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  • >>Malcom Gladwell: It's a real pleasure to be here. I was -- I'm acutely conscious to

  • the fact as I listened both to our previous speaker and also the ones before that everyone

  • has been speaking about very consequential and high-minded things this morning, and I'm

  • not going to do that at all. In fact, I intend to give what I am sure will be the most solipsistic

  • talk ever at a Google Zeitgeist. I simply want to talk about why on earth I

  • decided to say yes and come here. Here's the situation. I'm a writer. Part of

  • what I do to make my living is I go and give speeches at conferences like this. And I get

  • paid, right, as one would, and it's that money that I use to make my living.

  • So how much is Google paying me for this? Zero. It is a company with, what, $50 billion

  • in the bank, and they don't have a dime for poor little old Malcolm.

  • Now, we could talk at length about what this says about Google, but that's not what interests

  • me. What interests me is what that says about me. Why on earth would I say yes under such

  • a circumstance? Why -- you know, I'm busy. My time is really valuable. Why did I fly

  • all the way out here, across the country, to give away my intellectual property for

  • free? In fact, it wasn't even free. I had to print out my speech this morning in the

  • business center. And -- this is the bill -- it cost me $9.87. It is costing me to be here.

  • [ Laughter ] >>Malcom Gladwell: Now, you can say that I

  • came here because there is all kinds of interesting people here, which is true. I don't mean to

  • cast any aspersions on any of you, but my life is lousy with interesting people. I got

  • more interesting people than I know what to -- So you could say maybe I should have come

  • here -- I should come here because I can make contacts that will help me, you know, in the

  • business world. I'm not in the business world. I don't need to meet a V.C. I work out of

  • my apartment. If I want to renovate my kitchen, I will just go to the bank for a loan. There's

  • no -- it doesn't make any sense, in other words, for me to be here.

  • So why did I say yes? Well, the answer is that this conference is run by Google, one

  • of the most prestigious and successful companies in the world. I would not have agreed to speak

  • for free at a Yahoo! conference, would I? [ Laughter ]

  • >>Malcom Gladwell: In other words, my decision to do something that is not in my best interest

  • was caused by my association with an elite institution. And this is what I want to talk

  • about today. It is an argument that I make in my new book, "David and Goliath," which

  • in further proof of how baffling my decision was to come here is not available for sale

  • at this conference. [ Laughter ]

  • >>Malcom Gladwell: I like to call this problem elite institution cognitive disorder, or EICD.

  • And it is simply that elite institutions screw us up in all kinds of ways that we're not

  • always conscious of. And since the theme of this morning's session

  • is "Imagine a Better World," I want to try and imagine what the world would look like

  • if we freed ourself of the scourge of EICD. So I am going to give you a couple of examples

  • of EICD in action. Let me start with the very thorny question of science and math education

  • in this country. STEM as we call it. We have a problem in turning out enough science

  • and math graduates, right, in this country. And it is not for lack of interest, by the

  • way, among high school seniors. Lots and lots and lots of high school seniors want to get

  • science and math degrees, but approximately half of them drop out by the end of their

  • second year. So we have a persistence problem in science and math education in this country.

  • So the question is why? Why do so many kids drop out? Well, the obvious answer is that

  • science and math are really hard and you need to have a certain level of cognitive ability

  • to master those subjects and we don't have enough smart kids, right?

  • So if that's true, if science and math education is a function of -- we should be able to see

  • in the statistics that persistence is a function of your cognitive ability. So let's take a

  • look. By the way, this is the first time in my life

  • I have ever used PowerPoint. This is like a fantastic moment for me. I feel like I have

  • finally joined the 20th century. It is really kind of amazing.

  • Oh, wow. Okay. So this is -- I've just chosen Hartwick

  • College as a proxy for American colleges for totally random colleges. Hartwick is a small

  • liberal arts college in upstate New York. What we have a distribution of math S.A.T.

  • scores by -- among the people who are intending to major in science and math.

  • What you can see is that there is quite a wide range of native math ability among the

  • kids entering the freshmen STEM programs at Hartwick, right? So what do we see when we

  • look at the -- who ends up graduating with a STEM degree? What we see is that at Hartwick

  • College, the kids in the top third, the top third S.A.T. scores, end up getting well over

  • half of the STEM degrees and the kids with the bottom scores end up getting very few

  • of the STEM degrees. Those kids over there are dropping out like

  • flies. This would seem to suggest that our original hypothesis that persistence is a

  • function of cognitive ability is true. And this would also -- we can also go further.

  • We can say if this hypothesis is true, as we go to more and more selective institutions,

  • we should see a very different pattern of persistence. We should see less kids dropping

  • out because the kids are all smarter, right? So let's go to Harvard. These numbers are

  • a few years old. But at Harvard, you can see that the bottom third of math S.A.T. scores

  • among kids doing science and math are equal to the top third at Hartwick. The dumb students

  • at Harvard are as smart as the smart students at Hartwick. So you would think everybody

  • at Harvard should be getting a math and science degree, right? Why would they drop out? Everyone

  • is so smart. What do we see?

  • Oh, dear. What we see is the exact same pattern at Harvard

  • that we saw at Hartwick. The smart kids -- the top kids are getting all the degrees. The

  • kids at the bottom aren't getting any degrees. They are dropping out like flies, right? Even

  • though these kids are brilliant. Right? So what's happening? Well, clearly what we're

  • seeing here is that persistence in science and math is not simply a function of your

  • cognitive ability. It's a function of your relative standing in your class. It is a function

  • of your class rank, right? Those kids who are really, really brilliant

  • don't get their math degree not because -- not as a function of their IQ but as a function

  • of where they are in their class. And, by the way, if you look at any college

  • you want, you will always see, regardless of the level of cognitive ability among the

  • students, you will always see the same pattern. The kids who get the science and math degrees

  • are the ones in the top of their class. And the kids in the bottom of their class never

  • do. Look over at that bottom third -- the bottom third chart over there.

