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Comment by mnemonicsloth | Hacker News Reader

No, Gladwell is a demonstrably successful public speaker.

Gladwell's point -- and the OP author's -- is that you should taboo the word "talent." Talent is the idea you wind up with when you commit the Fundamental Attribution Error while observing success or skill:

In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error ... describes the tendency to over-value dispositional or personality-based explanations ["he is very talented at X"] for the observed behaviors [extreme skill at X] of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors. ["he spent his entire childhood practicing X"]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

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Have you ever watched him give a talk? Have you, yourself, ever given a talk to a large audience? I have, and it's a bitch. He's a demonstrably talented public speaker. It is extremely interesting to me, and, I assume, to most people who do public speaking, that Gladwell is actually writing out the entire content of his speeches.

The rest of your comment, whatever. I don't care about his books. Neither does the author of this article, if you care to read it.

Yes, and yes. Good for you, and I agree.

The fact remains, Gladwell's most recent book, Outliers, argues that there is no such thing as talent.

If you call someone talented, you're implicitly conceding they were somehow predisposed to have the skill they've got. Gladwell says there are no such predispositions, only histories, habits, and hard work.

UPDATE: the definition of TALENT I'm using is here: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/talent

tal·ent (tlnt) n. 1. A marked innate ability, as for artistic accomplishment. See Synonyms at ability.

> The fact remains, Gladwell's most recent book, Outliers, argues that there is no such thing as talent.

That's not what I read in it. If you look up the passage about the conservatory students, you'll find that he says that you need a sufficient amount of talent to get into it, and beyond that level, effort expended is a more important factor.

"Gladwell's most recent book, Outliers, argues that there is no such thing as talent."

Did you read Outliers? Because it doesn't actually say that. Let's see what it really says:

"Yes, the hockey players who make it to the professional level are more talented than you or me. But they also got a big head start..." (p 30)

"Joy and Gates and the Beatles are all undeniably talented. Lennon and McCartney had a musical gift of the sort that comes along once in a generation, and Bill Joy, let us not forget, had a mind so quick that he was able to make up a complicated algorithm on the fly that left his professors in awe. That much is obvious. But what truly distinguishes their histories is not their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary opportunities..." (p 55)

Gladwell argues against what his book calls "the primacy of talent." He says talent is one ingredient in success - even a necessary one - but not the most distinguishing one. He describes all the successful people he profiles as very talented, but adds that many equally talented people are unsuccessful because of different historical, cultural, and personal backgrounds.

This conversation is doubly funny because it reminds of something this guy Paul Graham once wrote in an essay: http://paulgraham.com/hs.html :

* Don't think that you can't do what other people can. And I agree you shouldn't underestimate your potential. People who've done great things tend to seem as if they were a race apart. And most biographies only exaggerate this illusion, partly due to the worshipful attitude biographers inevitably sink into, and partly because, knowing how the story ends, they can't help streamlining the plot till it seems like the subject's life was a matter of destiny, the mere unfolding of some innate genius. In fact I suspect if you had the sixteen year old Shakespeare or Einstein in school with you, they'd seem impressive, but not totally unlike your other friends.

Which is an uncomfortable thought. If they were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that's one reason we like to believe in genius. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it's not our fault if we can't do something as good.

If I understand correctly this is clearly BS. If it weren't we'd have more painters like van Gogh or Picasso. Hard work is fine if you want to learn java or something like that, but where talent is needed - well, you need to be talented.

Technically he's not a talented public speaker as "talent" implies an innate capacity. He's a very skilled speaker, in that his ability is derived from relentless practice and preparation.

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