Rating: 
Summary: A manifesto for tomorrow
Review: In Michael Lewis' bold new work, he takes the dot.com world and puts it under his sarcastic microscope. Quick and witty prose teaches us more about the ins and outs of Silicon Valley than any trade textbook or news article. A great read for one of the newly laid off techies out in the Valley or anybody who wants to see how things are actually "working" out there.
Rating: 
Summary: faithful portrait of obsession
Review: This book is a faithful portrait of the personal obsession that is behind so much business creation. Will you learn anything about business from reading it? No. If you want to understand Microsoft vs. Netscape and the venture capital world, read High Stakes, No Prisoners by Charles Ferguson (PhD in technology policy from MIT and founder of a company acquired by Microsoft). The only reason some people don't like this book is that it is categorized under Business when it should really be under Psychology.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not Great
Review: A bit disappointing compared to his other books. But very well-written with the usual great Lewis humor. Very well researched and interesting although the book really doesn't say much. Entertaining but no real insight. A disappoint for Lewis.
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Summary: I don't think so
Review: Jim Clark is god, and Michael Lewis is his prophet. I don't think so, but hey, I'm just a mathematically challenged european.The book gives a comprehensive insight to Jim Clark's achievements. I agree with the author, that this man really rocked the world of the 90s. The facts around this visionary makes the book worth reading. Unfortunately, I can't cope with the style, the book is written in. It's pure encomium of Jim Clark and total condemnation of everyone, who had even only a slightly different view of the world than him (or should I say, than the author?). Believe it or not, it even made me feel sorry for Microsoft on few occasions. Jim Lewis is definitely somebody with an ego even larger than the U.S. health care market. But then, read the book an judge on your own.
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Summary: At Least for Now....
Review: Michael Lewis makes a substantial contribution to our efforts to understand what is happening now in today's business world...and what is likely to occur next. His is "a Silicon Valley story." As such, it has the obligatory plot and characters as well as a number of themes which he carefully develops. The net result is both informative and entertaining. Exactly what is "the new new thing"? This moment's answer may be wrong by the time you finish reading this sentence. Really? Yes really. Especially in the Silicon Valley, the next "new new thing" is the 21st century's equivalent of the Holy Grail. The problem is, as Lewis carefully explains, it is often an illusion..and even when manifest, it can so quickly become obsolete. "Silicon Valley to the United States what the United States is to the rest of the world." What is that? Briefly, "the capital of innovation, of material prosperity, of a certain kind of energy, of certain kinds of freedom, and of transience." Wow! As I soon discovered when reading the first few chapters, Lewis has written a literary hybrid: it combines the dominant features of the picaresque novel (featuring a central character who seeks and experiences a series of adventures) with the sequential essay (separate but interdependent discussions of a common subject). Lewis' central character is called "the searcher": He who seeks the "new thing" conforms to no well-established idea of what people should do for a living gropes. Finding the new thing is as much a matter of timing as of technical or financial aptitude, though both of those qualities help." Lewis follows the searcher (indeed several) inorder to examine -- and understand -- a process which creates "fantastic wealth" in the Silicon Valley. The searcher is a "disruptive force" as he gropes his way along, constantly on the move...his mind much more quickly than his feet, preferring to live perpetually "with that sweet tingling discomfort of not quite knowing what what it is he wants to say. It is one of the little ironies of economic progress that, while it often results in greater levels of comfort, it depends on people who prefer not to get too comfortable." The searcher, for example. Are we to believe that people who grope their way through life, wandering through the Silicon Valley, are playing a major role (a wholly new role) in wealth creation? Exactly. (This is a mentality and a behavior which Guy Claxton discusses so well in Hair Brain Tortoise Mind.) The main character of this story "had a structure to his life. He might not care to acknowledge it, but it was there all the same. It was the structure of an old-fashioned adventure story. His mere presence on a scene inspired the question that propels every adventure story forward: What will happen next? I had no idea. And neither, really, did he." Throughout this book, as Lewis casually but precisely tells his "story", we are introduced to some of the most successful residents of the Silicon Valley. Jim Clark, for example, who proves to be the central character. For Lewis, Clark embodies "a vast paradigm shift in American culture" from conventional models and visions of success toward an entirely new way of thinking about the world and control of it. Central to Lewis' discussion of Clark is Clark's sailboat Hyperion, the world's tallest single-mast vessel. There seems to be a progressive pattern of symbiotic relationships: United States < > Silicon Valley < > the searcher < > Jim Clark < > Netscape < > Healtheon < > Hyperion < > ? Revealingly, in Lewis' Epilogue, we are told that Clark has already begun work on the design of a new sailboat. "Hyperion was nice, but this...this was the perfect boat." At least for now. What Lewis reveals is a restless mentality in constant search of the next "new new thing." His focal point may be Clark but, in my opinion, he is really examining a global economy in the 21st century which will continue to be driven by that mentality. There will always be a newer, better browser...a newer, better sailboat...a newer, better whatever. Men and women unknown to us now are "groping" to find them. And eventually they will...but will not then be satisfied
Rating:
Summary: A readable book..
Review: Is this book about Jim Clark and the companies he started or is it about Hyperion, the 50 million dollar boat he created ? In this book you get to know both, but more about the boat than the companies. Jim Clark is the legendary founder of Silicon Graphics and Netscape, two revolutionary companies, which were put out of business by Microsoft. Then he started Healtheon, a company to reform the US health care system, but in the process found its own health deteriorating. In India, one of the most coveted degrees is IAS, the Indian Administrative Service, to achieve which you have to follow a tough path. But these IAS officers are bossed over by illiterate politicians, who treat them like dirt. Similar was the position of engineers and venture capitalists in silicon valley. The VCs treated Jim Clark very bad in his initial venture, Silicon Graphics. He learned, and in his next venture he dictated the terms, engineers became powerful and rich, people with ideas were treated with more respect and it all started with Netscape. There are many such interesting insights. But most of the book deals with the building and the Atlantic sailing of Hyperion and it gets very boring. On the whole a very readable book, if you skip over the Hyperion chapters....
