Trump

Author: Donald J. Trump
Publisher: Ballantine Books; Reprint edition
ISBN: 0345479173
Language: English
Formats: Kindle,Hardcover,Paperback,Audible, Unabridged,Mass Market Paperback,Audio CD, Audiobook, CD, Unabridged,Unknown Binding,
Category: Books,Biographies & Memoirs,Leaders & Notable People,

Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump lays out his professional and personal worldview in this classic work—a firsthand account of the rise of America’s foremost deal-maker.
 
“I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”—Donald J. Trump
 
Here is Trump in action—how he runs his organization and how he runs his life—as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and challenges conventional thinking. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated time-tested guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker’s art. And throughout, Trump talks—really talks—about how he does it. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur—the ultimate read for anyone interested in the man behind the spotlight.
 
Praise for Trump: The Art of the Deal
 
“Trump makes one believe for a moment in the American dream again.”—The New York Times
 
“Donald Trump is a deal maker. He is a deal maker the way lions are carnivores and water is wet.”—Chicago Tribune
 
“Fascinating . . . wholly absorbing . . . conveys Trump’s larger-than-life demeanor so vibrantly that the reader’s attention is instantly and fully claimed.”—Boston Herald
 
“A chatty, generous, chutzpa-filled autobiography.”—New York Post


From the Hardcover edition.

Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump lays out his professional and personal worldview in this classic work—a firsthand account of the rise of America’s foremost deal-maker.
 
“I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”—Donald J. Trump
 
Here is Trump in action—how he runs his organization and how he runs his life—as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and challenges conventional thinking. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated time-tested guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker’s art. And throughout, Trump talks—really talks—about how he does it. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur—the ultimate read for anyone interested in the man behind the spotlight.
 
Praise for Trump: The Art of the Deal
 
“Trump makes one believe for a moment in the American dream again.”—The New York Times
 
“Donald Trump is a deal maker. He is a deal maker the way lions are carnivores and water is wet.”—Chicago Tribune
 
“Fascinating . . . wholly absorbing . . . conveys Trump’s larger-than-life demeanor so vibrantly that the reader’s attention is instantly and fully claimed.”—Boston Herald
 
“A chatty, generous, chutzpa-filled autobiography.”—New York Post


From the Hardcover edition. Trump

"Trump, who believes that excess can be a virtue, is as American as Manhattan's skyline," wrote George Will in the 1980's. Regardless of whether you think Donald Trump as a symbol of American success, or you think he's an annoying, chest-pounding egomaniac with bad hair, this book will show you what it took for him to build up his empire. The book shows Trump doing what he does best -- boldly making big deals -- during the "greed is good" decade of the 1980's. I found it interesting to see how much of his current empire he had built up before his 40th birthday, and to understand how he pulled off various deals.
The majority of the book is a swashbuckling, detailed history of his biggest projects. He talks about all the details, from negotiating with landholders, arguing about zoning with city officials, lining up contractors, interviewing architects, dealing with partners in various projects, negotiating with banks to line up financing, and the like.
Trump also devotes a couple chapters to his background. He was the son of a successful developer of rent-controlled & low-income housing in Queens and Brooklyn, NY. He was a mischievous, aggressive kid (he once punched a teacher), and was sent military school during his high-school years. He started college at Fordham in the Bronx, NY, to be close to home, but then then transferred to the Wharton Business School (at the University of Pennsylvania) because he liked its entrepreneurial emphasis. Shortly after college, he worked with his father to buy a troubled apartment complex in Cincinnati, which he fixed it up and sold for a multi-million dollar profit.

Donald Trump has become arguably the world's best-known real-estate icon. He has undoubtedly worked hard for the honor. Trump routinely wakes up at 6AM, at which time he reads the morning papers before arriving to work by 9AM. He'll make anywhere from 50 to 100 phone calls daily, and will hold a dozen or so impromptu 15-minute meetings throughout the day. But Trump's work ethic is only part of the reason why he has come to define the quintessential real estate mogul.

Donald Trump provides for our benefit his eleven Trump Cards of success. They include thinking big, protecting the downside, maximizing options, knowing your market, using leverage, enhancing your location, getting the word out through a public relations/marketing campaign, fighting back, delivering the goods, controlling costs, and having fun. Yet even these Trump Cards fail to fully illuminate what it is that makes Trump so successful.

