Upclose with Malcolm Gladwell

HK Magazine: What inspired you to write “Outliers: The Story of Success”?
Malcolm Gladwell: We live in a time where everyone is obsessed with success, so I wanted to examine the subject by looking at the various assumptions people make about the factors that contribute to high levels of success. It was also a chance for me to tell part of my own family’s story, as you’ll find in the book.

HK: What future projects do you have planned?
MG: I’m looking into writing an essay about drinking and alcoholism for The New Yorker. I worked there as a staff writer for many years before I started writing books so, in effect, I’ll be going back to my “day job.”

HK: Would you argue that the financial crisis was inevitable due to the nature of free market economics or was it preventable?
MG: I think it was perhaps inevitable if you examine the psychology of the people involved in its downfall, but not necessarily due to the structure of the market. It was really about the over-confidence of the players and that is the subject I want to explore in the upcoming seminar, the psychological aspect.

HK: Will you be incorporating ideas from your books, “Blink,” “The Tipping Point” and “Outliers” into your talk?
MG: The first part of the seminar is based on the principles discussed in “The Tipping Point,” examining the importance of social factors in creating change. The second part, concerning the financial crisis, may touch upon ideas first laid down in the books, but really it’s about new material that I have been working on since I finished “Outliers.”

HK: What are you reading at the moment?
MG: I just finished reading a non-fiction book by an author I really admire, Janet Malcolm. She writes books in a way I wish I could, with an ability to take odd subjects and explore them with such beautiful prose with such an intellectual examination, as she does in “The Journalist and the Murderer."