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Over the 312 pages of the book Bounce, Syed corroborates the theory that is exposed at the beginning of the book: "It is the practice, not talent, what really matters"(Syed 17). Such theory confirms that of the other best-seller book:Outliers - The Story of Success, written by Malcolm Gladwell, a renowned journalist for The New Yorker and former science reporter of The Washington Post. Syed and Gladwell based their books on an experiment conducted in 1991 by Anders Ericsson, a psychologist at Florida State University. The investigation was conducted to find out the causes of outstanding talent. The study sampled three groups of young violinists of the Academy of Music in East Berlin. The first group comprised the outstanding students: the boys and girls expected to become international soloists. These were the kids who would normally be described as super-talented, the youngsters who were supposedly born with special musical genes. The second group of students was extremely good, but not as prominent as the top performers. These students, on the other hand, were expected to end up playing in the world's top orchestras, but not as soloists. Finally, the third group was integrated by the least able students: teenagers studying to become music teachers. .
Having ended the investigation, by the age of 20, the best violinists had practiced a total of ten thousand hours. The second group had practiced a total of eight thousand hours and the third group barely exceeded the four thousand hours. These statistics significantly affirm the belief that not a single soul is born being a genius. In order to reach excellence, top performers devote thousands of additional hours to the task of becoming the best they could be. As the old saying goes, "You must learn how to crawl before you can walk." Nonetheless, according to the article, "Is Genius Born or Can It Be Learned" from the health section of Time magazine, geniuses are products of both nature and nurture.