Malcolm Gladwell on the two kinds of creativity

Malcolm Gladwell gave a talk at Columbia recently on the different types of creativity - you can listen to it here. He claims that the standard prototype for creativity is the "natural" who acheives success early on in their career - he gives as examples Picasso, the inventors of Tylenol, Mozart and "The Eagles" (I'd add Einstein and Heisenberg as further examples). Gladwell argues that there is another type of creativity for people who acheive success (often great success) later on in their careers. His prototype for this type of creativity is Fleetwood Mac and Cezanne. Fleetwood Mac released 14 albums (which Gladwell describes as "terrible") before they produced one of the best selling albums in history. Likewise, Cezanne painted his most valuable paintings late in his career. The take away from this is that society is prone to praise those who acheive success early on but those who are slow starters are often never given the chance - Gladwell argues that Fleetwood Mac might not even make a single album in today's music business which is almost certainly true. On the other hand, it's not that easy to tell the difference between someone who is going to acheive success later on in life and someone who won't acheive it at all. Gladwell hopes that there is someway for society to make the cost of letting people have enough time to succeed low enough that they are given the chance. I kind of doubt it but I think / hope the people who will really have talent and believe in themselves will continue on.