A great deal of Trump's success can be traced back to his father who built and sold homes throughout New York City, most prominently in Jamaica Estates. Donald would learn on the job from a young age about managing costs and putting together a working symphony of various real estate professionals. After transferring from Fordham University to the University of Pennsylvania to complete his undergraduate degree in business administration, Donald and his father bought Swifton Village in 1968, a 1200-unit FHA apartment complex in Cincinnati, Ohio. While the scope of a 1200-unit apartment complex may seem unfathomable to many, for Donald it was just the beginning. These formative years convinced Trump to look beyond NYC and take the next progressive step, which for him was to develop commercial real estate in Manhattan and later casinos in Atlantic City.

Before picking up this book, I knew next to nothing about Donald Trump. I've never been interested in celebrity gossip. All I knew about Trump was that he is a billionaire who had made his fortune in real estate and that he is something of a celebrity. I knew that he has his share of fans and critics, but I was neither of them. In other words, I had no preconceived notions about that man.

After reading this book, I formed a positive image of him, but I also acknowledge that I should read something written by his critics to form a balanced opinion. However, what I think about Donald Trump as a person is not all that important because Art of the Deal is not about Donald Trump per se. Those who are looking for Trump's biography or who hope that he will reveal in this book some juicy details about his private life will be disappointed. The Art of the Deal starts with one short chapter about his life, and then it goes on to talk about his various business endeavors. Nor does the book say much about his private life. Not that there is much to talk about. From what I read, he is a workaholic and consummate professional who does not have much in terms of private life.

Be also advised that the Art of the Deal came out in 1987. If you want information about what was happening with Donald Trump in the past 26 years, look elsewhere.

So just what exactly is this book about? It's about his business projects, as well as his business and life philosophy. Each chapter tells the story of one of his more grandiose projects.

I have little interest in business and none whatsoever in real estate, but, nevertheless, I did find the book to be very interesting.

• 
  Time to Get Tough
  Donald J. Trump has just five words for the politicians and so-called leaders in Washington, DC: It’s Time to Get Tough President Obama has been a disaster for America.

  
  

• 
  Trump: The Art of the Deal
  To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.” Donald J. Trump Here is Trump in action how he runs his organization and how he runs his life as he meets the people he needs to meet, ...

  
  

• 
  A Child's First Book of Trump
  With his signature wit and a classic picture book style, comedian Michael Ian Black introduces those unfamiliar with the Americus Trumpus to his distinguishing features and his mystifying campaign for world domination…sorry…President of ...

  
  

• 
  The Trump Card
  In The Trump Card, Ivanka Trump recounts the compelling story of her upbringing as the ultimate Apprentice, the daughter of Donald and Ivana Trump, and shares the life lessons and hard-won insights that have made her a rising star in the ...

  
  

• 
  The Truth About Trump
  "In one way or another, Donald Trump has been a topic of conversation in America for almost forty years.

  
  

• 
  Trump Revealed
  The book will be based on the investigative reporting of more than two dozen Washington Post reporters and researchers who will leverage their expertise in politics, business, legal affairs, sports, and other areas.

  
  

• 
  Trump and Me
  All politics is artifice, and Singer marvels at how Trump has transfixed an electorate with his ultimate feat of performance art a mass political movement only loosely tethered to reality. From the Hardcover edition.

  
  

• 
  The Trumps
  An entertaining chronicle, now in paperback, explores the turbulent history and extraordinary achievements of the Trump family, from their first forays into real estate by Friedrich to the over-the-top ambitions of Donald Trump himself. of ...

  
  

• 
  Trump
  The essential book to understanding Donald Trump as a businessman and leader and how the biggest deal of his life went down.

  
  

• 
  The America We Deserve
  This is Donald Trump taking on the issues in his no-nonsense, unvarnished manner, offering populist, provocative, and sometimes dramatic solutions that no other politician would dare to put forward.

  
  

• 
  Trump: The Best Golf Advice I Ever Received
  Donald Trump’s book of advice is certain to take its place next to Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book as the ultimate in golf instruction. From the Hardcover edition.

  
  

• 
  Donald Trump
  An adaptation and update of her definitive biography, The Trumps, this new book provides fresh material on Donald Trump's brushes with bankruptcy, mammoth construction projects, and ever-expanding place in American life.

