Journalism
Malcolm Gladwell
Journalist and author of Outliers and The Tipping Point
Born 1963
Photo: PEN American Center · CC BY 2.0
«Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.»
Malcolm Gladwell writes about social science for general readers, and his books have sold tens of millions of copies. Outliers popularised the argument that extraordinary success depends heavily on circumstances and accumulated practice.
Key achievements
- Five consecutive number one New York Times bestsellers
- Staff writer at The New Yorker since 1996
- Co-founded the podcast company Pushkin Industries
Universities
Toronto, Ontario
Took a degree in history at Trinity College in 1984.
Facts
- He was rejected by every graduate school he applied to and went into advertising and then journalism instead.
- He was a competitive middle-distance runner as a teenager and still runs seriously.
- His mother is Jamaican and his father was an English mathematics professor who taught at the same university.
Photographs
Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences; the author and licence are shown on each image.