Final answer:
Malcolm Gladwell suggests that Bill Joy's brilliance is largely due to the 10,000 hours of practice he devoted to his craft, emphasizing the importance of accumulated experience and opportunities over innate talent alone.
Step-by-step explanation:
Malcolm Gladwell attributes a significant part of Bill Joy's brilliance to the concept of the 10,000 hours of practice. In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell emphasizes the importance of extensive practice and the impact of accumulated experience on skill development. He discounts the notion of innate genius and instead underlines how crucial practice and opportunities are for anyone's success, including software engineers like Bill Joy.The idea is that the environment and early exposure to relevant experiences play a pivotal role in developing expertise. Gladwell also discusses the differences in parenting styles across economic backgrounds and how middle-class parents actively foster and access a child's talents compared to lower-income families. Furthermore, the range of reaction theory suggests that although genetic potential is fixed, the full realization of one's intellectual potential depends significantly on environmental stimulation, particularly during childhood.In conclusion, while a supportive family can indeed be beneficial, the main answer to the student's question according to Gladwell is that Joy's brilliance can largely be attributed to the extensive amount of practice he put into honing his skills in computer programming.