How Malcolm Gladwell Tricks You Into Believing

Early one morning in 1996, Malcolm Gladwell sits at his desk at the New Yorker office. He’s new here, having spent the last decade at the Washington Post, covering business and science stories. None of his previous work has garnered much attention but crucially he’s now spent 10,000 hours over the course of a decade honing his craft. He’s now ready to write something truly great.

The son of a Jamaican psychotherapist and mathematics professor, Gladwell is wiry, both of body and hair. He could be the nerdy younger brother of Zack de la Rocha, the lead…