Stanford University professor Lewis Terman launched a major psychological study of gifted children in the 1920s. He found 1,470 California children whose IQs averaged more than 140. These “young geniuses” became known as “Termites,” because of the researcher’s surname. For the rest of his life – and theirs -- Professor Terman followed and studied these individuals. After they reached adulthood and got jobs, he divided them into groups he called A, B, and C, depending on the types of work they did and how successful they had become. Terman found that even the smartest people needed a supportive community around them, or a cultural legacy, in order to get the best jobs and to succeed in life. Their birth years also factored in to their chances for advancement.

Gladwell refers to the Terman study three times: in the chapters “The Trouble with Geniuses,” parts 1 and 2, and in “The Three Lessons of Joe Flom.”