The Social Network 

In the film, The Social Network the main character was Mark Zucherberg, the creator of Facebook. Throughout the film, we saw how mark created facesmash while he was drunk. After being dumped for being a douche to his ex-girlfriend. Mark hacked Harvard's servers to launch his website, and ended up crashing them. He was soon caught and was disciplined with six months of academic suspicion. A pair of rich twins approached him with an idea of creating a dating website and asked for his help. Mark accepted, but soon he started creating "the facebook" and paid no attention to their app. Once they saw Mark launched "the facebook" they soon, decided to sue him for stealing their idea. Mark said that they were sueing him because for once in their life their plans didn't work out. The film, related to the book, in a way, by showing how some people have a better chance than others because they have resources that others might not have. Just like the kids who went to the KIPP Academy so that they could get the help they needed. 

Blog #8: Sabry Tozin

 For this Blog, I chose to write about Saby Tozin, who is Director of Enterprise Applications for Netflix. Sabry, grew up in the Congo, and was surrounded by people who were either really well-off, or desperately poor. For most of Sabry's younger years, he wanted to be a civil engineer just so he could be like his father, but as time passed, he was more interested in computer science. Sabry had already began going to school to get his engineering degree. Sabry failed,  his second calculus class, and there were still seven more math classes to come before he could get his engineering degree. Sabry, called his father crying and told him he’d failed, his second math class, and  his dad said, “Well, what do you want to do now?” In that moment Sabry realize that it’s not about failing, it’s about how you react to failure and how you come back from it. After that he  retook the class and studied harder so that he could pass this time. He took a job in the I.T. department at his college, and by the time he graduated, he knew he wanted to move to Silicon Valley and work in the tech industry. Sabry says, that he got to where he is today by finding self-confidence, where he learned to love himself and to expect big things from himself.

Sabry's story is similar to chapter 9 in the book Outliers, because like Marita, Bill Gates, and the Canadian hokey player, he had to work hard to get to where he is now. His childhood surroundings are similar to what Gladwell, said in the chapter. For example, in the book it talked about how kids in poor families were as educationally advanced as the kids in the upper and middle class, but when the summer came they lost everything they had worked so hard to learn since their parents could not afford materials, so they could keep practicing. It was the same thing with the people at Sabry's school. 

  

Blog #7: Elise Benstein

For this Blog, I chose to write about Elise Benstein. Elise is a food scientist at the Jelly Belly Candy Company. Elise says, that she likes to have a job where she gets to create something that makes people happy, even for a short time.  Elise got an undergraduate degree in food science and nutrition, she liked it so much that she went on to get a degree from a culinary institute, and got a job at the Jelly Belly Candy Company. Elise says that when making the jelly beans, they stop to do taste tests and ask for input along every step of the way. Elise tells road trip nation, that Jelly Belly sells their "irregular" candies as "Belly Flops", and turns their "mess-ups" into something that still has value. Elise shares the story, of an attempt at a pizza-flavored bean was so bad, they used it as the vomit-flavored bean in the "Bertie Botts Every Flavor Bean" line.

I chose to write about Elise because the concept of chapter 8 in the book Outliers, is similar to her job, but it is not as hard as farming rice patties. In the chapter it talks about rice patties and how much work the farmers have to put in, in order to get a good amount of rice when it comes time to collect it. Rice patty farmers work 360 days of the year, and only get 5 days off, but it is similar to Elise's work, because at the Jelly Belly company they have to work long hour and have to trial and error for many of their flavors that they make.

Blog #6: ASA Flight Crew 5202

For this blog I chose to write about, ASA Flight crew 5202. It all started, on February 12, 2009, Rachelle Jones, Stephanie Grant, Diana Galloway, and Robin Rogers became the first all female African-American flight crew. The flight crews are chosen at random, but never in history was a crew made up exclusively of African-American women. Each woman took a unique path to a career in aviation, Grant was originally in the military, Jones worked at a ticket gate, and Rogers ran a daycare center.  Grant loves the sense of purpose she gets from flying, "each flight is like a mission" and "at the end, you've helped someone". One day, Rogers met an African-American male flight attendant, she didn't even realize it was a profession she could enter. Jones was one of only 10 African-Americanfemale flight captains in the country. Galloway hopes to show her granddaughter, "you don't have to be a maid in the hotel, you can run that hotel." Many people still consider aviation a male-dominated, white-dominated industry, but Flight crew 5202 feel proud they've set an example for young black women, and children.

The concepts of this article, are similar to the concepts in chapter 7 in the book Outliers. In the chapter it talks about flight captains and copilot who are to afraid of speaking up to their superior bosses and because of their fear, and them sugar coating what they were trying to point out they killed  many people including themselves. This article is similar, yet different at the same time, because they all are pilots but the difference is the women do communicate, unlike the people in the chapter.

Blog #5: Jerad Kent

For this blog I chose Jerad Kent. Jerad grew up hearing stories about the military from his uncle and grandfather, the stories made him want to join. After high school, Jerad went to college for a year, and then he realized that he'd rather join the military. Jerad joined the Marines, as a reservist.  Jerad was soon promoted to corporal, and then sergeant.  Jerad said, "My unit struggled financially, so we never deployed overseas, it was both a blessing and a letdown. While serving Jerad went to college and obtained his associates degree. After Jerad's service ended, he went back to school and got his bachelor's degree. Jerad now works for the Westminster Police Department, focusing on suppressing gang activity. 

