Despite having written a book called blink the power of thinking without thinking i think one of the beauties of Malcolm Gladwells works is that he makes you think. His work uncovers truths hidden in strange data and as a marketer and a philosophy major, things that are strange and uncovering hidden truths are really something dear to my heart and what another reason why i like malcolmgladwell. His Academic Research and critical analysis and fascinating style provides astonishing and useful insights about our world and our place in it. His bestselling books travel avenues of science, reason and anecdote and include the Tipping Point, outliers, blink and how many people have read a Malcolm Gladwell book . Thats a lot of you. That explains why Malcolm Gladwell is the number one bestselling author in amazon on the business section and i think he ranks 19th overall in history on amazon. Com. [applause] so his new book which he is here to talk about is called david and goliath underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling giants. Philadelphia i think is an appropriate venue. To be talking about underdogs for many reasons but then rocky of course, a bigger underdog than he. This book, in this book Malcolm Gladwell challenges conventional notions of obstacles and apparent setbacks. Demonstrating the beauty and progress often arrives from what looks like suffering and adversity. His singular gift is animating the experiences of his subjects says david to coming in the seattle times. Gladwell has an uncanny ability to simple by without being simplistic, clinging to vivid striking pros in the service of storytelling. Ladies and gentlemen please welcome join me in welcoming Malcolm Gladwell. [applause] thank you. Its a real pleasure to be here. I think this is my third time at this library. Im on the middle of my book tour and it occurred to me when i was coming here that the first stop on my book tour was the 92nd street y in new york is the jewish y and then i went to la and i did an evening the synagogue on wilshire, that new fancy when and then i went to San Francisco and i did the jcc. Then i went to washington and i did the synagogue six and then nine. I think you cansee where im going with this. This explains why i managed to come tonight because its shabbat. Its the one night of the week that im free to talk to nonjewish audiences. Very glad that worked out. So im not going to talk about my book tonight. Or at least im not going to tell you a story from my book as i figure most of you are going to buy the book. So i thought i would talk about a story that is related very directly in one of the big themes of the book. And one of the big themes is why do people, why do underdogs fight. Why do people who are outgoing and outmanned and overmatched continue to keep on fighting against much largerand stronger opponents . What fuels that kind of resistance. And so i thought when i do is tell a story about someone who i think reflects on this question in a very important way. Its a story about a woman named al smith who was one of the most important figures in the Suffragette Movement in the early part of the 20th century. And shes interesting is if you look at miss right there is very little in her life that would suggest or portend to a life of radicalism. Shes the most unlikely radicalimaginable. And if we understand how she came to take up the position of radicalism i think we will get some insight into this crucial question of why it is that People Choose to battle giants. So alice smith actually has three names. Albert belmont is the name that she dies with. Out of vanderbilt is the name that she became famous with. Now the smith is the name she was born with. It was the daughter of a my prosperous businessman. She grew up in alabama and then her family moved to new york city. And she was even from a young age a piece of work. She was domineering. Dictatorial. Bossy. Bad tempered. Egomaniacal. She was picks fights, she even from the youngest age he was this little kind of fireplug with a face that a friend of hers trying to be nice said it resembled a dennys but i think actually to be more accurate it would say she looked like a lot like a pitbull. You had some sense, hes one of these indomitable people who walks into a room and take it over. So there she is in new york and she has had a distance for herself and she decided the only way shes going to make her mark on the world is if she has access to some kind of money. And so he doesnt have any herself so she cant take away from new york society and settled on a man named willie vander who was a charming, handsome playboy who just happened to be the grandson of the richest menin the world. Though she married him. And she bears him a daughter named greta and two sons and then she sets about on a course to become the greatest conspicuous consumer in the history of conspicuous consumption and like all of us who visited the last 15 years realize what an extraordinary compliment that is area the first thing she does is 500 acres on long island and instructs the greatest architects of the time to build or something in shingles overlooking the bay. Then she buys a block at the corner of 52nd and fifth. And builds a french style chcteau which costs in 18 90 3 million which is a couple of hundred Million Dollars todays money. And to give you a sense of what this chcteau was like im going to read to you an account of it from one of the many books that have been written about all vanderbilt real estate portfolio. All of which are exercising what might be called real estate pornography. So heres the description of her house. Everything was everywhere. Walls of red african marble, walls hung with blue silk brocade, with red velvet embroidered with leaves, flowers and butterflies enriched with crystal and precious stone, mahogany and brass, colored glass and bamboo, wainscoting of road would, ebony and ivory, polished have any and set wood and grecian oriental elizabethan english renaissance french and victorian touches. In crowded rooms bursting with bronze, stainedglass, marble andmosaic. Then she decides she wants. And not just any yacht the biggest yacht of all