  • So the name given for this phenomenon amongst psychologists is relative deprivation theory.

  • And it describes this exceedingly robust phenomenon which says that as human beings we do not

  • form our self-assessments based on our standing in the world. We form our self-assessments

  • based on our standing in the -- in our immediate circle, on those in the same boat as ourselves,

  • right? So a classic example of relative deprivation

  • theory is which kind of country -- which countries have the highest suicide rates? Happy countries

  • or unhappy countries? And the answer is happy countries.

  • If you are morbidly depressed in a country where everyone else is really unhappy, you

  • don't feel that unhappy. [ Laughter ]

  • >>Malcom Gladwell: Right? You are not comparing yourself to the universe -- the whole universe

  • of people out there. No. You are comparing yourself to your neighbors and the kids at

  • school and they are unhappy, too, so you are sort of fine.

  • But if you are morbidly depressed in a country where everyone is jumping up and down for

  • joy, you are really depressed, right? That is a very, very, very profoundly serious place

  • to be and so as a result, you get that sad outcome more often.

  • So what's happening at Harvard then? The kid in the bottom third of his class at Harvard

  • does not say rationally: I'm in the 99.99th percentile of all students in the world when

  • it comes to native math ability, even though that's true.

  • What that kid says is: That kid over there, Johnny over there, is getting all the answers

  • right and I'm not. I feel like I'm really stupid and I can't handle math so I will drop

  • out, get a fine arts degree, move to Brooklyn, work, make $15,000 a year and break my parents'

  • heart, right? [ Laughter ]

  • >>Malcom Gladwell: So what is the implication of this? The implication of this is that if

  • you want to get a science and math degree, don't go to Harvard, right? In fact, we can

  • run the numbers on this. Mitchell Chang at UCLA recently did the numbers and he says

  • as a rule of thumb, your odds of graduating -- successfully getting a science and math

  • degree fall by two percentage points for every ten-point increase in the average S.A.T. score

  • of your peers. So if you are a kid and you have a choice

  • between -- if you get into Harvard and University of Maryland is your safety, University of

  • Maryland has 150 -- on average S.A.T. scores are 150 points lower at Maryland. That means

  • your chance of graduating with a STEM degree from Maryland is 30% higher than it would

  • be at Harvard. Right? Now -- so if you choose to go to Harvard and

  • not Maryland, you are taking an enormous gamble. You are essentially saying this STEM degree

  • -- by the way, the most valuable commodity any college graduate could have in today's

  • economy, I am going to take a 30% gamble in my chances of getting that degree just so

  • I can put Harvard on my resume'. Is that worth it? I don't think so. Right?

  • But how many kids given a choice between Harvard and Maryland choose Maryland? Not that many.

  • Why? EICD. Now, why does EICD persist if it is so plainly

  • irrational? Well, I think it is because as human beings, we dramatically underestimate

  • the costs of being at the bottom of a hierarchy. Let me give you another really remarkable

  • example of this. This is from a paper that was -- just came out from a guy named -- two

  • economists John Connelly and Allie Sundy -- Allie Under, rather. They looked at graduates of

  • Ph.D. programs, economics Ph.D. programs at American universities.

  • And what they were interested in was what is the publication record of these graduates

  • in the six years after they took an academic position? So as you know, the principal way

  • by which we evaluate economists is how often and how well do they publish. So what these

  • guys did is they did a little algorithm, took the top economics journals, and rated them

  • according to their level of prestige, and came up with a number of how many -- your

  • score after six years of graduation. So we get this chart here. What you can see,

  • first of all, look at the 99th percentile. So what this says is, the kids who are in

  • the 99th percentile of their Ph.D. program at Harvard, M.I.T., Yale, Princeton, Columbia,

  • Stanford, Chicago, the 99th percentile, that's what they publish. The Harvard students publish

  • 4.31 journal articles in their first six years after graduation. That's amazing. Right? Astounding

  • number. Same with M.I.T., 4.73. All the way down the

  • list. What we see here is that the best students

  • at the very best schools are extraordinary, and that comes as no surprise. You just saw

  • Larry Summers here. I don't know where he went. Larry Summers, that's Larry Summers,

  • right? Brilliant. Genius. We knew that. [ Laughter ]

  • >>Malcom Gladwell: Let's look at the 85th percentile. Now, the 85th percentile at these

  • schools, these are schools that might take two dozen Ph.D. students every year. So if

  • you're in the 85th percentile in the M.I.T. economics program, you're the fifth or sixth

  • best student in your class. That's really smart, okay?

  • The 85th percent student at M.I.T -- or at Harvard, let's do Harvard, publishes basically

  • one paper in their first six years versus 4.31 in the top student.

  • So the gap between one and five is enormous, right? It is 5X. Now, let's go down to the

  • 55th percentile at Harvard. So the 55th percentile at Harvard is the -- let's say, the 12th best

  • person at the greatest economics program in the world.

  • They could arguably say they are one of the 20-top Ph.D. economic students in the world,

  • right? Look what their publication rate, .07. Basically, they're not publishing at all.

  • By any standard by which we judge academic economists, these people are complete failures,

  • right? Now, I've picked lousy schools.

  • [ Laughter ] >>Malcom Gladwell: And I've started with Toronto,

  • which is where I went to school. So this is a little masochistic moment where I basically