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The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story Audio CD – CD, January 6, 2014
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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.
- Print length0 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBrilliance Audio
- Publication dateJanuary 6, 2014
- Dimensions5.5 x 5.5 x 0.25 inches
- ISBN-101480580236
- ISBN-13978-1480580237
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Product details
- Publisher : Brilliance Audio; Unabridged edition (January 6, 2014)
- Language : English
- Audio CD : 0 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1480580236
- ISBN-13 : 978-1480580237
- Item Weight : 8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 5.5 x 0.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,964,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #10,912 in Business Professional's Biographies
- #27,780 in Entrepreneurship (Books)
- #130,000 in Memoirs (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author

Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of The Undoing Project, Liar's Poker, Flash Boys, Moneyball, The Blind Side, Home Game and The Big Short, among other works, lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their three children.
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There were two parts of the book I particularly loved: First, the part on the engineers from India was compelling. These kids grow up on the brink of starvation and work their tails off to make it to Silicon Valley to seek their dreams. The book keenly demonstrates how Jim Clark is able to harness these kind of people and let their talents operate in the most productive way, and also make them rich beyond their wildest dreams.
Second, the best part of the book was the second to last chapter, about how Jim Clark came from absolute poverty in Texas. Clark had to defend his mother from his drunken father, and his mother had only $5 a month after the bills were paid. The book keenly demonstrates how Clark's sense of anarchy and adventure led him to rise far above the hand he was dealt in life.
The story of how Clark has made 3 different billion dollar companies is amazing, and even more amazing is that he is using his talents to create a fourth company instead of only sailing his crazy boat.
You'll learn a lot when you read this book, it will inspire you, and you'll enjoy it. Read it soon, before the next new new thing makes it irrelevant.
but with that "musky guy" in the news so much of late. It put things a bit more in perspective.
I would recommend this book to my closest of friends
Explaining the how's, why's, and differences between the old way of doing things and the new (or new new) way of doing things can be tricky, because it assumes you have some understanding of how the old (or old old) way of doing things works. I'm not a Wall Street investor, but I felt not only capable of understanding Lewis' framework of explanation, but I felt like I could extrapolate deeper meaning from it. He manages to paint fascinating pictures of all the people involved in the pursuit of the new new thing and how their constellation manages to orbit itself as it becomes standard operating practice in the growing tech industry.
I also felt like I could better understand how the minds of billionaire "executives" (as Lewis points out, Jim Clark wasn't exactly sure how to describe exactly what it was he does) and how they anticipate the next new new thing, why it interests them, and how quickly it starts to lose their interest. If you can understand someone like Clark, you can start to understand the industry.
Lewis is a master of engaging character portrayals, with intoxicating and hyperbolic prose. He plays objective narrator throughout, sometimes interfering with the plot, but holds no punches in describing Clark's maniacal quest for wealth.
In the end, there is a wonderful demonstration that wealth doesn't bring happiness with it. From p. 258: "Why do people perpetually create for themselves the condition for their own dissatisfaction?" -- an retort to Clark's statement that "Once I have more money than Larry Ellison, I'll be satisfied". A few years earlier, satisfaction for Clark amounted to a measly $10 million on the bank; that number mushroomed to $1 billion.
Throughout, Lewis conveys the feeling of the Internet bubble of the late 90s; the wealthy, controlling venture capitalists; the insanely-priced IPOs for companies that had no clue how to make money. So yes, that's all a bunch of old old things by now, and if I were looking for a historical account of that period, the book would be worth only 4 stars; yet, I was going for the portrait of Clark, and for those who lived through it, the book is a good behind the scenes look at the creation of Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon.
What I think the book did very well was to demonstrate the extreme mind set in the valley of dreams. It shows us how the minds of the power brokers work and how things they create get old quickly --- how disposable everything is. Like my Palm Pilot that I bought at Christmas is old hat now. Hey, we've got color! The new new thing. Gotta have it!
So read this book. It's really pretty great. You'll tire of Jim. But hey, he's an important dude and the only bad part is, you really won't like him at all when you put the book down. But he won't care. He's on to the New New Thing.






