1) Success arises from opportunities that allow people to develop their talents, not from "rags to riches" myths. Factors like birthplace and timing can influence opportunities. 2) Masters in a field often accumulate over 10,000 hours of practice through meaningful work that demands long hours. 3) How parents raise their children, such as emphasizing hard work and innovation, can provide advantages by influencing opportunities.

1. OUTLIERS
THE STORY OF SUCCESS
B Y - M A L C O L M G L A D W E L L
P U B L I S H E D B Y - L I T T L E , B R O W N & C O M PA N Y

2. WHY THE NAME “OUTLIERS” ?
In statistics an outlier is a data point which differs from other observations significantly
and here the word “Outliers” means an outstanding individual who is ahead of the rest of
the crowd in a particular domain.
The book talks of many such Outliers and the common factors which made them so
great.

3. 6 KEY POINTS FROM THE BOOK
The Key points in the book are as following-
1. Opportunity
2. Timing
3. Upbringing leads to opportunity
4. 10,000 hours
5. Meaningful work
6. Legacy

4. SUMMARY
PART – 1 OPPORTUNITY
1 – Opportunity
Success is rarely found in the myths of rags to riches – rather there is an innate talent
identified, and then the door to opportunity is opened-up to that person. This
opportunity allows the gifted person the time and access to coaches, equipment, and
that develops the person’s skills, thus enlarging the difference between those with
opportunity and the ones without.
Outliers are those people/groups who break the norms.
2 – 10,000 hours
There seems to be a magic number of 10,000 – the number of hours ‘masters’ of their
chosen area have put in. This techniques is applicable to all the fields where ever a
person wants to attain mastery.

5. 3 – Timing
The year that a person is born can influence luck/opportunity. For example- In the list
the richest people in history, 14/75 are American’s born in the 1860’s and 1870’s. This
was the time of the Great Industrial Revolution which was taking off and the railways
were being built across America and when Wall Street started up. The same happened
Silicon Valley. All the top IT startups were born between 1953 and 1956.
4 – Upbringing leads to opportunity
The way how parents raise their children matters a lot in majority. Not everyone is born
with talent and is successful at recognizing it. Hence, parents play the role of bringing
certain things in the life of their children during the course of nurturing and raising
If the parents aim to bring up children in a certain way so that they learn to think
innovatively, this gives the children an extra edge over the rest of the children.

6. 5 – Meaningful work
Meaningful work demands lot of hours at work. Sociologist, Louise Farkas studied the
family tree of many immigrants and found that their offspring became
professionals. She put it down to the fact that it was because of their humble origins
not inspire of it that they did well – i.e. they had been raised in a family where hard
was valued and practiced.
PART 2 – LEGACY
1 – Legacy
Our values are unconsciously handed down to us from generation to generation, and
such cast long shadows over our current behavior.
Dutch Psychologist, Geert Hofstede analyzed different country’s cultural
identified a number of different dimensions, such as Individualism-Collectivism (i.e. how
much a country expects you to look after yourself), Uncertainty Avoidance (i.e. how
country tolerate ambiguity) and Power-Distance Index (i.e. attitudes towards
hierarchy). Top of that list (i.e. those countries most deferential to power/authority) are
Brazil, Korea, Morocco, Mexico and Philippines, with the US, Ireland and S Africa the
in awe of power.