Here's Kevin Drum responding to a post by Matthew Yglesias:
To a certain extent, I think most people already understand that there's more than a little bit of luck involved in the fact that IBM decided to license Bill Gates's MS-DOS instead of CP/M or that 24 turned out to be a monster hit for Kiefer Sutherland. The genius who got a lucky break early in his career is practically a cliche. What's more, I think most of us don't begrudge the occasional outliers their jackpots all that much. Sure, Gates and Sutherland were both good and lucky, but at least they were good. The bigger problem is with the vast amounts of money earned routinely and consistently by people who aren't even all that good.So if the book argues that it's better to be lucky than good, then Yglesias thinks this leads to an elite class that mistake their good fortune for talent, and feels entitled to things that they haven't so much earned as just sort of fallen into. Drum pushes back, arguing that the game is rigged, and that luck ends up rewarding the merely mediocre in all sorts of insane ways.
But my understanding is that Gladwell's argument hinges not on blind luck, but on the 10,000 hour rule. In other words: practice, practice, practice. The luck element is not random but circumstantial. You either have to be lucky enough to devote yourself to something for 10,000 hours, or lucky enough to be in demand for your services once you've finished developing your skills. In other words, the argument seems to that you have to be in the right place at the right time with the right skill set to be successful. The reason that Bill Gates or The Beatles are outliers is not that they got lucky, but that the circumstances of time, place, and skill set are not reproducible.
The problem with the biographies of famous people, is that we, the plebs, are meant to draw lessons from them. We are meant to emulate the habits of others so that we too can grow up to be successful individuals. That's the real myth and danger of the so-called meritocracy: the idea that if you do what your told and follow the rules and fight the good fight, then you'll rise up from meager beginnings to be the next "name of famous person" here.
The truth is that there is almost nothing you can learn from the success of others. They already occupy a time and space that doesn't belong to you. You'll never be a Beatle, and you'll never found Microsoft. You'll also never be Emperor of Rome or President during the Civil War. Your opportunities are limited by your circumstances. All of which says a lot, but doesn't really explain anything -- except the temptation in thinking there's a magic secret or some hidden shortcut to untold riches. When really all you can do is live your life, find something you love to do, and hope for the best.
