In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewis sets out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world's most important technology entrepreneur, the man who embodies the spirit of the coming age. He finds him in Jim Clark, who is about to create his third, separate, billion-dollar company: first Silicon Graphics, then Netscape—which launched the Information Age—and now Healtheon, a startup that may turn the $1 trillion healthcare industry on its head.
Despite the variety of his achievements, Clark thinks of himself mainly as the creator of Hyperion, which happens to be a sailboat—not just an ordinary yacht, but the world's largest single-mast vessel, a machine more complex than a 747. Clark claims he will be able to sail it via computer from his desk in San Francisco, and the new code may contain the seeds of his next billion-dollar coup.
On the wings of Lewis' celebrated storytelling, the listener takes the ride of a lifetime through this strange landscape of geeks and billionaires. We get the inside story of the battle between Netscape and Microsoft; we sit in the room as Clark tries to persuade the investment bankers that Healtheon IS the new Microsoft; we get queasy as Clark pits his boat against the rage of the North Atlantic in winter. And in every brilliant anecdote and character sketch, Lewis is drawing us a map of markets and free enterprise in the twenty-first century.
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"i bought this book a long time ago and never got around to reading it till this past week. i'm actually glad that i waited as the book now serves as a poignant reminder of good old days gone by..."The New New Thing" is a look at Silicon Valley in the 90's. Michael Lewis chose to profile Jim Clark as his paragon of the era, and a mighty wise choice he made. Clark is one of the biggest characters in a Valley of big characters. the story of Clark's rise from a hick from Plainview, Texas, through the Navy, then on to grad school and then Stanford where he "invented" 3D graphics, going on to found Silicon Graphics, then Netscape and then Healtheon is fascinating. i especially enjoyed the first half of the book dealing with the early days of SGI. i recognized the names of some of the people in the book as engineers i worked with while i was there, never knowing that they were actually co-founders of the company with Clark. all i knew was that the company had the best team of engineers i had ever seen. so sad that it all melted away.
Lewis, whose writing i have always enjoyed, interleaves the story of Clark's companies with the story of Clark's quest to build the world's biggest sailing vessel, the Hyperion, and to make the boat completely computer controlled. the anecdotes of the problems that the designers had in trying to automate a 200 foot boat are priceless.
the summary message is that Clark was focussed on doing the impossible and managed to drive people along with him. he was the perfect representative of the go-go 90's leading up the dotcom bubble. anything was possible, just don't ask too many questions about how we're gonna do it, cuz we don't know yet.
a great book for all techies."
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Ty (5 out of 5 stars)