The Roseto Mystery

* Introduction: The Roseto Mystery
In Outliers, I want to do for our understanding of success what Stewart Wolf did for our understanding of health.
In his introduction, Gladwell presents us with both the intention of his book and a colorful description of a neighborhood in Pennsylvania that flourished in the early 20th century.
Made up entirely of immigrants from Roseto Valfortore in the Appennine foothills of the Italian province of Foggia, the subsequent Pennsylvania community of Roseto was its own “tiny self-sufficient world.” That a group of immigrants created a haven for themselves in the US is not particularly anomalous in of itself. What was interesting about the community, as discovered by a physician named Stewart Wolf in the…show more content…
Since they were banned from owning land in Europe, they were experienced city-dwellers with experience in occupational trades, including clothing. In Poland, Louis had worked with piece-good. In Hungary, his wife had been a dressmaker.

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The timing of their arrival in New York and the skills they came with couldn’t have been better. At the turn of the century, the garment industry in the US was booming. And furthermore, as Gladwell points out, being an entrepreneur in the garment industry was meaningful work because it was characterized by autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward.
Gladwell then illustrates the family trees of two Jewish immigrants who arrived at about the same time. In both trees, the trend is uniform. The children of the original immigrant starts a trade business that builds upon his father -- in these cases the second generation is made up of garment makers and bag manufacturers. Then the son’s children become educated professionals -- in these cases lawyers and doctors.
Drawing from these three stories and the premise that Jewish immigrants who came to New York at a certain time faced disadvantages that would ultimately prove to be advantages, Gladwell posits that there is an ideal date for big shot Jewish attorneys to be…show more content…
Captain Laureano Caviedes and first officer Mauricio Klotz were flying from Medellin, Colombia to New York City’s JFK. The weather was bad, the captain was tired, and the flight was held up by Air Traffic Control (ATC) three times, which added 77 minutes of flight time.
When the plane was finally cleared to land, the pilots were flying into a headwind, so they had to increase their power. Right before landing, the headwind dropped dramatically, and the plane was overshooting the runway. The autopilot wasn’t working that day so the pilot pulled up with the intention of circling around and trying the landing again. On the way back to the runway the engines died and the plane crashed, killing 158 people. It had run out of gas.
How the plane was able to crash because of low fuel, despite the fact that both the pilot and first officer could see the fuel gauge becomes clear upon investigation of the black box.
The transcript of their conversation during the initial landing, into heavy fog, is as follows:
Caviedes: The runway, where is it? I didn’t see it. I didn’t see