey players?  Why should the month they were born matter?

Well  - in Canada you can play competitive hockey starting at age 10.  The cutoff date is Jan 1^st.  So if you were born in December, you will be the youngest and likely smallest on your team.  If you were born in January, you will likely be the biggest with more physical maturity than the rest of the kids.

So – starting at age 10 – guess which kids look the most talented?  Which kids look like the best players, get the most playing time, the most coaching, the most practice?  The kids who are naturally bigger and better because of their age.  So what happens after 5-10 years of this?  They become the best players, the most advance with the best skills.

Hence, most Canadian Hockey players were born in the first half of the year.  The country has inadvertently decided to ignore the talent in the last half of the year by only having one league, with one cut-off date.

Oops.

Why are Asians so good at math?  Is it IQ?  Is it upbringing?  Is it school?  Is it genetic?

Nope – it’s language.  It’s how you say the numbers.

Why in English do we call 11 “eleven?”  Shouldn’t it be “one-teen?”  Why do we call 15 “fifteen” instead of “fiveteen?”  Why do we make up new words and change the spelling.  Why do our kids have to memorize 28 different words to count to 100? Guess how many words you need in Chinese dialects, Korean, and Japanese?  11.  The words are 1 through 10, and 100.

What would we call 11?  Ten-one.

25? Two-ten-five

67? Six-ten-seven

Then when we did math we could say the numbers and the math would be self explanatory.  What is two-ten-three plus five-ten-four.

Add 2 and 5, then 3 and 4.  You get 77, (seven-ten-seven)

Asian children are better at math because they spend their time doing math, not translating 28 words into numbers… and then doing math.

The book is good.  It gives many great examples.  I think the last 2 or 3 are a stretch, like the author needed another 50 pages and really came up with some off the wall ideas.  But other than that it is a worthwhile book.

I recommend it.

(Here is the article from ESPN about the book and the Hockey Players.)