Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is what happens when you let a charming, brilliant guy with a fantastic head of hair loose on academic journals. He manages to distill complex sociological and psychological concepts into highly digestible, narrative-driven non-fiction, making things like the 10,000-hour rule household knowledge.

While his ideas are often compelling, they've also drawn criticism from academics who argue he oversimplifies or misrepresents research for the sake of a good story. Still, you can't deny the man's impact; he's practically a one-man industry of thought-provoking anecdotes.

His mother, Joyce Gladwell, was a Jamaican-born psychotherapist and author whose own ancestors included Robert Foster, a free black Jamaican. On his father's side, Gladwell is of English descent. So, no direct reports of any menorah-lighting in the family tree, but if you squint hard enough at those intricate theories, you might just find a gefilte fish of an idea.