The genius of late bloomers - Gladwell | Hacker News Reader

The genius of late bloomers - Gladwell

newyorker.com

150 pointsrobg40 comments

This is just great.

I remember reading one of Gladwell's earlier versions of this argument -- I think it was a transcript of a talk, and it was all about Fleetwood Mac. I recommend trying to find that, too, because the Fleetwood Mac angle is really hilarious.

I don't exactly buy this dichotomy of his, actually. I think that trying to force all creative people into two categories is a futile exercise if you take it too seriously -- there are more than just two kinds of creative people. And, yet, I appreciate the explanatory value of the dichotomy approach, even if it isn't particularly accurate -- it's dramatic, it's easy for people to understand (folks like dichotomies -- would "Hot or Not" have been as popular if it had included "Hottish" and "Maybe" options?) and it serves the main goal: To throw a big, dramatic spotlight on the late bloomers, who otherwise tend to be entirely ignored. In other words, two isn't the right number of categories, but I do think it is better than one.

Non-dichotomous abstractions that fail to get a deep personal response from the reader don't make good reading (or at least publishable reading).

On a positive note, like you said, at least it's suggesting there's more than one group: thanks to Mr. Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley poster children, we assume that everyone peaks in their 18-25 range, so it's actually refreshing to be reminded of cases in the past where this wasn't true.

Actually seriously addressing the issue and trying to find a complicated system of abstractions to describe it would be far to... academic. In my mind, that means "refreshingly deep", but I bet in most minds it means "booooooooooooooooring".

couldn't the difference be more to do with the documented 10 years of practice needed before truly mastering something?

the early bloomers could simply be the ones who started when they were 10, while the late bloomers simply the ones who switched careers.

I'd guess Gladwell would disagree. In his example, Cezanne and Picasso were both painting in earnest by age 20. If it only took 10 years of practice, Cezanne would have been at his peak by 30, not 60. Likewise, Fountain was writing for at least 20 years before he had his breakthrough.

It also doesn't explain why (in the anecdotal evidence in the article) late bloomers start weak and improve over a long time, while early bloomers peak early and decline.

To avoid seeming to beg the question, I'll call late bloomers experimentalists and the early bloomers (pure) conceptualists. Okay.

It may be that conceptualists have a very natural peak in their early years because of two factors: a learning peak and a neural peak. For conceptualists, concepts are grasped, mastered and built on quickly, but are explored in their learning. Once they absorb a subject, they get tenaciously attached to worthless novelty, they find new things, or they're just not able to think about things in the same creative way. That's what I mean by a learning peak.

Second, to go further out on a limb, could there be a neural peak? There are many late-blooming artists, but how many late-blooming mathematicians? Not many. Since theirs is the epitome of conceptual work, there might be something natural to it. One suspects that the, let's say, spark of creativity in conceptualists may actually consume neural connections which cannot be regained.

It's interesting to think of and compare some notables in these terms. Edison, Fuller, Kubrick, Lucas, etc. It would be instructive to see examples of late-blooming non-experimentalists, for example. I also think that there are many fields where artists are encouraged make the transition from one approach to another, such as the actor that becomes a director. Perhaps this subject encompasses much of the difficulty of the artist at mid-life, maybe even that of Malcolm Gladwell.

Or the mathematician that becomes a teaching Professor and textbook author.

I agree that this could be the case, but I don't think it is limited to the two factors that the author states. Timing is missing. If the same genius were born today would they perform and excel the same? Timing in business and being a staple of time is one in the same. Maybe genius knows what to be at the right time.

"Galenson’s idea that creativity can be divided into these types --- conceptual and experimental --- has a number of important implications. For example, we sometimes think of late bloomers as late starters. They don’t realize they’re good at something until they’re fifty, so of course they achieve late in life. But that’s not quite right. Cézanne was painting almost as early as Picasso was. We also sometimes think of them as artists who are discovered late; the world is just slow to appreciate their gifts. In both cases, the assumption is that the prodigy and the late bloomer are fundamentally the same, and that late blooming is simply genius under conditions of market failure. What Galenson’s argument suggests is something else --- that late bloomers bloom late because they simply aren’t much good until late in their careers."

Ach, I wish a subscription to the New Yorker from outside the U.S were not so expensive. Such articles would be perfect for reading in the train, I can't read it now with so many shiny things on the internet.

Why not just print a few out?

It's truly not the same holding a magazine compared to holding some sheets of paper. I could also read it on my iphone. But the experience is different. A magazine is easy to hold and to change pages. Sheets of paper, not really.

