Chapter 5 Reflection

Kelvin Paez
Ms. Benjamin
3-4 A
1 February 16

     In Gladwell's "Outliers: The Story of Success", Gladwell talks about how people were able to become extremely successful due to their demographic luck. Demographic luck is an advantage for a person that they received because of pure luck, no effort is needed. This luck usually gives one, an extra push and that one person will benefit greatly. However, one still needs to be great at their field to take advantage of this.
   Primarily, demographic luck can greatly impact a person's chance of success, such as reducing competition. In Gladwell's book, he talks about that a person named Joe Flom, his success was contributed by the fact of little competition. During the hardships of the Great Depression, people stopped having children, this disadvantage of the USA, became an advantage to Flom. In law school, Flom was put in smaller classes so his competition was completely reduced so the chances of him standing out would be much greater.
  Furthermore, demographic luck can turn one's job to low-paying to high-paying. Using the same person Joe Flom, he was a great lawyer, one of the best in Harvard Law in fact, however, he was only able to work on cases such as the cooperate takeovers in which, were underrated at the time. Flom was able to get the hours of practice he needed and then all of a sudden, cooperate takeovers became more commonplace in the 1950s and 60s. As a result, Flom became extremely successful due to the hours of practice and expertise of corporate takeovers.