Alan Shnir, Period 1, 1/11/22

Blog 1/11/22

By Alan Shnir

This blog is written in honor of finishing the book "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. On this day in history (January 10th), John D Rockefeller established Standard Oil in 1870. On January 10th in 1901, a drilling rig in Texas produced an enormous gusher of crude oil, signaling the beginning of the American oil industry. How do we connect Outliers, a book about success in our society, and the
discovery of a 1000 foot long geyser of black gold?
  

In this Book, Gladwell attempts to break down success into a concoction of hours spent practicing a set skill, opportunities allowed to perfect said skill, and perfect timing because successful individuals are often born on lucky years. Through various studies, Gladwell arrives at the necessary 10,000 hours required for someone to become a true grandmaster at a set practice. Individuals like Bill
Gates, Ronaldo, Messi, Warren Buffet, and the Beatles are all used to support this theory. However, here we run into the first hole in Gladwell's argument that success can be a perfectly programmed sum of
elements. For every grandmaster of skill, there will always be at least ten who have dedicated the same amount of time yet have failed to reach the same success. In addition to this, Gladwell also says
that the vast majority of the greats we hear of were born in the same perfect year to succeed, while he presents us with examples of great tech moguls like Gates and Jobs, both of whom were born in 1955.
However, his theory then fails to explain Larry Ellison (founder of Oracle) 1944, Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google Founders) 1973, Elon Musk (Tesla CEO) 1971, Jeff Bezos (Amazon Founder) 1964, Mark
Zuckerberg (Facebook Founder) 1984, Jack Dorsey (Twitter founder) 1977, Evan Spiegel (Snapchat founder) 1990, Michael Dell (Founder of Dell) 1965, and the list goes on forever. While Gladwell's theory on perfect birthdays may help explain the success of a select few individuals, or why we sometimes see waves of successful individuals, it is by no means a rule, as he suggests. Again, this was for only the example of tech, and his theory fails to hold when we put other industries to the test.

Malcolm Gladwell then delivers his main argument for promoting success: double the number of resources available to those who wish to pursue a field. In context, he gives the example of having two
Teletype computers to program if we lived in 1968, the state of the art computer for that time. This machine let Bill Gates learn how to code almost two decades before most universities taught coding
courses. In theory, this would be a great idea; after all, doubling the number of these computers would mean doubling the potential amounts of Microsofts, which adds trillions of dollars to the economy.
However, there is a flaw in this argument. We cannot simply double the number of computers there is. Anybody who has ever taken an economics course can tell you that scarcity is the driver of any human economic activity. Because of scarcity, economies don't have enough resources to buy a second computer. Bill Gates was lucky that the Mothers' club at Lakeside could pool in enough money to buy even one computer. Pooling in more money would have potentially meant that each mother would be sacrificing an extra bottle of milk, extra dozen eggs, or an extra bottle of wine to buy a computer that they knew nothing about. With the power of foresight, we would obviously say that this is a worthy investment; however, this ignores the fact that none of the mothers possessed the power to see that far into the future to divest extra resources to such a computer. Even if the mothers magically pool together money for a second computer, we present ourselves with a second issue. How would they have known to utilize this money to buy an extra computer instead of another technology that seemed equally promising at the time, such as investing in a course on nuclear studies? I know it sounds outrageous, but nuclear science affected every American in 1968, at the height of world nuclear armaments; it would only seem reasonable for people to believe that nuclear technology would become even more critical in the future. This ended up not happening, as atomic weapon armaments only decreased, nuclear power became villainized in America, and new technological developments in the field became relegated to only niche sectors in the military. The simple truth is that nobody can predict the future. That is a problem we have today; after all, what technology will

dominate the 2050s: genetic editing, artificial intelligence, nanobots, or virtual reality?

Now, where does this all tie back into oil? Rockefeller is given as an example by Gladwell as a person born at the perfect time and place to accumulate the true wealth of the oil industry. However, the ideal
year hypothesis is again not entirely accurate for Rockefeller, although the oil industry was a commodity-based industry where first come, first serve technically applies, so Gladwell is partiallycorrect. Here is a list of notable oil barons and their birthdates to see if they were born in the same five-year period: John D.
Rockefeller 1839, Anthony Francis Lucas 1855, Edwin Drake 1819, H. L. Hunt 1889. None were born in the same five-year period, but this is beside my point. In addition to this, how do you quantify the 10,000-hour rule for an industry as diverse as oil; what skill did John D. Rockefeller practice for 10,000 hours to become an oil baron? My main argument for bringing up this example is that not everything can be explained by a set of rules and criteria that must be met to achieve success, unlike Gladwell argues.

The second reason I bring up John D. Rockefeller is that he was born on July 8th. Therefore, I shall now do a complete 180 and agree with Gladwell on his birthdate argument as I am also born on July 8th. Even though I was born an entire 165 years after Rockefeller, I must agree that there is a significant weight on the power of birthdays as I plan on rivaling Rockefeller in terms of success. Although he prospered in an entirely different industry from what I wish to pursue, Rockefeller is a significant role model. From learning of his upbringing to walking inside his Sleepy Hollow mansion, I can already feel the power bestowed in me by my birthdate, which proves Gladwell was partially correct. Rockefeller started working at the ripe young age of 16, and I started my first job at the riper age of 12. In addition to this, I also possess a deep-seated passion for business, just like Rockefeller. I also was inspired by Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule, so I am making it a challenge for myself to dedicate at least 10,000 hours to learning the intricacies of business by the age of 50. I am also invigorated to pronounce on more opportunities now that I have read Outliers and seen how significant every opportunity is towards success. Even though I can't entirely agree with Malcolm Gladwell on much, his principles in "Outliers" will no doubt help me better understand the requirements for achieving success.