Outliers !

Just finished reading 'the Outliers' , the latest from bad-haired behavioral scientist Malcolm Gladwell . His second book 'Blink' didn't quite impress me for its premise was ridiculous , while his debut book 'Tipping point' dissapointed in its examples . So what made me buy his third book ?

Having worked now for just under 20 years , am desperately seeking some mid-aged mantras / quick-fixes for the next 20 - what should be the ends and what should be the means ? How much wealth does one need ? How high should one aspire for ? As means , is it entrepreneurship , is it going to be higher up the company management ladders or is it going to be further studies followed by some more racing with the rats or just hang up boots , shave your head , buy a 350cc bike and travel the world - blow all you have to start again in some years ?
Perhaps the sub-title of the book - 'the story of success' - caught my imagination and hope of finding some answers prompting hard earned 400 bucks to be thrown at it , just as a new year broke.

Outliers are people who are those who 'unbelong' - are different from the rest for any variety of reasons. Gladwell divides the book into two parts - 'opportunity' and 'legacy' with the proposition that the opportunity and legacy are the reasons why some people enjoy tremendous success and most don't . In a wild premise, he states that the timing of birth makes all the difference between having opportunities or landing a legacy and therefore all talent is overrated , its all luck ,luck and more luck . For instance , those born around 1955 have benefitted from the mid-1970's software boom - steve jobs , bill gates , larry ollison , eric shmidt etc. , those born in 1830's benefitted from the 1860's boom in railroad , oil and gas boom ( jd rockfeller etc. ) . Stating legacy as an ingredient for success , he analyses the growth of the jews in the US . The Jewish immigrants came as garment workers ( sophisticated work integrated with mainline America) , Italians came as construction workers , Irish as domestic help and Mexicans as farm labourers , thereby creating an immigrant hierarcy in the US with the jews at the top . The second generation jews all got into law , medicine , engineering , wall street ( solomon , lehman m goldman sachs ) and ran all the newspapers . So a Jew with parents who worked as garment labor in 1930s would have studied law or engineering and would be automated to be successful today !
Similarly , he argues why koreans max in air crashes - they obey authority in their culture and therefore can't negotiate or converse effectively with culturally rough ( considered normal in cities like new york )air traffic controllers around the world.
Leaving legacy aside , I thought of applying the 'opportunity' corollary to the Indian context and in 10 year blocks to see if the theorem holds.

If one rewinds back to 1995 , here's all the jobs a guy out of college could do then - heavy engineering , FMCG , durables , government , armed services , PSU banks and newspapers - mostly low paying , low on skill and mass in nature .

Fast forward to 2005 , here's what he could consider - Insurance ,BPO ,Telecom , Infrastructure , IT , Banks , Mutual Funds , Stocks , Financial services ,Events ,Media - TV , Radio , Advertising ,Hospitality, Automobiles - each of these industries had just 1 player in 1995 and has close to 20-25 players in 2005! All highly productive , high paying and high on skill and money.

Let me now forecast what the opportunity landscape might look like in 2015 for a guy looking for a job - NGOs , Travel , Health , Education , Private equity , Management Consulting, Retail , Logistics , Transport , Security ( arms , ammunition , guards - keeping away the have nots will be an industry ) , Services- legal , Films and Leisure( yatchs , suites , choppers et al) . Extremely evolved and unsteadily high paying .

So here's Malcolm Gladwells big point ( adapted by me to the Indian context ) - those who are born around the mid-1970s in India will have the greatest chance of making it big as they will be around their 30s in 2005 , making the most use of the opportunites - and riding away into the sunset with a billion or two in the boot of their 4000 cc BMW parked in their 8 bedroom bungalow in South Mumbai !

So how about being born at the right time , next time ?
Eh !