Rating: 
Summary: Trying too hard to glamourize boring character
Review: This book is a product of its time; a time when the most boring people could be considered the coolest people in the world, a time when technological prowess was considered above everything. The main character can be considered a poster boy for the time, throwing money around in a new yatch and coming up with random ideas that everyone thought would change the world (like Healtheon). The author is a very good storyteller, and he does manage to give the reader a good insight into Silicon Valley culture, so if you are really interested in it, this is a book for you. If you are just looking for a good story, "Liar's Poker", by the same author, is a much more entertaining story.
Rating: 
Summary: An Interesting Perspective
Review: The Biography of Jim Clark, a Silicon Valley multimillionaire, who dropped out of high school when he was Seventeen. The book went through his life up until present day. It tells the story of a person who from the beginning was always a little different. In grade school he was the class clown, in the navy he was an underestimated genus and in the high tech world he was creative mastermind. His ideas lead him to start Silicon Graphics, Netscape and Healtheon.
This story was very moving to me because of the incredible path which he took to reach his success. It was very interesting because not only was Jim Clark able to start more than one company which achieved incredible success within the high tech stock markets but he was able to do it completely on his own steam. He never asked anyone for help yet he would offer a helping hand.
Rating:
Summary: Greed
Review: You see the "new economy" or that "dot com bubble" blow up and pop in this book. Greed driven by innovation or innovation driven by greed. You take you pick. This book made me sick not because it was a bad book but it was good view of bad intentions. In this book I saw rich white guys sulking in there exotic sports cars over why they don't have more money than Larry Ellison. It shows educated people loose there integrity at the drop of a stock option. A sickening view of smart people with all the means in the world who want to do less for the world.
Rating: 
Summary: Imformative reading!
Review: Lewis is very effective in his effort to chronicle a part of Jim Clark's life wherein he was able to change the technology industry not once, but several times. According to Lewis, Clark's key ingredient to sucess was his ability to know what potential consumers wanted before the consumer knew he or she wanted. Extremely insightful reading.
Rating:
Summary: Even more interesting after the tech bubble burst
Review: When this book was written, Silicon Valley was the center of the universe, the tech company were the princes and venture capitalists were kings. And at the top of the pyramid was Jim Clark. Other reviews will tell you the story told by the New New Thing. What I find most fascinating is reading this from a post tech bubble burst time frame. Jim Clark built his career being the right man in the right place at the right time. It is because of him that much of the outrageous stock prices for companies that have no product or profit came to be. At the time, the view was "so what if the company has no real product or profits, it's going to be the new new thing so let's invest." Now so many of these companies lie in ruin - either gobbled up or found wanting for more cash after the market constricted. We can finally stand back and look at where we were in in the last few years. It can be seen as a cautionary tale, for at the heart, the book shows the emperor had no clothes. Just a lot of brass balls, a good story and people willing to jump on board. When this book came out, it was relevant for the technology business world we lived in. Now it is even more relevant to see how we got to where we were, even if we still can't fully explain why. A cautionary tale that all new economists should take to heart.
Rating:
Summary: Let's Put Some Lipstick On This Pig
Review: The majority of the reviews on this board have apparently overlooked the real reason this is a good book. This is not a good book because it was well written; it was not. There is a plethora of filler material focused on Clark's silly rich boy adventures. Lewis probably thought this filler necessary as an allegory. The result, however, is a clunky narrative. The reader can and should skip whole chapters. Some may think this book is good because it appears to tell the story of a Silicon Valley guru with an uncanny vision of the future. Clark is neither the guru nor the visionary the fawning author of this book would have you believe. Clark is nothing more then a brutish, nuevo riché hick whose so-called visionary ideas were nothing short of obvious. The problem is that many people bought into the silliness and the result was best described by Alan Greenspan as "irrational exuberance." The book is an unintended exposé of an egomaniacal personality that managed to con a lot of people out of their money by use of the oldest financial sucker scheme in history -the pyramid. Clark manages to do it not once but twice with Netscape and Healtheon. The book offers the reader some insight to the parasitic dynamic of the latter nineties' internet "boom" involving smoke and mirrors tech companies with no model or hope for cash flow, questionable venture capitalist and investment banker dealings, out-of-touch Wall Street financial managers, and individual investors so greedy that common sense investing was left for dead. I will concede that Clark's original geometric chip design and the concentrated talent of engineers he hired at Silicon Graphics in the early to mid-eighties was something to be proud of. However, that is where the story of someone who produced something ends. Throughout the book Clark is somehow extolled as the defender of the proletariat, the man who concerns himself first with the common hard working stiff, a man cheated out of the ownership of the company he started. Clark is no hero, nor is he a victim. We are supposed to believe that he is a mathematical, techno visionary that somehow can't understand the basic concept that a business can only survive if it is profitable. If the business is in trouble then you must borrow money to keep it afloat. Borrowed money comes at a price, a price Clark was unwilling to accept only after it was too late. He is the drug addict complaining that the loan shark ripped him off. Clark's disdain for business professionals is comical because by the early nineties he morphed into a character that represents everything he supposedly hates. Jim Clark is nothing more than a megalomaniac who, along with his cronies, created virtual pyramid schemes and sold them to the masses as the future. While I have no sympathy for the suckers, including and especially Time Warner, who bought into these money-losing schemes I do think it is important to get the message of this book straight. Jim Clark is a clown at best and a huckster at worst. He is far from a Silicon Valley hero, let alone a great business success story. This book is important because it highlights everything that was wrong with business in the nineties. There is a reason Graham and Dodd (which Lewis more then once eschews as outdated business principles) schooled investors are the richest and most respected in the world of business. It is because understanding of the importance of good management, solid business fundamentals, and cash flow count. Concepts with which Clark is wholly unfamiliar. Present value calculations must be substantive and not imagined like the pie in the sky Silicon silliness of the nineties. Every business student should have to read this book and understand this very important lesson.
