What world awaits Gen Z? | Malcolm Gladwell x Brain Bar

What's more important? To enhance the performance of your best players or to strengthen the weakest links in the team? Six-time New York Times bestselling author, writer of Tipping Point, Outliers and Talking to Strangers Malcolm Gladwell explains why we should turn to football if we want to build a fair future for all.

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[astrid..]

Billionaires not only misunderstand the nature of the world we're living in [at present], but also overestimate the importance they themselves have actually played in creating what's truly good and worthwhile within it.

[antonraumos]

I'm a musician that plays in an orchestra have always been aware of always strengthening and helping the weakest link.

[adamfarkas]

My suspicion is that billionaires don't care about making education and the world as a whole better. Instead, they care about an entire school at Harvard, Yale or Oxford being named after them.

[kevinolsen]

I work at a mid-sized university. When confronted with inadequate budgets and limited resources, we console ourselves by saying "anyone can do research at Harvard."

[quadrob]

Everyone should do themselves a favour and take the time to listen to this entire talk. Thanks to Brain Bar Staff and Crew.

[shinannagans]

Malcom is so easy to listen to, he's great at making his point understandable. 👌

[rogsolaris]

And this is why Malcolm Gladwell gets the big bucks. He is always so interesting, picking out narratives and patterns that are otherwise never seen. We don't know what we don't know. Hearing him speak actually feels like the superficial world we all usually occupy runs on total stupidity most of the time.

[MonkeyAndChicken]

I love the cut to the applauding crowd and all of their faces are sour because someone just told them they aren't actually Brilliant Captains of Industry.

[julioreija]

1:01

That is exactly, I think, one of the pillars of democracies: the idea that improving society means improving the situation of the people who experience the most hardships in it…

[adrielomalley]

I'm loving the intellect of Malcolm Gladwell.

[TheVafa]

The most important lesson in this lesson is to strengthen the weak link. Unfortunately our habit of thought is to compete, so the strong links tend to kill the weak links by trying to dominate. So culture has to shift to a new paradigm, citizens must learn value of cooperation, in this way strong links help the weak links to improve and universities like Harvard will invest in other universities helping them to strengthen. All this need a humble attitude of learning.

[Superdisco]

Brilliantly articulated. Although if we didn't already know this we wouldn't have sayings like "a rising tide lifts all boats" and "a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link". Virtually all human problems go back to the beginning in one way or another. Perhaps the wisest saying of all "same shit, different day".

[howardhill]

NBA basketball teams today have also shifted to having a higher quantity of versatile roleplayers, rather than having more than 1 or 2 stars. This is because it is so easy to get injured in today's game & a star's salary takes up a large proportion of the salary cap. So you have to build depth into your team to last out a full 84 game season and contend in the playoffs which could be another 16 to 28 games.

[marilynmuckerman]

Excellent talk with great analogies for concepts.

[annemaria]

A great speech, spoken by a great man, who can actually speak for a publuc without humming or stottering. With a fine voice, good to listen to.

[BenDavis]

Does anyone else notice a big disjunct between the apparent thread and directive reasoning of the strong- Vs weak- link society and the conclusions being inferred and talked about in the Q&A section, where three times it is stated that we need to redistribute wealth, power and education "to the middle", or to the middle class? Malcolm's point about curing malaria is bang-on, and is the correct inference, it seems to me, but where and how do the arguments lead to focussing on the middle of the bell curve rather than the bottom? I thought this was very clear. Ultimately what this room ends up doing is nodding along and pointing the finger at billionaires, all agreeing that more money should be given to them, the already relatively very wealthy middle class. The theory actually supports the need for a devolved democratic process that gives agency and power to the working class.

[ChrisSmith-uxxj]

Maybe people will “get it” through the sports analogy! Thanks for the usual Gladwell way of explaining things.

[leannesampson]

Brilliant presentation/lecture.. Malcolm Gladwell has a wonderful way of simplifying and clarifying complexed phenomenon.

L❤VE Malcolm's sneakers!!

[michaelmadcat]

He talks about sports quite a bit here and one thing that popped in my mind when he mentioned oligarchs choosing star players to play in the Premiere League was the movie Moneyball which focused on baseball and showed that statistics, not star players, were a better thing to focus on when trying to build a winning team.

[brendansullivan]

They should be called the janitor generation since their role will be to clean up all the shit from the previous ones.