I feel the same way about the Economist.

But the Economist is affordable all the world over. At least the subscription is.

I read that in a book (http://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Ingenuity-Solve-Problems-Smal...) that the usual TV station makes less than a dollar for an hours advertisement per viewer. The Economist makes more than five dollars in advertisements per issue.

Most people would rather spend a dollar to get rid of one hour advertising on TV, but not many would spend more than five dollars to get rid of the relative unobstrusive ads in the Economist.

I love that book. And I love Honest Tea.

It's still significantly more expensive than the average magazine in the States.

http://www.micro-gems.net/servlet/the-386/The-Economist-1yr-...

Now certainly $80 is affordable (if you have a job), but most of the magazines I used to subscribe to, I paid $5-$20 per year.

economist is weekly. 4x20 = 80. it is exactly on par with most magazines. and considering the quality you're getting a bargain.

Subscribing to the economist is on par if you buy all your other magazines from a news stand - yes.

I agree it's well worth it. My original argument was that it's expensive compared to most magazines, which it is.

I'm still not getting this. 51 issues a year for $80 equates to $1.57 an issue. this does not seem expensive at all.

How many issues do the magazines for $20 a year have in a year? Too bad, you can't get a magazine that cheaply here in Germany.

By the way: There is a website to the 'Why not?'-book (http://www.whynot.net/). It tries to be a web-2.0 idea exchange. But browsing it did not gratify me as much as reading their book.

Especially I like 'What would Croesus do?' (How would you solve your problem if resources were unconstrained?) and 'Find new problems for your solutions.'.

Try this link: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/20/081020fa_fact_...

Good point. Where are you from?

I keep my New Yorker subscription only to have for reading on flights. New Scientist gets me sleepy whereas New Yorker gets me engrossed in impossibly long articles. Sadly this means sometimes I'm reading copies that are 6 months old.

I am sure this will make it into a gladwell book - they tend to read like his articles so just keep an eye out for it. They are also nice small light books easy to carry on the train.

I wonder what Gladwell thinks of Joyce, who published relatively young (Dubliners) and who then spent decades piecing together his final two masterpieces. Is it possible for people to be both ways at once?

Anyone else notice that the date on this article is 6 days into the future? And the url as well.

This is common practice when the URL is meant to correlate with a printed version of a magazine, sometimes one that either hasn't been released yet, or releases a month earlier than the posted dates.

I need to find a lady like Sharie!

Seriously, I can't decide which is more impressive, his years of dedication to his writing or hers.

I was a bit less impressed as I found out more about his situation. She wasn't just paying for his writing, she was paying for him to be a stay at home dad and take care of all the mundane stuff that kept their family operating. It's impressive that she never questioned him or gave him a hard time, but it sounds like he was holding up his end of the bargain.

I actually wasn't impressed at all because I don't think we can ever know if she questioned him or gave him a hard time.

It could have been an unbelievably painful number of years for both of them and she could have given up on him years before but was stuck supporting him. It doesn't sound as nice but it is probably closer to reality...

She's a senior partner at a law firm, so I can't imagine their financial situation was all that precarious.

Yeh I couldn't agree more. Most women would've given up on the idea and booted their men out to go find real jobs, but not Sharie, she funded him year on year, including the multiple trips out to Haiti. She must've thought he was seeing another woman all those times, but she had the faith and stayed strong.

As a 45-year-old with an interest in startups that borders on the unhealthy :-) I am more than happy to see this kind of validation in print.

I'll have to agree as a 43 year old with an unhealthy interest in start-ups. Maybe I should tell VC companies that I'm a late-blooming genius? ;-7

I am 34. Feel free to call me a young punk or a script kiddie, would make me feel better ;)

d00D UR t3H 31337 H@X04 :-)

L2typ3

Ok, obligatory chime-in. 44 years old when I (built|co-founded|whatever the PR people want to call it today) digg.com. Younger partners decided I was too old (or something) ... Working hard to prove them wrong (though within a larger corporation).

Meanwhile they flail around, getting more pathetic by the day...

Maybe it's my love for parenthetical phrases. ;-)

I do sympathize with what happened, but the Digg digs are a little tired at this point. Just on your most recent page of comments I count three.

I agree actually. I was a little hesitant to put this one in, but it was on topic (late bloomers), and once I get started its hard to stop.

41 and about to embark on startup #2.

The talk about late bloomers as "searchers" struck a chord with me, because that's what I started doing about 3 years back... searching for that money-maker.

If I'm like the writer in the story, I've only got 17 years left and I'll find it. :-)

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