Ingvar Kamprad is the founder of IKEA. Kamprad came up with the idea to sell disassembled furniture in the 1950s, long before anyone had thought of doing anything like this. Because of this innovative idea, though, the other furniture retailers in Sweden started a boycott of IKEA that forced Kamprad to take the business to Poland, despite the fact that the country was under communist rule at a time when the world was starkly divided over such matters, with the Cold War reaching new heights and the Cuban Missile Crisis on the near horizon. Nevertheless, Kamprad was undeterred and ended up establishing an incredibly successful company. Gladwell uses Kamprad’s story to demonstrate how successful people often have beneficially “disagreeable” personalities—they don’t care what others might think of them and are willing to take unconventional steps toward realizing their goals.