Success Not Just a Matter of Talent 247
NinjaCoder writes "The Guardian has an interesting article based on a new book (Outliers: The Story Of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell) which examines some persons of interest to computer technology (Bill Joy, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, amongst others). It examines reasons for their successes and strongly suggests a link between practice (10,000 hours by age 20 being the magic milestone) and luck. This maybe an obvious truism, but the article does give interesting anecdotes on how their personal circumstances led to today's technological landscape. It points out that many of the luminaries of the current tech industry were born around 1955, and thus able to take advantage of the emerging technologies.
Re:And the Winning Talent is....... (Score:3, Informative)
There was much more than marketing involved in the success that Microsoft had until this day.
It involved lies, false promises (yellow road to Cairo), lobbying for antisocial laws (DMCA), lock-in practices(WMV, MS Office files), FUD(agreement with Novell about patents), embrace, extend and extinguish and bying into the stock of competitors.
Apples success so far came from delivering a better product...
Born Lucky (Score:3, Informative)
Bill Gates is William Henry Gates IV. His father, Bill Sr [wikipedia.org] (born "III") was one of America's top corporate lawyers, as was his mother. That's why Microsoft was able to outmaneuver IBM on a one-way exclusive contract for PC DOS, and later even weasel out of the "landmark" US monopoly judgement (the senior Gates' lobbying lawfirm Preston Gates & Ellis [wikipedia.org] was where Republican uberlobbyist Jack Abramoff got his start [wikipedia.org] until Bush's "Justice" Department took over the "penalty" phase).
I'd rather be lucky than good any day. For Bill Gates, that's his birthright.
Re:10,000 hours by the age of 20? (Score:3, Informative)
Larry> Too bad there isn't any market demand for guys who masturbate :-(
lol ;)
Also, wrong. There's sperm banks.
Unfortunately they only accept a limited number of wads per donor. Why unfortunately? Imagine meeting a friend's friend at a party:
Larry> Hi, I'm Larry.
Jonas> 'Jonas.
Larry> So, what do you do for a living?
Jonas> I'm a programmer; how about yourself?
Larry> I'm a wanker.
Re:Bull x 3 (Score:3, Informative)
Complete crap.
If you put in the hard work, you'll know where the right place and time is. It's 90%+ hard work, good decisions, and having someone to bankroll you in the early stages. It's less than 10% luck.
Sure. Bill Gates would have turned out the exact same way if his parents weren't rich, very business-minded, gotten access to personal computers very early and had connections at IBM. Right.
Re:One other factor... (Score:2, Informative)
Sorry you had to re-read it so many times. (I"m not a native speaker).
There is probably no need to correct your perception of lawyers, I think. I can say that because most patent agents I know are people with a technical background, although there are countries where it is lawyers who deal with patent applications. That is terrible, because for the patent process, you're dealing with technical stuff, not legal stuff.
Patent law is a deal between society and the inventor, and on the whole it is fairly well balanced (in contrast to copyright law which is skewed tremendously towards the copyright holder). Don't get me started on patents on software, though. Society gets zilch in return for it.
Bert