  
  

• 
  Trump Never Give Up
  In Never Give Up, Donald Trump tells the dramatic stories of his biggest challenges, lowest moments, and worst mistakes and how he uses tenacity and creativity to turn defeat into victory.

  
  

• 
  Trump 101
  The world's greatest dealmaker shows you how to: Find the work you love and do it Set high standards and meet them Think Trump-scale Negotiate to win Be tough, not nasty Turn problems, even disasters, into gold Concentrate on your target ...

  
  

• 
  Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards
  This book will be of interest to students and general readers interested in political science, national security, foreign policy, and military policy.

  
  

• 
  Yuge!
  Ever since the release of the first Trump-for-President trial balloon in 1987, Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau has tirelessly tracked and highlighted the unsavory career of the most unqualified candidate to ever aspire to the White House.

  
  

• 
  Assholes
  Much as Machiavelli illuminated political strategy for princes, this book finally gives us the concepts to think or say why assholes disturb us so, and explains why such people seem part of the human social condition, especially in an age ...

  
  

• 
  Trump
  Here is his story, the story of the Queens-born grandson of a Swedish immigrant who bought his first properties while still in college and moved on to become among the nation's biggest "movers and shakers" before the age of forty. 12 pages ...

  
  

• 
  Hillbilly Elegy
  J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America.

  
  

• 
  A Pocket Guide to Trump
  Learn how you, too, can be rich and famous with our pocket guide, consisting of highlights from his bestselling book.

  
  

Trump

Author: Donald J. Trump
Publisher: Ballantine Books; Reprint edition
ISBN: 0345479173
Language: English
Formats: Kindle,Hardcover,Paperback,Audible, Unabridged,Mass Market Paperback,Audio CD, Audiobook, CD, Unabridged,Unknown Binding,
Category: Books,Biographies & Memoirs,Leaders & Notable People,

Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump lays out his professional and personal worldview in this classic work—a firsthand account of the rise of America’s foremost deal-maker.
 
“I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”—Donald J. Trump
 
Here is Trump in action—how he runs his organization and how he runs his life—as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and challenges conventional thinking. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated time-tested guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker’s art. And throughout, Trump talks—really talks—about how he does it. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur—the ultimate read for anyone interested in the man behind the spotlight.
 
Praise for Trump: The Art of the Deal
 
“Trump makes one believe for a moment in the American dream again.”—The New York Times
 
“Donald Trump is a deal maker. He is a deal maker the way lions are carnivores and water is wet.”—Chicago Tribune
 
“Fascinating . . . wholly absorbing . . . conveys Trump’s larger-than-life demeanor so vibrantly that the reader’s attention is instantly and fully claimed.”—Boston Herald
 
“A chatty, generous, chutzpa-filled autobiography.”—New York Post


From the Hardcover edition.

Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump lays out his professional and personal worldview in this classic work—a firsthand account of the rise of America’s foremost deal-maker.
 
“I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”—Donald J. Trump
 
Here is Trump in action—how he runs his organization and how he runs his life—as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and challenges conventional thinking. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated time-tested guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker’s art. And throughout, Trump talks—really talks—about how he does it. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur—the ultimate read for anyone interested in the man behind the spotlight.
 
Praise for Trump: The Art of the Deal
 
“Trump makes one believe for a moment in the American dream again.”—The New York Times
 
“Donald Trump is a deal maker. He is a deal maker the way lions are carnivores and water is wet.”—Chicago Tribune
 
“Fascinating . . . wholly absorbing . . . conveys Trump’s larger-than-life demeanor so vibrantly that the reader’s attention is instantly and fully claimed.”—Boston Herald
 
