Summary

Chapter 2 is called "The 10,000-Hour Rule", which refers to the claim that to become expert at anything a person must spend 10,000 hours at it. Gladwell begins by describing the success of a computer programmer named Bill Joy. Joy comes to the University of Michigan as a teenager in 1971 and finds his way to the new computing center that opens there the same year. He becomes a well-known programer famous for his quick ability and skill. After graduate school he co-founds Sun Microsystems and helps write the computer language Java. Much of the software used to connect computers to the internet is written by Joy. Among computer programmers he is famous as someone whose ability is far beyond the average.

Gladwell asks whether there might be something similar in Joy's case to what he describes with hockey players born in January...