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Bill Joy is a cofounder of Sun Microsystems whose life story Gladwell uses as an example of his theory of success. Joy was a studious child who was talented in math and was thinking about a career in that field or in engineering. He chose the University of Michigan for college, in the early 1970s, and there fell in love with computers. Gladwell writes that the timing was significant: Computers at that time were large machines that were usually programmed by feeding punch cards into them, one for each line of code. In short, it was tedious and time-consuming. As computers progressed in power, they were redesigned to process tasks simultaneously. Known as time-sharing, this meant that one could run code without delay, and the University of Michigan was one of the few places at that time to adopt this advanced method.
Gladwell uses Joy’s story to show how many factors needed to combine for Joy to become successful. The most important of these was his decision to attend the University of Michigan, which had time-sharing when it was still rare. Beyond that, the computer center was open 24 hours a day, providing the maximum time to practice. What’s more, by chance, the students discovered a glitch that allowed them to work on the computers without paying; otherwise, this expense would have limited Joy’s practice time. With all these fortunate circumstances in alignment, Joy amassed about 10,000 hours of coding practice while in college. When the opportunity came along later to work on UNIX, he was fully prepared to take it.
In a similar way to Joy, Bill Gates found success in the computer world. He, too, had a set of auspicious circumstances converge in his life. The first came early, when the private school he attended set up a computer club, and the parents of the children had the money to purchase time with one of the rare time-sharing computers of the time period. Then one member’s mother had a need for some help testing software at the computer company she cofounded. At that time, both computing and women working outside the home were rare enough to make this a remarkable coincidence. Gates also lived within walking distance of the University of Washington, where he later found part-time work at the computer center. His payment was being allowed to use the computers during his free time, and he went there in the middle of the night to practice. He got another computing job his senior year of high school, which he used as an independent study class. Gates, like Joy, had a fortunate background and ample experience by the time an opportunity for success presented itself. In his case, he decided to leave Harvard, where he was a student, and start the computer company that became Microsoft.
Flom is another person Gladwell points to for having the right set of conditions in his life to find success. In Chapter 5, Gladwell discusses three lessons we can learn from Flom’s life story. Flom grew up in New York City, the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who both worked in the garment industry. He came of age during the Depression, served in the army during World War II, and then earned a law degree from Harvard. He began his career in the mid-1940s. Gladwell’s three lessons are being Jewish, being lucky in terms of demographics, and having parents in the garment industry. As Chapter 5 explains in detail, all three were instrumental in Flom finding the great success he eventually did, although not all worked in his favor right away. For instance, he was discriminated against for being Jewish, but this led him to work in an area of law the elite White American Protestant firms wouldn’t touch; when that particular area later had a high demand, he was well positioned as the expert.
The Borgenichts were emigrants from Eastern Europe who arrived in New York at the end of the 19th century. The Borgenichts were Jews, who were prohibited from owning land (the usual source of wealth) in most of Europe. Because of this, they learned trades in urban areas, and one such option was producing clothing. Both husband and wife worked in this industry before leaving for America. Gladwell notes that the timing and location were crucial. They arrived at a time when immigration was booming in the US. Most immigrants were poor, and the Borgenichts were no exception. However, they had a skill—by chance, one in demand at that time when the New York garment industry was taking off. They could thus go into business for themselves and, through hard work, make enough money to put their children through college. Gladwell shows in Chapter 5 that many Jewish immigrants to New York who worked in the garment industry had children who found great success as lawyers, doctors, and professionals in other areas. The convergence of circumstances, Gladwell says, made this possible.
Daisy Nation is Gladwell’s maternal grandmother and Joyce is his mother, both of whom were born and lived in Jamaica. They form the final example of how success comes from the combination of several fortuitous events and circumstances, embodying both this idea and Gladwell’s view that culture has a long and tenacious hold on people. First, the cultural aspect: Daisy was the descendant of a British man and an African woman who was his slave. This was important because Jamaica was highly stratified by skin color and having both White and Black racial heritage gave the family the advantage of having lighter skin. This meant a higher social standing and greater opportunity for a professional career. Such a background of advantage and high expectations led Daisy to advocate on behalf of Joyce when it came to the latter’s education.
A political crisis in 1937 led to greater educational opportunities at private schools for Black students. Private schools were important because they were the route to university off the island, in England. Joyce’s twin sister received a scholarship to one such school but Joyce did not, and the family had no money to pay her tuition. Unexpectedly, an administrative error was discovered in which a student had been offered two scholarships; the extra was then given to Joyce. This repeated itself at the college level—a scholarship for the twin but not Joyce. This time, Daisy went to the Chinese merchant in town and asked for a loan. He gave her one, allowing Joyce to attend university in England.
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By Malcolm Gladwell