“A chatty, generous, chutzpa-filled autobiography.”—New York Post


From the Hardcover edition. Trump

"Trump, who believes that excess can be a virtue, is as American as Manhattan's skyline," wrote George Will in the 1980's. Regardless of whether you think Donald Trump as a symbol of American success, or you think he's an annoying, chest-pounding egomaniac with bad hair, this book will show you what it took for him to build up his empire. The book shows Trump doing what he does best -- boldly making big deals -- during the "greed is good" decade of the 1980's. I found it interesting to see how much of his current empire he had built up before his 40th birthday, and to understand how he pulled off various deals.
The majority of the book is a swashbuckling, detailed history of his biggest projects. He talks about all the details, from negotiating with landholders, arguing about zoning with city officials, lining up contractors, interviewing architects, dealing with partners in various projects, negotiating with banks to line up financing, and the like.
Trump also devotes a couple chapters to his background. He was the son of a successful developer of rent-controlled & low-income housing in Queens and Brooklyn, NY. He was a mischievous, aggressive kid (he once punched a teacher), and was sent military school during his high-school years. He started college at Fordham in the Bronx, NY, to be close to home, but then then transferred to the Wharton Business School (at the University of Pennsylvania) because he liked its entrepreneurial emphasis. Shortly after college, he worked with his father to buy a troubled apartment complex in Cincinnati, which he fixed it up and sold for a multi-million dollar profit.

Donald Trump has become arguably the world's best-known real-estate icon. He has undoubtedly worked hard for the honor. Trump routinely wakes up at 6AM, at which time he reads the morning papers before arriving to work by 9AM. He'll make anywhere from 50 to 100 phone calls daily, and will hold a dozen or so impromptu 15-minute meetings throughout the day. But Trump's work ethic is only part of the reason why he has come to define the quintessential real estate mogul.

Donald Trump provides for our benefit his eleven Trump Cards of success. They include thinking big, protecting the downside, maximizing options, knowing your market, using leverage, enhancing your location, getting the word out through a public relations/marketing campaign, fighting back, delivering the goods, controlling costs, and having fun. Yet even these Trump Cards fail to fully illuminate what it is that makes Trump so successful.

A great deal of Trump's success can be traced back to his father who built and sold homes throughout New York City, most prominently in Jamaica Estates. Donald would learn on the job from a young age about managing costs and putting together a working symphony of various real estate professionals. After transferring from Fordham University to the University of Pennsylvania to complete his undergraduate degree in business administration, Donald and his father bought Swifton Village in 1968, a 1200-unit FHA apartment complex in Cincinnati, Ohio. While the scope of a 1200-unit apartment complex may seem unfathomable to many, for Donald it was just the beginning. These formative years convinced Trump to look beyond NYC and take the next progressive step, which for him was to develop commercial real estate in Manhattan and later casinos in Atlantic City.

Before picking up this book, I knew next to nothing about Donald Trump. I've never been interested in celebrity gossip. All I knew about Trump was that he is a billionaire who had made his fortune in real estate and that he is something of a celebrity. I knew that he has his share of fans and critics, but I was neither of them. In other words, I had no preconceived notions about that man.

After reading this book, I formed a positive image of him, but I also acknowledge that I should read something written by his critics to form a balanced opinion. However, what I think about Donald Trump as a person is not all that important because Art of the Deal is not about Donald Trump per se. Those who are looking for Trump's biography or who hope that he will reveal in this book some juicy details about his private life will be disappointed. The Art of the Deal starts with one short chapter about his life, and then it goes on to talk about his various business endeavors. Nor does the book say much about his private life. Not that there is much to talk about. From what I read, he is a workaholic and consummate professional who does not have much in terms of private life.

Be also advised that the Art of the Deal came out in 1987. If you want information about what was happening with Donald Trump in the past 26 years, look elsewhere.

So just what exactly is this book about? It's about his business projects, as well as his business and life philosophy. Each chapter tells the story of one of his more grandiose projects.

I have little interest in business and none whatsoever in real estate, but, nevertheless, I did find the book to be very interesting.

• 
  Time to Get Tough
  Donald J. Trump has just five words for the politicians and so-called leaders in Washington, DC: It’s Time to Get Tough President Obama has been a disaster for America.

  
  

• 
  Trump: The Art of the Deal
  To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.” Donald J. Trump Here is Trump in action how he runs his organization and how he runs his life as he meets the people he needs to meet, ...

  
  

• 
  A Child's First Book of Trump
  With his signature wit and a classic picture book style, comedian Michael Ian Black introduces those unfamiliar with the Americus Trumpus to his distinguishing features and his mystifying campaign for world domination…sorry…President of ...

  
  

• 
  The Trump Card
  In The Trump Card, Ivanka Trump recounts the compelling story of her upbringing as the ultimate Apprentice, the daughter of Donald and Ivana Trump, and shares the life lessons and hard-won insights that have made her a rising star in the ...

