Gladwell on AMA

Martial artist I knew once told me that it didn't matter that our students weren't being given clear feedback on what to work on (we both taught at the school) - "They just need their 10,000 kicks" she said.

I replied that if you practice something wrong for 10,000 times, you will only become perfect at sucking.

You aren't wrong. I have an entire chapter on college choice in David and Goliath. My point in that chapter is that prestige schools have costs: that the greater competition at a "better" school causes many capable people to think they aren't good at what they love. But your point is equally valid. People going to college and in college vastly over-estimate the brand value of their educational institution. When I hire assistants, I don't even ask them where they went to school. Who cares? By the time you're twenty-five or thirty, does it matter anymore?

I have complicated thoughts about Steve Jobs. He fits very clearly into the idea I write about in David and Goliath about how entrepreneurs need to be "disagreeable"--that is, that in order to make something new and innovative in the world you need to be the kind of person who doesn't care about what your peers think. Why? Because most of the greatest ideas are usually denounced by most of us as crazy in the beginning. Steve Jobs was a classic disagreeable entrepreneur. That makes him a difficult human being to be around. But were he not difficult, he would never have accomplished an iota of what he did!

AMA