Ah, welcome to the world of "Gladwell Deconstruction" - It's a pretty well known meme on HN - Calling out just how badly Gladwell distorts everything he writes just to make an interesting story/theme.
He does it so well, though, that he's still one of my favorite writers.
And, much like Wikipedia has taught us to realize that anything written down could be something totally bogus thrown up by a vandal, and therefore we should challenge (and look for citations) for everything, everywhere - Gladwell has taught us that just because something sounds good - doesn't really mean it actually is accurate/truthy.
He does it so well, though, that he's still one of my favorite writers.
And, much like Wikipedia has taught us to realize that anything written down could be something totally bogus thrown up by a vandal, and therefore we should challenge (and look for citations) for everything, everywhere - Gladwell has taught us that just because something sounds good - doesn't really mean it actually is accurate/truthy.