  
  

• 
  The Truth About Trump
  "In one way or another, Donald Trump has been a topic of conversation in America for almost forty years.

  
  

• 
  Trump Revealed
  The book will be based on the investigative reporting of more than two dozen Washington Post reporters and researchers who will leverage their expertise in politics, business, legal affairs, sports, and other areas.

  
  

• 
  Trump and Me
  All politics is artifice, and Singer marvels at how Trump has transfixed an electorate with his ultimate feat of performance art a mass political movement only loosely tethered to reality. From the Hardcover edition.

  
  

• 
  The Trumps
  An entertaining chronicle, now in paperback, explores the turbulent history and extraordinary achievements of the Trump family, from their first forays into real estate by Friedrich to the over-the-top ambitions of Donald Trump himself. of ...

  
  

• 
  Trump
  The essential book to understanding Donald Trump as a businessman and leader and how the biggest deal of his life went down.

  
  

• 
  The America We Deserve
  This is Donald Trump taking on the issues in his no-nonsense, unvarnished manner, offering populist, provocative, and sometimes dramatic solutions that no other politician would dare to put forward.

  
  

• 
  Trump: The Best Golf Advice I Ever Received
  Donald Trump’s book of advice is certain to take its place next to Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book as the ultimate in golf instruction. From the Hardcover edition.

  
  

• 
  Donald Trump
  An adaptation and update of her definitive biography, The Trumps, this new book provides fresh material on Donald Trump's brushes with bankruptcy, mammoth construction projects, and ever-expanding place in American life.

  
  

• 
  Trump Never Give Up
  In Never Give Up, Donald Trump tells the dramatic stories of his biggest challenges, lowest moments, and worst mistakes and how he uses tenacity and creativity to turn defeat into victory.

  
  

• 
  Trump 101
  The world's greatest dealmaker shows you how to: Find the work you love and do it Set high standards and meet them Think Trump-scale Negotiate to win Be tough, not nasty Turn problems, even disasters, into gold Concentrate on your target ...

  
  

• 
  Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards
  This book will be of interest to students and general readers interested in political science, national security, foreign policy, and military policy.

  
  

• 
  Yuge!
  Ever since the release of the first Trump-for-President trial balloon in 1987, Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau has tirelessly tracked and highlighted the unsavory career of the most unqualified candidate to ever aspire to the White House.

  
  

• 
  Assholes
  Much as Machiavelli illuminated political strategy for princes, this book finally gives us the concepts to think or say why assholes disturb us so, and explains why such people seem part of the human social condition, especially in an age ...

  
  

• 
  Trump
  Here is his story, the story of the Queens-born grandson of a Swedish immigrant who bought his first properties while still in college and moved on to become among the nation's biggest "movers and shakers" before the age of forty. 12 pages ...

  
  

• 
  Hillbilly Elegy
  J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America.

  
  

• 
  A Pocket Guide to Trump
  Learn how you, too, can be rich and famous with our pocket guide, consisting of highlights from his bestselling book.

  
  

Outliers Epub

Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Back Bay Books; Reprint edition
ISBN: 0316017930
Language: English
Formats: Kindle,Hardcover,Paperback,Audible, Unabridged,Audio CD, Audiobook, CD, Unabridged,
Category: Books,Science & Math,Mathematics, FREE Shipping,

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate. Outliers Epub

The main tenet of Outliers is that there is a logic behind why some people become successful, and it has more to do with legacy and opportunity than high IQ. In his latest book, New Yorker contributor Gladwell casts his inquisitive eye on those who have risen meteorically to the top of their fields, analyzing developmental patterns and searching for a common thread. The author asserts that there is no such thing as a self-made man, that "the true origins of high achievement" lie instead in the circumstances and influences of one's upbringing, combined with excellent timing. The Beatles had Hamburg in 1960-62; Bill Gates had access to an ASR-33 Teletype in 1968. Both put in thousands of hours-Gladwell posits that 10,000 is the magic number-on their craft at a young age, resulting in an above-average head start.

Gladwell makes sure to note that to begin with, these individuals possessed once-in-a-generation talent in their fields. He simply makes the point that both encountered the kind of "right place at the right time" opportunity that allowed them to capitalize on their talent, a delineation that often separates moderate from extraordinary success. This is also why Asians excel at mathematics-their culture demands it. If other countries schooled their children as rigorously, the author argues, scores would even out.

