The Tipping Point
How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
by Malcolm Gladwell · first published 2000
36% recommend56% neutral8% critical
Why HN recommends it
Accessible, stimulating look at how ideas, fads and even crime spread through society, with examples on marketing, broken windows and Dunbar's number. Suits startup founders and marketers wanting a pop-science overview.
Common criticism: Some find its theories oversimplified and not actionable
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell looks at why major changes in our society so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Ideas, behavior, messages, and products, he argues, often spread like outbreaks of infectious disease. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a few fare-beaters and graffiti artists fuel a subway crime wave, or a satisfied customer fill the empty tables of a new restaurant. These are social epidemics, and the moment when they take off, when they reach their critical mass, is the Tipping Point.". "Gladwell introduces us to the particul
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1. "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki 2. "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely 3. "The Search" by John Battelle 4. "Made to Stick" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath 5. "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell That should cover your trip. I've listened to all of them and really liked all of them. "Blink" by Gladwell is also good, but not as business related. I would love to hear any…
on “Ask YC: Road trip. Which audio books would you recommend?” ↗1) Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell (very interesting ideas) 2) Innovator's Dilemma (for understanding what can work well) 3) Inside Intuit (for a great business story) 4) Eric Sink on the Business of Software
on “Best Books For a Startup?” ↗Is it Gore-Tex maybe? I've read something like this in "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. This is a must-read.
on “Why Google Employees Quit” ↗I've read all of them (I think?) but The Tipping Point is still my favorite. Always thought it might be interesting to model the ideas in it using some sort of multi-agent system.
on “How to write a "Malcolm Gladwell Bestseller"” ↗The tipping point http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference...
on “Ask HN: What are the best books on startups?” ↗…optimize your ad campaign to target just the right people that will spread the word of your product the farthest. Yep. Gladwell talks about the marketing aspect of some of these ideas in this book The Tipping Point. Actually, despite being a "pop science" book, there's a lot of good stuff in The Tipping Point, in terms of providing good starting points to start exploring. Reading his book was one of the things…
on “[Opinion|Idea] Using the Social Graph as an Artifical Neural Network (ANN)” ↗AFAIK the quote on broken windows comes from Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point (great read BTW), referring to some city's (NY?) police force fight on small crimes, that ended up lowering rates for all kinds of crime.
on “Overcoming Momentum” ↗…foreseeable future. The standard of proof seems very low. I never fell for Tony Robbins-type pop psychology, but I loved books like "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini and "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. I thought I was getting useful, non-obvious, actionable information. I'm disappointed that the lessons from those books might be BS as well.
on “Is Ego-Depletion a Replicable Effect?” ↗…it has utility because of network effects, and because everybody is on it... but it sucks and is lame and isn't cool because, well, everyone is on it. 11. It's cool to hate on Gladwell, but read The Tipping Point if you haven't already. Then chase down some of the stuff by Watts, Barabasi, etc. on network science. Maybe even read Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers. There's a growing body of science…
on “Ask HN: Facebook alternative, are users willing to try something different?” ↗- Tipping point (creates a urgency feeling) - Built to last (tips and best practices) - Blink (helps not to waste ideas, shows how your first impressions/thoughts could be useful) - Phylosophy Books (Republic and…
on “Startup founders, what books did you find most helpful?” ↗…insights. Marketing 1. All Marketers are Liars by Seth Godin. I like this better than Purple Cow, Guerilla Marketer's Handbook, and The Big Red Fez. Most of those have fairly obvious stuff. 2. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell 3. Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore Technical 1. Building Scalable Websites by Cal Henderson 2. High Performance MySQL by Jeremy Zawodny 3. Pragmatic Programmer by...well,…
on “Startup founders, what books did you find most helpful?” ↗I'm trying to get some recommendations for books that might be helpful for a web startup. Personally, I have really found "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell and "Getting Real" by the 37signals folks to be really helpful. I've read lots of great articles via news.YC, and I'm hoping you can all recommend some good offline reading as well.
on “What books have you found to be helpful in starting your business?” ↗…essentially dead. The only way to market efficiently is to build compelling ideas directly into the product rather than saving the innovation for the advertising. In addition, I'd recommend reading "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a stimulating, accessible book that presents the fundamentals of how ideas spread through a populace. Pay close attention to the idea of stickiness and see what you can do…
on “IDEAS WANTED : How to create Buzz for new Start-up?” ↗…Time, A Pattern Language, Peopleware, Made to stick, Web Standards Solutions, Designing Interactions, The Pragmatic Programmer, The Mythical Man-Month, Oh, the Places You'll Go! Other good reads: Blink, Tipping Point, Long Tail, Freakonomics
on “Ask YC (and PG): What books do you have on your bookshelf? ” ↗You just realized you're being manipulated by marketing. It happens all the time. Read "The Tipping Point" by Gladwell. Among other very insightful things, it describes how these kind of techniques are used in marketing.
on “I Find This Type of Startup Advertising Very Distasteful” ↗