Malcolm Gladwell on EICD

He’s just a genius in our books. And Google Americas thought so too – they had brilliant author Malcolm Gladwell come in to give a talk at the Google Zeitgeist 2013 held in Arizona. And what did he talk about? He spoke about the reason he actually accepted his invite to speak – all for zero payment.

Gladwell’s major comment was on a theory he called EICD – or, Elite Institute Cognitive Disorder – something he said, we are all guilty of doing. His explanation linked this back to the SAT scores of various students attending colleges in North America to study Mathematics and Sciences – and ultimately how those attending top institutions (such as Harvard) tend to publish less in terms of research. Why? They’re confident enough that they are at such a renowned bastion of academics that they feel less need to publish their research.

So, what does this mean? According to Gladwell, it means that a student should never attend the best institution they get accepted into. But also that “humans underestimate the cost of being at the bottom of a hierarchy.”

Imagine a world without all of this, he says. Watch the video of his talk – it’s worth the 19 minutes.

Malcolm Gladwell at Zeitgeist Americas 2013