Gladwell also looks at "demographic luck," the effect of one's birth date. He demonstrates how being born in the decades of the 1830s or 1930s proved an enormous advantage for any future entrepreneur, as both saw economic booms and demographic troughs, meaning that class sizes were small, teachers were overqualified, universities were looking to enroll and companies were looking for employees.

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell seeks to disabuse us of the notion that genius and greatness are predominantly a function of innate ability and IQ. He rightly notes that while IQ is certainly a contributor, it reaches a "point of diminishing returns" after a while: once people score about 130, IQ becomes less important and "intangibles" (my term) become more important.

The book, then, focuses on what these "intangibles" are. Gladwell suggests that things like what income level, culture, and time of a child's birth are important contributors to success, as well as a person's tenacity and agility. As the last of these is the least conventional, think of it this way: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and many other computer masterminds would likely not have distinguiished themselves were they born 10 years earlier (as they would not have been exposed to computers in high-school/college, and would have been in their mid-thirties by the time computers really took hold, likely already in other careers by that point in their lives.)

How does culture matter? Think about the discrepancy between how many days per year American children spend in school (180) versus Asian students (280), and how many more social expectaitons Asian students are borne into? Certianly this will affect academic and other achievement.

Now, I should point out that Gladwell is quite adept at anecdotal story telling and is much less adept at statistical analysis. As such, he could be justly accused of overstating his case (and maybe even finding patterns where he wants to see them, rather than where they exist.) Gladwell is definitely writing for the popular market so anyone wanting good "back up" of his arguments may find themselves disappointed by his cherry-picking of examples.

Gladwell seems to have perfected a formula:
1. Latch onto a catchy concept.
2. Think of a great, catchy one- or two-word title.
3. Write a thin, small book.
4. Start your book with a decent analysis of some facts that support your catchy thesis, hook the reader, then let the book slide into a series of anecdotes and stories. Don't "prove" your thesis, just illustrate it.
5. Charge a lot for it (in both absolute dollars and cost-per-word).
6. Get a terrific, minimalist cover design.
7. Let the royalties and accolades roll in.

Each of Gladwell's three books ("Tipping Point," "Blink," and "Outliers") follows this formula. It's a proven winner, and at the end of this book, he goes into full rooting mode for another hit in his Acknowledgements: "[A colleague] and I have been two for two so far, and...here's hoping we go three for three." Wow. Let's just set up a toll-booth.

I don't agree with the five-star reviews. The book is just too thin, anecdotal, and un-analytical to be taken very seriously. On the cover flap, it says that "Tipping Point" changed the way we understand the world, "Blink" changed the way we think about thinking, and "Outliers" will transform the way we understand success. Uh, no. They are all decent books with provocative theses, but none has enough "there" there to change the way most people think about anything.

I also don't agree with the one-star reviews. Gladwell's topics are provocative, his books are easy reads (this one took me just a few hours on vacation, and I'm not that fast a reader), and the stories and anecdotes are interesting.

• 
  Outliers
  Gladwell argues that the true story of success is very different, and that if we want to understand how some people thrive, we should spend more time looking around them-at such things as their family, their birthplace, or even their birth ...

  
  

• 
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  Another important issue is how to treat potential outliers in data. As shown in Figure 4, the natural resource distribution is very skewed, so that resource-rich countries, though a main target of this research, tend to lie substantially outside the ...

  
  

• 
  An Evaluation of the World Economic Outlook Forecasts (EPub)
  We also consider whether the standard deviation of the April forecast errors is greater than that of the September forecast errors. Although outliers make it difficult to interpret some of the values, this appears generally to be the case.

  
  

• 
  European Union Enlargement and Equity Markets in Accession Countries (EPub)
  Furthermore, the effect of DIFBETA in accession countries remains significant after controlling for changes in expected earnings and other controls. In the next section, we investigate whether the significance of DIFBETA is robust to outliers and ...

  
  

• 
  Monetary and Exchange Rate Dynamics During Disinflation: An Empirical Analysis (EPub)
  Quite surprisingly, the results are very different (at least in terms of cluster membership of the episodes and a larger number of outliers). This suggests that in several cases, abrupt movements in exchange rates occurred after the first six  ...