time. 285 feet which she christens the alpha. Then she decides she wants a country cottage area she does one in Newport Rhode island and i wont bother to go into a description except to say that the construction of this cottage requires for the construction of a russell harbor in newport big enough to handle the 500,000 cubic feet of white italian marble she was importing just for the facade. So now she has a country house, a city house and a country cottage, they got and her attention turns to her daughter consuelo and consuelo is this shy girl. Painfully shy has been raised in the strictest of fashions by her mother. She is required to speak only french to her parents. On friday nights she must recite a poem in german memory in front of her mother. She has to wear a corset at all times with one of those steel rod in the back. She if she made the slightest misstep in public she would be immediately ridiculed and corrected by her mother. And as consuelo enters adolescence, alpha get the idea that what she really wants to do is to marry her daughter off to some english aristocrat. This is not an original idea at that time. In this era of American Life was the fashion for the wealthy daughters of american robber barons to be married off to penurious sons of english aristocrat. In fact they had a name for the process, it was called cash for class. But consuelo somewhat typically decides to, that she only wants the very best for her daughter. And her eyes falls on Charles Richard john churchill. Otherwise known as sonny who was the ninth of marlboro, the lineal ancestor of interest i and the first cousin of Winston Churchill and the air to what palace and then as now one of the largest homes in the world. The main buildings of which encompass seven acres and made alves chcteau on the corner of 57th and fifth look like some kind of ranchstyle bungalow. Albert does her homework and discovers the palace is falling down and sonny churchill hasnt gotten the funds to fix it up and she realizes there is my opportunity. Theres two problems with this idea. The first is that sonny is not in fact sonny area she is perfectly miserable as the english would say to give you some sense of what she would like her second wife believe he can use to sleep with a revolver by her pillow in case her husband shouldcome to her in the middle of the night. The second problem with this idea is that consuelo is madly in love with someone else area young man named Winthrop Rutherford otherwise known as three, the psion of the fabulous new york family, a handsome dashing man who played happily, a fabulous dancer and on consuelos 18th birthday she gets a single rose in the mail no note attached and she knows its from wintry. And not long after that she goes for a bicycle ride with wintry and her mother. , of course is coming along as a chaperone and as they approach a quarter in theroad , entry and consuelo look at each other and speed up ahead and as they turned the corner on out of sight of how the, which returns to consuelo and proposes to her area and she says absolutely. And alpha of course realizes something is up and tries to catch up as fast as her little legs and carried her she looks at her daughter and she looks at wintry and she realizes what just happened. So she whisks her daughter away the next day to parents. And wintry sends letter after letter. Love letter to his beloved and in each one is intercepted by alpha and then wintry on the boat and goes to paris to try and meet her. Alva bars the door to wintry area and then alva takes consuelo to the college in newport. And locks are of like rapunzel in the castle and when she comes to try to see her once again he cant get there and finally consuelo has had enough and she marches up the thick marble staircase to her mothers grand bedroom to plead with parents holding shields and blazoned with the letter a. And she turns to her mother and she says you cant do this to me. Im in love with this man. I have a right to marry the man i choose. The mother turns to her in a kind of cold rage. Absolutely not. Youre going to be a statue. Do you know what that means . Consuelo simmers and doesnt say a word and looks at her mother with a kind of defiance and at that point alva just turns into rage. Because no one ever defies her. Shes Alpha Vanderbilt and she starts to scream at her daughter and calls wintry every name under the sun and she realizes whats the point, theres no way she can defy her mother. He has to give up on this man she loves. So on november 6, 1895 new york sees the grandest wedding in its history. The daughter of one of the richest men in the country marries one of the grandest aristocrats in all of england at st. Thomass church on fifth avenue. And alpha hired 80 decorators just to work on the Church Sanctuary and she marches up the aisle with her two young sons and one other side of her wearing this extraordinary blue satin dress with a border of russian sable and outside there are every reporter in the country is there taking photographs and the crowds are thronging, held back by Police Officers and the streets are lined with these grand carriages and alva stands at the front of the church proudly awaiting her daughter and she waits and she waits. First five minutes, then 10 minutes then15 minutes. And she doesnt show up because shes at home we came weeping inconsolably into the arms of her father. Finally she pulled herself together and all of the maids and attendance clean her up and she gets in the carriage and she goes to church and the priest the minister pronounces them man and wife and out immediately whisks her daughter and her soninlaw into a room behind the sanctuary and the cleanup is done. Sonny gets 1 million upfront guaranty of 100,000 a year for life. And gets into a carriage with his bride. And a drive off down fifth avenue and sonny turns to consuelo and says i think you should know that i dont love you. And i will never love you. Your responsibility is to fix up the castle and bury me an error. And standing on the steps of the church, is alva. There she is in and tear comes to her eye as she watches the carriage received down fifth avenue. Its the greatest moment