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Summary: From Imagination To Billions
Review: This sort of thing can only happen in the US. I wish there were more places like this in the world, where people put money into your vision of the future. The story told here is just that - how an eccentric man, Clark, imagines the future and creates it through the help of the best brains in software, the VCs in Silicon Valley and of course from the investing public. The book is good to give the reader an overview of how companies and their visionary owners are creating the future. Lewis is a writer of deep insight ( this comes through in many parts of the book). He has kept the pace of the book very close to probably the pace of life in the Valley. Read it once. Its good entertainment.
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Summary: Unrealized Potential
Review: Have you ever read one of those books that when you are done you're not sure if you liked it, or what the message was? Well, get ready for that feeling of deja vu.</p> The author attempts to present a biography of Jim Clark, the visionary behind Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Healtheon and MyCFO. However, a large part of the book is devoted to events surrounding the building and maiden voyage of a sailboat that Clark is building, the Hyperion. This boat has three distinctions. First, at the time of its maiden voyage in 1999 it was the largest sailboat ever built. Two, the boat was designed to be commanded by 25 Silicon Graphics computers with custom software written by a team of programmers that Jim Clark hired. The idea was that Jim Clark could command the boat from anywhere in the world and he would not have to rely on a crew. Three, the public offering of Netscape was accelerated so that Jim Clark would have the money to pay for the boat! The main presentation of Clark is that of a visionary who can always see the future direction of industry before his peers, i.e., Clark is able to identify the new NEW thing. However, the reader is left with the feeling that maybe Clark is better at identifying what the stock market will value in the future and then incubating an idea for a company to fill the need. It is not surprising that none of the company's that Clark founded have experienced long-term success. Each of these companies, except Silicon Graphics, were not structured to be long-term players, but rather to be "flipped" by acquisition or IPO. Clark is a mercurial, brilliant individual with an attention deficit problem who is great at formulating ideas but, as is the case in many instances, he would be greatly served by having a strong, managerial type implementing his ideas.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointment
Review: I was amazed at how mediocre this book was, after hearing such rave reviews about it. "The New New Thing" is shallow and superficial; all it is is a loose pile of mildly entertaining anecdotes laced with flat humor, pompous metaphors, and sweeping generalizations designed to force upon the reader Lewis' own convictions concerning the world at large. It is extremely poorly researched -- or rather not researched at all -- and very sloppily thought out. Apart from the author's blubbering accounts concerning his luck of being included in a billionaire's exclusive entourage, it contains no serious thesis concerning the Silicon Valley phenomenon, no analysis of the present-day economy and business, and no intelligent thoughts on Silicon Valley's long-term effects on the economy. It is not surprising that the book does not include a bibliography. The entire so-called oeuvre -- if I may be so blunt -- reeks of laziness and slopiness. That being my main grievance against the book, I would like to point out some other flaws: 1. The topic of ethnicity persists as an undercurrent throughout the entire work. I guess that what Lewis originally intended was to analyze the Silicon Valley phenomenon as a function of culture. I heartily agree that this is a meritorious concept, but Lewis utterly lacks the worldliness, the erudition, the knowledge, and the skill needed to develop it. To steal a critic's comment concerning Madame Bovary, Lewis has lofty aspirations, but no wings to soar. Instead, under his inept pen, the idea disintegrates into a string of highly offensive characterizations couched in unabashedly ethnocentric terms. According to Lewis' theory on the matter, the Americans, uniformly represented as visionaries, inventors, and cowboys (Lewis himself included, no doubt), are perched on the highest rung of the evolutionary ladder. Europeans are found on the lowest rung; the colossal inferiority of that species is amply demonstrated by such monumental blunders, for example, as failure to convert the San Marco Square's vast space in Venice into a nice multi-level parking garage. Indians, thanks to early American influences, are somewhere in the middle; at least, when certain Indians are properly motivated, an enterprising person (i.e. an American) can utilize them to his obvious advantage. 2. I did not like the book's repeated references to Microsoft's lawyer as a "fat stupid hick". I am not a fan of Microsoft -- quite the contrary -- and I know nothing about its lead lawyer, but I am convinced that this kind of argumentative smalltalk trash does not belong in what purports to be a serious work. I also though it was dull as a plaisanterie, since there is nothing witty or funny in calling someone fat and stupid, except to a person with a sense of humor of a ten-year-old. This comment is unintellingent, arrogant, and non-constructive. Its only import is the author's profound conviction of his own overwhelming brilliance. 3. Lewis' writing is excessively partisan. It oscillates between dismissive and unsubstantiated criticism of one thing, and blubbering and bombastic praise of another. It also contains multiple factual inaccuracies, which I won't even bother listing here. For example, Lewis says that a Wall Street lawyer earns $1,000 per hour -- I would like to know the source of that figure, although something tells me that it is none other than Lewis' own inflamed imagination. The admiration with which this book has been received leads me to ponder whether South Park's protrayal of our society's mentality is not all parody and exaggeration; although it is also possible that it stems merely from Americans' love of reading books about rich people. To me, all that this book illustrates is how well mediocrity and arrogance go together.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome & Revealing
Review: The New New Thing is an awesome and revealing book about some of the valley's greatest. A must for one and all!
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