  
  

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  Cooperative Banks and Financial Stability (EPub)
  outliers, we have done all the calculations both for the full sample and for a sample that excludes the most extreme outliers. To keep the presentation succinct, this paper presents results for a sample that eliminates the 1st and 99th percentile ...

  
  

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  The Fiscal Smile: The Effectiveness and Limits of Fiscal Stabilizers (EPub)
  19One could suspect that the parabolic form is driven solely by outliers. The Nearest Neighbor Fit method, however, allows for explicit outlier adjustment. This is done by iterating the local regressions by adjusting the weights to downweight  ...

  
  

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  Euro Area Money Demand: Measuring the Opportunity Costs Appropriately (EPub)
  worth noting that this type of Chow test is more suitable to investigate the existence of outliers rather than that of structural breaks. In order to identify breaks, it is more appropriate to consider the predictive failure and breakpoint tests since ...

  
  

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  Corruption and Technology-Induced Private Sector Development (EPub)
  The potential important changes could result from the use of the Hadi procedure to remove multivariate outliers. Because this procedure removes only a small proportion of observations in our full panel, it does not have any significant impact ...

  
  

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  Growth Dynamics: The Myth of Economic Recovery (EPub)
  Moreover, the results seem to be sensitive to a few outliers. Several African outliers with strong rebounds are displayed in Figure 5, such as Rwanda, Chad, Togo, Liberia, and Guinea-Bissau. However, even among the outliers with strong  ...

  
  

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  "Rules of Thumb" for Sovereign Debt Crises (EPub)
  The methodology is therefore robust to the effects of outliers. Outliers among the independent variables generally do not affect BRT because splits usually occur at nonoutlier values. Outliers are often separated into nodes where they no longer ...

  
  

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  Islamic Banks and Financial Stability: An Empirical Analysis (EPub)
  Given that our sample includes outliers, we use a robust estimation technique as an important estimation method. Hamilton (2002) provides a detailed description of the technique. In a nutshell, it assigns, through an iterative process, lower ...

  
  

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  The Impact of Macroeconomic Announcements on Emerging Market Bonds (EPub)
  Outliers are defined as daily changes in spreads exceeding four standard deviations from the mean in our sample. Outliers constitute less than one percent of observations. They appear to correspond to isolated jumps in spreads, possibly ...

  
  

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  The Spending and Absorption of Aid in PRGF Supported Programs (EPub)
  ... aid was programmed to decline. The programmed change in aid is negative for about 130 observations in both types of regressions. Third, in the spending and absorption regressions of Tables III.2 through III.6, outliers were identified, and ...

  
  

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  Service Offshoring, Productivity, and Employment: Evidence from the United States (EPub)
  Two industries, electronic components and computer and office equipment, were dropped these were large outliers with unusually high labor productivity growth unrelated to offshoring. Note that the taking difference between 2000 and  ...

  
  

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  Core Inflation Measures and Statistical Issues in Choosing Among Them (EPub)
  Huber (1964) discusses robust estimates based on their sensitivity to outliers. If there are no outliers and the distribution is normal, then the mean and median are the same. However, consider a single outlier value, say an extremely high price ...

  
  

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  Das (Wasted) Kapital: Firm Ownership and Investment Efficiency in China (EPub)
  minimize the influence of outliers and to exclude observations with missing key information. We filter out firm-years in which (a) either the firm revenue or the value of intermediate inputs is missing; (b) the annual growth rate of either the value ...

  
  

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  Mauritius: A Competitiveness Assessment (EPub)
  To minimize the impact of outliers and measurement errors, outliers for the CA and overall government balance to GDP ratios are trimmed asymmetrically ( around the 95th percentile). NFA/GDP is trimmed symmetrically at the 99th percentile.

  
  

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  Trade Openness and Volatility (EPub)
  and the Herfindahl of exports as controls, and are estimated using IV unless otherwise indicated.25 Column (1) checks whether the results are driven by outliers. Dropping outliers improves the fit of the regression, and the results remain ...

  
  

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  Health Aid and Infant Mortality (EPub)
  '“The Hadi procedure dropped outliers based on withincountry infant mortality and within-country life expectancy, at the 5 percent level of significance. In addition, the top and bottom one percent of within-country values of log health aid were ...