Rating:
Summary: The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story
Review: THE NEW NEW THING does for Silicon Valley what LIAR'S POKER did for Wall Street in the 80s. In the weird glow of the dying millenium, Michael Lewis sets out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world's most important technology entrepreneur, the true representative of the coming age. All roads lead to Jim Clark, the man who created his third billion-dollar company: first Silicon Graphics, then Netscape--which launched the Information Age--and now Healtheon, a startup that may turn the 1.5 trillion health-care industry on its head. Despite the variety of his achievements Clark thinks of himself mainly as the creator of Hyperion, the world's largest single mast vessel, a machine more complex than a 747. Whatever the next new new thing after Healtheon turns out to be, Michael Lewis is invited to be a fly on the wall aboard Healtheon as the shape of the future in revealed.
Rating:
Summary: Good... I think?!
Review: The New New Thing, a book by Michael Lewis about Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Healtheon and all around MEGA business mogul, was a good quick read. But I have to say that although I found the book humorous, and at some points interesting, it didn't do much for me. I was disappointed with the lack of focus the book had on the main subject, Jim Clark. Sometimes Mr. Lewis talked about Jim, other times it focused on some history or bio of an engineer, captain, CEO, CFO, ship mate, computer programmer, and many more. At some points, Mr. Lewis would dedicate several pages to people who, I found to be, truly insignificant to the story. This was a bit distracting and frustrating. It also made me go through periods when I wasn't sure if I was reading the book because I was enjoying it or because I just wanted to get it over with. All in all, I would recommend reading this book. It gives a good insight into the way the Internet operated a few years ago and the insane amounts of money that was sunk into the industry. The book is definitely no longer the 'New New Thing' but its worth a read.
Rating:
Summary: Superb Non-Fiction Story Telling
Review: Michael Lewis has an amazing talent writing non-fiction as engrossing and funny literature. The New New Thing tells the story of Jim Clark (a founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Healtheon, and myCFO.com) "groping" for the next new thing. It is a sort of biography of Jim focused in the 1990s. Readers will gain a sense of the man and the environment of Silicon Valley in the 90s. Michael Lewis appears to have spent a lot of time with Jim Clark in preparing this work so many of the stories are first hand and very observant. A main theme that runs throughout the book is a contrasting of the new with the old: American facination with newness vs European comfort with the old; new computer professions vs traditional boat building; and new stock valuation technique vs old valuation methodology. The only improvements I would have liked would be an index and photos (I read the paperback version). I highly recommend it for those interested in Jim Clark, entrepreneur tales, Silicon Valley, Michael Lewis' other works or non-fiction story telling in general.
Rating:
Summary: Engaging Jim Clark Biography
Review: This book gives you a lot of interesting information about the startup world in Silicon Valley. It's Jim Clark's adventures starting with Silicon Graphics then Netscape, Healtheon, myCFO and his obsession about building a fully computer controlled boat. The author has been spending time with Jim Clark all this time and he has the juicy insider information about his dealings with his business partners, venture capitalists and even his programmers. The part where Clark is taking Healtheon public is one of the most exciting parts of the book. The morning of the IPO where all employees go to work early and watch CNBC and within minutes they become millionaires. What a rush....
I would recommend this book to especially technology entrepreneurs but in general anybody with an interest in Silicon Valley world would get a kick out if it.
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