Gladwell's writings often deal with the unexpected implications of research in the social sciences, such as sociology and psychology, and make frequent and extended use of academic work.
[8][9] Research done by historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. revealed that one of Gladwell's maternal ancestors was a Jamaican free woman of colour (mixed black and white) who was a slaveowner.
[15] In the spring of 1982, Gladwell interned with the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C.[16] He graduated with a bachelor's degree in history from Trinity College of the University of Toronto in 1984.
[15][18] After being rejected by every advertising agency he applied to, he accepted a journalism position at conservative magazine The American Spectator and moved to Indiana.
[19] He subsequently wrote for Insight on the News, a conservative magazine owned by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church.
[21] In a personal elucidation of the 10,000-hour rule he popularized in Outliers, Gladwell notes, "I was a basket case at the beginning, and I felt like an expert at the end.
"[15] When Gladwell started at The New Yorker in 1996, he wanted to "mine current academic research for insights, theories, direction, or inspiration".
Gladwell also served as a contributing editor for Grantland, a sports journalism website founded by former ESPN columnist Bill Simmons.
In a July 2002 article in The New Yorker, Gladwell introduced the concept of the "talent myth" that companies and organizations, in his view, incorrectly follow.
He states that the misconception seems to be that management and executives are all too ready to classify employees without ample performance records and thus make hasty decisions.
[24] With the release of Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering in 2024, Gladwell has had eight books published.
The term "tipping point" comes from the moment in an epidemic when the virus reaches critical mass and begins to spread at a much higher rate.
[27] However, in the decade and a half since its publication, The Tipping Point and Gladwell have both come under fire for the tenuous link between "broken windows" and New York City's drop in violent crime.
During a 2013 interview with BBC journalist Jon Ronson for The Culture Show, Gladwell admitted that he was "too in love with the broken-windows notion".
The book explains how the human unconscious interprets events or cues as well as how past experiences can lead people to make informed decisions very rapidly.
Gladwell uses examples like the Getty kouros and psychologist John Gottman's research on the likelihood of divorce in married couples.
[29] In a particular incident, he was apprehended by three police officers while walking in downtown Manhattan because his curly hair matched the profile of a rapist, despite the fact the suspect looked nothing like him otherwise.
", referring to the fact that "a surprising number of the most powerful and successful corporate lawyers in New York City have almost the exact same biography".
The book examines interactions with strangers, covers examples that include the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia case at Penn State, and the death of Sandra Bland.
[44] Gladwell's seventh book, The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, was released in April 2021.
[62] David Leonhardt wrote in The New York Times Book Review: "In the vast world of nonfiction writing, Malcolm Gladwell is as close to a singular talent as exists today" and Outliers "leaves you mulling over its inventive theories for days afterward".
The New Republic called the final chapter of Outliers, "impervious to all forms of critical thinking" and said Gladwell believes "a perfect anecdote proves a fatuous rule".
[74] In 2011, he gave three talks to groups of small businessmen as part of a three-city speaking tour put on by Bank of America.
[75] Paul Starobin, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, said the engagement's "entire point seemed to be to forge a public link between a tarnished brand (the bank), and a winning one (a journalist often described in profiles as the epitome of cool)".
[76] An article by Melissa Bell of The Washington Post posed the question: "Malcolm Gladwell: Bank of America's new spokesman?
"[77] Mother Jones editor Clara Jeffery said Gladwell's job for Bank of America had "terrible ethical optics".
Gladwell explained: I did a talk about innovation for a group of entrepreneurs in Los Angeles a while back, sponsored by Bank of America.
[78]In 2012, CBS's 60 Minutes attributed the trend of American parents "redshirting" their five-year-olds (postponing entrance into kindergarten to give them an advantage) to a section in Gladwell's Outliers.
[79] Sociology professor Shayne Lee referenced Outliers in a CNN editorial commemorating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.
[9] Gladwell wandered away from his Christian roots when he moved to New York, only to rediscover his faith during the writing of David and Goliath and his encounter with Wilma Derksen regarding the death of her child.