I have a nice time capsule from the mid-late 90s. It's like a little piece of history that has come booming back into my life. The memories it holds are precious and bring a sense of nostalgia. However, I have to give it only four stars. The reason for this is that billionaires make me upset. I don't know why, but the idea of such extreme wealth and the power that comes with it just doesn't sit right with me. Maybe it's the inequality that it represents or the way that some billionaires seem to flaunt their wealth. Whatever the reason, it affects my overall perception of this otherwise wonderful time capsule.

First, I was let down by Lewis. It really came as a disappointment. I had certain expectations from him, but unfortunately, he didn't meet them. I was looking forward to something more from him, but it just didn't happen.

A slightly more detailed review will follow. I will go into more depth about what exactly led to my disappointment. Maybe there were specific actions or behaviors on his part that didn't sit well with me. I will analyze and explain those aspects in the upcoming review.

For now, all I can say is that I'm left feeling a bit let down. I hope that the detailed review will shed more light on the situation and help others understand why I had this particular experience with Lewis.

I truly loved this book that chronicles the story of Jim Clark, the visionary founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon. After devouring its pages, I'm still left pondering whether he was a bona fide genius or simply a man who found himself in the opportune location (Silicon Valley) during the perfect era (the 90s) with some perhaps not entirely sound ideas (particularly with Healtheon), yet managed to get lucky.

To me, Clark appears to be one of those individuals who seems really remarkable in the context of a book or a movie. He's brutally honest and doesn't hold back his thoughts. However, in real life, if you had to interact with him on a daily basis, you might very well despise him. I'm aware that some reviewers weren't fond of the extensive time dedicated to describing Clark's attempts to program his yacht. But, in all honesty, I found those parts to be truly fascinating and enjoyable. Maybe it's because that kind of project sounds like something I would be eager to undertake myself if I had the billions of dollars that he possesses.

I really liked how this book provides a window into the inner workings of Silicon Valley. It shows what happens when someone comes up with a novel idea: who finances it, who gets paid, and how the entire process functions. Nevertheless, it's definitely not a place where I would desire to work. Overall, it's a great read that offers numerous insights into the mind of a crazy guy like Clark in a crazy place like Silicon Valley.

I arrived in the Silicon Valley in 2000, right before the dot.com crash. I witnessed the final stage of the boom and the long-lasting bust. You couldn't spend an hour without someone day trading and making or losing a few thousand dollars every minute. I saw the overflowing BMW lot at El Camino and 237 expand and then shrink, eventually filled with slightly old cars on fire sale. Stories of second mortgages invested in the stock market and crazy AMT left a mark.

I was 5 years too late to arrive and probably 10 years too young (to handle the H1B age tax), so I keep learning about what made the dot.com boom through flashbacks. Every now and then I would meet one of the megastars of the boom, like Pavan Nigam, and be amazed by what they achieved.

A couple of years ago, I bought this Michael Lewis book but for some reason never got around to reading it. I had a vague idea it was about the dot.com boom, but that was it.

There is a fascinating interview between Michael Lewis and Malcom Gladwell about how their approaches are very different. Gladwell starts with individual stories and tries to generalize them to fit a pattern, often diluting the message. Michael Lewis, on the other hand, tells broad stories through individuals.

Michael Lewis tells the story of the dot.com boom through Jim Clark, the first entrepreneur to create three different billion-dollar startups. I knew of Jim Clark from Catmull Clark bi-cubic subdivision, which I worked on in my first job. I also knew him as the founder of SGI and Netscape, but I didn't know much about his investments at @Home and later with Healtheon, or how he practically single-handedly kick-started the dot.com boom with the Netscape IPO.

As I read through this book, I realize that there might not have been a John Doerr without Clark, no Andressen (and Andressen - Horowitz), and certainly no Pavan Nigam or Kittu Kolluri. Heck, there might not even be a Shri Shriam.

Michael tells the story of SGI, Netscape, and Healtheon through a self-driving mega-yacht that Clark builds using three programmers. The yacht's crew, who know nothing about the Internet but are all issued stock options in these companies, become wealthy during the process. Lewis says that the Netscape IPO was rushed because Clark wanted to build the yacht and needed the money.

It's a fun read about the dot.com boom. It shows how the granddaddy of them all, a high school reject who keeps reinventing himself, creates an industry, destroys a bunch more, and has to make a deal with the devil, Microsoft, to survive. However, it was hard to read when Lewis described desis with cliches. Overall, it's an interesting look at a significant period in technology history.

