Outliers is a book about success. It starts with a very simple question: what is the difference between those who do something special with their lives and everyone else? In Outliers we're going to visit a genius who lives on a horse farm in Northern Missouri. We're going to examine the bizarre histories of professional hockey players and look into the peculiar childhood of Bill Gates and spend time in a Chinese rice paddy. We will investigate the world's greatest law firm and wonder about what distinguishes pilots who crash planes from those who don't. And in examining the lives of the remarkable among us-the brilliant, the exceptional and the unusual-we will learn that the way we think about success is all wrong.