of her life. A little girl from mobile alabama is now the mother of a duchess. It is the fulfillment of all herdreams. Or so she thinks. Because they are about to get alittle complicated. Now i said earlier i think of alva as an unlikely radical and i think you can see why. Its not typically the case that wealthy people with lots of homes and fancy clothes turn into radicals. It would be like one of the kardashian sisters joining occupy movement. A little unlikely i think we would all agree. So how do we account for this . What happens to outlook to cause this transformation . I think the best answer is to take a step back and think about in general about the question of why it is that People Choose to rebel against Authority Area this theres a number of answers to area one of the leading theories or many years has been a simple one. That People Choose to break the law or rebel against authority or disobey when the costs of disobedience are lower than the benefits. We weigh in our minds but its worth it. And if it makes more sense. To fight back and it does to succumb, we fight back. This is whats called deterrence theory. And it seems like common sense. Theres a famous example of the deterrence theory is in 1970 the police in montrcal went on strike for 19 hours and in that 19 hour tranny montrcal descended into bedlam. Because the cost of disobedience were zero. People started robbing banks and there weregunbattles in the street. This is canada that were talking about. I didnt even know he will have guns in canada. The problem with this idea is that there are all kinds of cases deterrence theory is not explaining our behavior. So a simple one would be looked at people whether its the decision people make about whether to pay their taxes, example of lawabiding behavior. Anyone in the developed world has to go through. There are huge differences from one country to the next in honest people are on tax day. If you go to greece or italy, the cheating on tax day is rampant. The size of the underground economy in those countries is enormous. Whereas if you come to a country like this, theres very little cheating on taxes. This is probably americans, we are more honest on taxday and anyone else in the world. So the question is if the deterrence theory works that would suggest that these were cheating on your taxes must be greater here than in greece or italy. The cost of breaking the law must be greater in this country if we are so well behaved on tax day. Is that the case . No its not. The penalties for cheating on your taxes are lower here than anybodyelse. Basically we dont have penalties. The irs if you dont pay your taxes and you may find out will tell you to pay them a small penalty and the rates are a fraction of what they are in other countries. If you cheat onyour taxes, you probably wont get caught. I dont mean for any of you to take that to heart but the fact is that tax day behavior in this country does not ally with the deterrence theory. Doesnt make any sense. Heres another example. If deterrence theory works then countries or jurisdictions that dramatically increase their penalties for taking the law must, should see a decline in crime. So lets look at the best example and that california area 20 years ago california enacted the most dramatic increase in the severity of criminal penalties that we have seen almost anywhere in the western world over the last hundred years. Three strikes, the three strikes law was an unbelievable increase in severity. So what happens to deterrence theory is correct crime should have plunged in california. Did it . It did then it also plunged at the same time in every other state in the union even those that didnt change their laws at all and in when in subsequent years as weve looked closer what weve discovered is no one can figure out what happened in california. Some people say the crime went down a little bit, some people say Nothing Happened and other people say crime is higher today than it would have been if they had passed that lawin california. Once again , theres legitimacy theory doesnt seem to explain why people do or dont behave or obey the law. So in response to these problems, a bunch of people have come forward and said the real issue is not that, its not the costs and benefits of breaking the law. Its really how the law, how laws are enacted. And a group of scholars led by comp tyler and said what really matters is whether people perceive the laws that they govern them to the legitimate. And by legitimate we need three things. One is that people will obey the law when they feel like they are treated withrespect. When they feel that if they speak up they will be heard. Do they have a right to speak up and will someone listen when they do . People will perceive a lot to be rigid legitimate when they feel like its their. Is there one law for me and one law for you or are weall being treated the same. And they also will obey a law when they feel like its consistent. Its going to change dramatically tomorrow . So in these examples, think back to the puzzle of why americans pay their taxes. We pay our taxes not because there are huge penalties, we pay because we believe the american system is legitimate so we grumble about it all the time but the truth is if you stand up and complain about your taxes will you be heard . Of course youll be heard. Theres an entire party in the political system devoted to hearing people grumble about theirtaxes. Is the tax system fair . Its not perfect but its pretty fair. There isnt a whole different set of rules for a certain kind of people except if you are a hedge fund activist the amount of unfairness in our system is a fraction of the unfairness in other systems around the world and is our system consistent . Yes it is. We dont make arbitrary changes from one year to the next. We make changes in our tax code after a lot ofdiscussion. We know whatshappening. Compare that to greece. Greece fails on all three counts. You cant speak up in that system. People are cutting special deals and it changes from one year to the next and treats one class different from another class. If our system looked like greece is we wouldnt pay our taxes