Michael Lewis is to business what Michael Gladwell is to sociology: a skilled chronicler of the construction of the future, a narrator of the ambitions of executives, and an intelligent observer of the forces behind the tides of money.

Reading "The New New Thing" many years after its publication is enchanting. The very close profile of Jim Clark (something like the Elon Musk of the 90s) as a character who lives in the future, seeking the new (the newest), having founded Netscape, participating in rounds of IPOs while AOL, @Home, Lycos and other names circulate in the text like bombs that would make the executives of Silicon Valley millionaires in just a few hours. These are companies that today's young people have never even heard mentioned. It reminds us how fragile the modern economy is. (There is a revealing passage about how a rumor about the possible default of Russia's debt ends up making it unpayable and then bringing down part of the North American economy.)

If you belong to the club of those who like the economy but don't understand anything about it, Lewis is the chronicler we need to turn to.

What can I say? It's by Michael Lewis.

There are several extraordinary aspects about this book.

First, he obtained the story while it was still in progress. Jim Clark might have been astute enough to recognize that the health care and communications industries were primed to be disrupted, but Michael Lewis was equally shrewd in discerning that by following this individual, he would uncover an astonishing narrative.

Second, it is not merely an account of a highly influential (albeit perhaps less discussed today) scion of the DotCom Bubble. Instead, it is also a parable about how the accumulation of wealth never truly proves to be sufficient. There will always be a sense of insufficiency.

For those who fancy themselves as being knowledgeable about the recent history of the post-Internet innovation industry, you may discover (as I did - and for what it's worth, I'm a tech journalist) that this book fills in some of the missing pieces from the pre-1999 internet history.

It offers valuable insights and perspectives that enhance our understanding of that crucial era.

It’s a fun and fast read that offers a significant amount of insight into one of the leading entrepreneurs of the Internet age.

I have grown accustomed to expecting such outstanding reads from Michael Lewis, so I was a bit disappointed with this book.

For one thing, I’m never completely convinced that it captures the core work of Silicon Valley. It often appears to be a sideshow, and perhaps some other perspectives would be more appropriate.

Moreover, as a story, it lacks a clear beginning, middle, and especially ending.

Basically, I would recommend almost anything Lewis writes without major reservations, but I would not classify this as one of his stronger books.

It has its merits, but it doesn't quite reach the high standards set by some of his other works.

Nonetheless, it still provides an interesting look at the world of the Internet age entrepreneur.

Maybe with a different approach or more in-depth exploration, it could have been a truly great book.

As it stands, it's a decent read that will appeal to fans of Lewis and those interested in the subject matter.

But it falls short of being a must-read classic in the genre.

Like all good Michael Lewis books, The New New Thing is ostensibly about a particular topic. In this case, it's the Internet boom of the 1990s. But in reality, it's a character study. This one focuses on Jim Clark, the founder of companies such as Silicon Graphics, Netscape Communications, and Healtheon. Many of these companies have faded into obscurity not twenty years after this book was originally written.

Reading this book, it's hard not to experience three emotions. There's awe at what Clark was able to achieve and his remarkable prescience about future technological developments. There's also annoyance at his incredible hubris, selfishness, and arrogance, which only grew as he became wealthier. And there's anger at the ecosystem of bankers, venture capitalists, and Silicon Valley engineers whose pursuit of pipe dreams written on the back of napkins (literally) led to the dot-com crash. Interestingly, the book was published right before the 2000 stock market implosion, so it doesn't cover this crash, although the signs were clearly visible. (The parallels to When Genius Failed, which I just finished reading about the rise and fall of Long-Term Capital Management, are obvious.)

Twenty years later, it's difficult to imagine there will ever be another character quite like Jim Clark. Today, entrepreneurs as unhinged and maniacal as Clark, yet with enough instincts and knowledge to achieve success, are rare. Or, they may be complete know-nothing charlatans like Elizabeth Holmes. Meanwhile, those who are extremely wealthy, like Jeff Bezos (with a net worth of $200B compared to Clark's $2B), achieved their wealth by being the opposite of Clark, thus disproving Lewis' unwritten thesis that mania leads to the most money. (In the end, Clark does come to terms with this and realizes that taking on gigantic monopolies like Microsoft is a losing battle.)

One can view Lewis' book as a history lesson that offers deep context on what plagues the technology industry and society today. Both this book and Cluetrain Manifesto provide the reader with a direct connection from the present back to the early Internet entrepreneurs and their overall naivete about how the Internet would transform everything. It has indeed changed a great deal, but it has certainly not changed human nature. And the lack of safeguards around social network engagement, for example, is what in 2020 threatens to tear society apart. The groundwork for this destruction was laid by Clark and his associates, although it was seen as positive and creative at the time, and now we are dealing with the consequences.

