Time and Place

You may recall that we were having an online chin-wag about how Peter Eastgate, WSOP millionaire, is an example of what author Malcolm Gladwell defines as an ‘Outlier’. We looked at how The champ has benefited from application – he has been able to gain enough experience to achieve mastery – and now will look at how he has helped by his birth year – 1985.

On January 1, 1998, the first real money hand was dealt in an online poker room. Eastgate was just thirteen. As the Dane went through his adolescence, so did online poker. By the time Eastgate turned eighteen, revenues from the game were worth nearly $2.4 billion. People were taking notice. Mainstream newspapers started to provide weekly poker columns and TV started to cover live tournaments. The WSOP had had its first champion who had qualified via an online satellite. It was everywhere. It was particularly grabbing the attention of young, middle-class westerners.

1999 also saw the introduction of ASDL lines in Denmark. The national coverage now tops 97% of the population and broadband penetration is above 29 subscribers per 100 inhabitants. This is important. As Gladwell points out in ‘Outliers’, 14 people on the Forbes Magazine list of the 75 richest people in history are Americans born with a decade of each other. It is particularly impressive as the list includes queens and kings.

The Americans were born between 1831 and 1840. They came of age when industrial manufacturing was transforming the economy. Like Eastgate, they were in their twenties when the boom was happening and perfectly placed to take advantage. Like them, had Eastgate been born ten years sooner, or ten years later, he would not have been as well placed to take advantage of the circumstances. He needed the extraordinary opportunity of online poker.

All of this is a little self evident but it is worthy of consideration because it helps demystify success stories. Too many people believe they have not got the talent to achieve, but if you a scratch a little blow the surface of their story, you will find that almost every high achiever has had a massive a sense of application at a time of great opportunity. Although Eastgate is clearly a talented player, it is counter-productive to believe it is innate ability.