<Tr> <Th> Preceded by </Th> <Td> Blink, 2005 </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Followed by </Th> <Td> What the Dog Saw, 2009 </Td> </Tr> <P> Outliers: The Story of Success is the third non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008 . In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success . To support his thesis, he examines why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year, how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, how The Beatles became one of the most successful musical acts in human history, how Joseph Flom built Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom into one of the most successful law firms in the world, how cultural differences play a large part in perceived intelligence and rational decision making, and how two people with exceptional intelligence, Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, end up with such vastly different fortunes . Throughout the publication, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000 - Hour Rule", claiming that the key to achieving world - class expertise in any skill, is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing the correct way, for a total of around 10,000 hours, though the authors of the original study this was based on have disputed Gladwell's usage . </P> <P> The publication debuted at number one on the bestseller lists for The New York Times and The Globe and Mail, holding the position on the former for eleven consecutive weeks . Generally well received by critics, Outliers was considered more personal than Gladwell's other works, and some reviews commented on how much Outliers felt like an autobiography . Reviews praised the connection that Gladwell draws between his own background and the rest of the publication to conclude the book . Reviewers also appreciated the questions posed by Outliers, finding it important to determine how much individual potential is ignored by society . However, the lessons learned were considered anticlimactic and dispiriting . The writing style, though deemed easy to understand, was criticized for oversimplifying complex social phenomena . </P>

Who came up with the 10 000 hour rule