Book #6 of 2025

I entered the world of this book with extremely high expectations. Both Ben and Jeremiah had enthusiastically told me that this book was the greatest thing to have come along since the invention of hockey. Their words had filled me with anticipation and excitement.

However, given these lofty expectations, the actual experience of reading the book was a bit anti-climactic. I simply couldn't bring myself to care for the character of Jim Clark. His interests, which seemed to revolve solely around boats, boats, and more boats, held no appeal for me. I felt as if I was never able to truly get to know him through the pages of this book. It was as if I could only catch glimpses of him from a far distance or through a window. The book maintained a certain distance, and perhaps it's no wonder that it made little to no impact on my life.

Additionally, the book was at times overly wordy. It gave the impression that Michael Lewis was perhaps more concerned with hitting a specific word count for a school paper rather than telling a truly engaging and impactful story. This excess of words detracted from the overall reading experience and made it feel a bit cumbersome at times.

I have a great fondness for The Big Short. I also really liked The Blind Side and Moneyball. In fact, I like just about everything that Michael Lewis has written. However, when my father-in-law gave me a copy of The New New Thing for Christmas in 2014, I must confess that I was rather skeptical.

My initial skepticism unfortunately deprived me of the chance to relish this book for a full 3 years. But now, my ignorance has been dispelled, and I have truly savored this remarkable story. I am extremely grateful to Craig Hardy for this wonderful gift, and I offer my sincere apology for having doubted him.

I have always known him to choose excellent books, and now I am certain that I can rely on his selections. It goes to show that sometimes our initial doubts can prevent us from experiencing something truly great. But once we overcome those doubts and open our minds, we can discover hidden treasures like The New New Thing.

The New New Thing (TNNT) adheres to the classic Michael Lewis formula witnessed in Moneyball and The Big Short. Ostensibly, it is a biography of the quirky tech entrepreneur Jim Clark. However, it is, in reality, an inadvertent exploration of the 90s dot-com bubble. This is inadvertent because TNNT was published in 2000 before the bubble burst. That being said, given Lewis' talent for uncovering a story, I suspect he was well aware of what he was observing.

Compared to Lewis' other books, I didn't find Jim Clark as captivating a personality as, for example, Billy Bean. At the time of the book's publication, Clark was at the pinnacle of the world, having founded three separate billion-dollar tech companies in rapid succession. But his chronic dissatisfaction with success exemplifies an unfortunate attitude that has now permeated wider Western society. In this society, everyone is expected to have a side hustle and be constantly reinventing themselves. In contrast, Clark himself seems to have decelerated in the 2000s and has since vanished from the public eye and the internet. This is ironic, considering that one of his ventures - Netscape - was, for a time, the most widely used browser.

Nevertheless, TNNT remains a worthy read in 2021 as it demonstrates that not much has changed in 20 years. Silicon Valley is still inundated with venture capital for software start-ups that lack significant revenue, let alone profit. The stock market appears as detached from the real economy now as it was in the mid to late 1990s. Perhaps the most enlightening scene was when Clark and his team of software engineers took on the healthcare industry based solely on a diagram drawn on a napkin - as Clark repeatedly states, no business plan is necessary for success in the new economy. Despite this arrogance, Clark's ventures have truly benefited everyday people both then and now, whether it's by reducing the cost of computer hardware (Silicon Graphics), bringing people onto the internet (Netscape), or providing internet-based medical advice (Healtheon, which eventually merged with WebMD).

This is a crucial insight from TNNT: the workings of an economy may seem absurd or even unpalatable when viewed in isolation, but overall, they still lead to genuine progress that is worth celebrating - even if we still haven't learned to temper the irrational exuberance and avoid the subsequent crash.

Michael Lewis is widely regarded as a truly great storyteller. His ability to weave engaging narratives and bring complex topics to life has earned him a reputation as one of the finest in the field.

However, in the case of this particular work, it simply didn't have the same captivating effect on me as some of his other remarkable books.

Perhaps it was the subject matter that didn't quite resonate as strongly, or maybe the pacing and structure didn't hold my attention in the same way.

Nevertheless, it's important to note that even a less-than-perfect work from Michael Lewis still contains elements of his unique talent and insights.

While this book may not have been my personal favorite, it doesn't diminish the overall body of his outstanding work and the contributions he has made to the world of literature and non-fiction storytelling.