Jerad's story relates to the concepts in   chapter 5 of the book Outliers in a way, because he join the police department to stop crime. Chapter 5 talks about all of the Feud crime that happened in Kentucky. The feud's were between families that got in arguments not only in Harlan, Kentucky but all over the state of Kentucky. The concept that I feel is being applied to Jerad, is that he want to help stop feud crimes. Gladwell talks about how he knows the generation, might be skeptical about him and says, "we want to believe we are not prisoners of our ethnic histories"

Blog #4: Charline Wright-Gipson

The person I chose for this blog is Charline Wright-Gipson. Charline  was born in Kingston, Jamaica and moved to Toronto when she was 11. One winter Charline told her mother, "I'm leaving this country as soon as I can support myself." Charline started to apply into colleges, she got accepted into Cornell University.  Charline's  parents didn't know it was a good school and wanted her to stay in Toronto. Her family staged an "intervention" but Charline took a stand and said to her family, "None of you can tell me how to live because none of you have the life I want." Charline set a strict plan, go to college, go to law school, work for the top law firm, live in this city, make money. Charline achieved all of her goals and realized she was unfulfilled. Charline moved away from the craziness of New York, and took a less demanding job in New Orleans.

Charline's story relates to chapter 5 in the book Outliers, because Gladwell introduces Joe Flom a Jewish lawyer. Flom, grew up in a Jewish family during the great depression, did good in school, and eventually attended Harvard Law School without getting a college degree. Flom was kindly rejected from the Big New York Law Firm's during "hiring season" for being Jewish. Flom's proffesor tells him about other Jewish lawyers who were going through the same thing, and were going to open their own Law Firm. Flom and his now buisness partners started handling legal filing and taxes for big corporations. Between 1970 and 1980 there was a massive boom in the number of mergers and acquisitions and were worth a lot of money.  Flom's Law firm was the only one who had the experience and knew how to do it since they had done it for a long time. That's when the Big New York Law firm's wanted to hire Flom. I feel that the same thing happened with Charline, because she ended up moving to New Orleans and getting a less stressful job. 

Blog #3: Zio Perez

The person I chose, that related to the chapter was Zio Perez. Growing up Zio went to schools that were among the worst in the nation. Zio was raised by a single mother who immigrated from Guatemala and didn't speak much English, and spent her teenage years doing things she shouldn't have been doing, and getting away with them because her mother worked full-time. When Zio finally decided to start getting involved and joined as many clubs as she could, one of which was the Future Teachers. One of the club advisors saw something in her, introduced her to the Golden Apple Foundation and became one of their Scholars, started on her path to teaching. Zio says that although she has a master's degrees and multiple awards, as a preschool teacher, she still has issues being taken seriously. Zio is currently Co-founder of SwaziKids International, which provides school supplies to students in Swaziland.


Chapter four in the book Outliers applies the same concept because as Chris Langan, Zio Perez had a rough childhood. There stories may be different, but similar at the same time. Chris grew up very poor, his father was an alcoholic and for the most part absent. He was a highly gifted student, and ended up going on full scholarship to Reed University. Until his mother messed up on his financial aid, and had to dropout. Zio had a similar childhood, she grew up without a dad, her mother worked full-time, and did whatever she wanted. Zio did bad in school, until one day she decided to join a club, that changed her life. The concept was almost identical, but with a twist. Just like Chris, Zio did not "discover" her capabilities until later in life.

Blog #2: Michael Dell

Michael Dell, is the CEO of the famous Dell computer company. Michael grew up in Texas, and came from a family of doctors. Michael was determined to study medicine as most of his family. Michael attended the University of Texas and originally enrolled as a biology major. Michael quickly realized that his interests was not medicine and started building computers for his friends in the dorm. Micheal's parents never pressured him to become a doctor, but they weren't okay with him dropping out of college either So, he dropped out without telling them and started his own computer business. Micheal sold computers directly to customers and soon became one of the biggest corporations in America.

Michael Dell's story is similar to chapter 3 in the book Outliers as it talks about prodigies and IQ's. The author talks about the professor at Stanford University named Lewis Terman, who was interested in intelligence testing, and became invested in the idea of seeking out young geniuses and tracking their lives, careers, and achievements. The children who did not meet his requirement,were not kept an eye on since he only wanted to study the "Geniuses". Some of the children who were not "Geniuses" became important people and some of the "Geniuses" did not become someone important. The "Geniuses" were known as the Termites. I saw this concept being applied to Michael, when he tried to drop out of college and his parents did not approve. Chapter 3, is similar to Michael, because the chapter talked about how the Termites were expected to grow up and become someone important because of their IQ and Michael had to study a career, even if it was not Medicine. At the end everything ended up turning out good for him. He became the CEO of Dell and supplies schools around the world with his product. 

Dr. Jennifer Arnold

Blog #1: Jennifer Arnold

The name of the person that I decided to choose for this blog is, Dr. Jennifer Arnold. I decided to choose Jennifer, because her story is not like anyone else's. Jennifer is a little person, and despite what everyone told her and said about her she followed her dreams of 

becoming a Pediatrician. Jennifer worked hard to get accepted into medical school. Jennifer is not just a Pediatrician, she is a also a reality TV Star in the TV show "The Little Couple" on TLC. What Jennifer was successful at was not giving up and following her dream, she did not let her health situation stop her. The steps she took to get to where she is today, were to keep going and see what the future had in store for her, while following her dream of becoming a doctor. 

Jennifer's story is similar to chapter 2 in the book Outliers because just like Bill Gates was lucky to grow up in Seattle, and live right across from The University where he could access the computer lab 24/7, she was lucky to be accepted into Medical School as she quoted in the video. This concept of the 10,000 hours was applied because she did not just get accepted into Medical School, and become a Pediatrician out of no where. Jennifer had to study and practice Medicine, before even thinking of saying she was a doctor.