The New New Thing

Like the Victorian writers who detailed lovingly how royalty employed personal plumbing, Lewis focuses on Clark's obsession with gadgets. Many technically-strong, wealthy men like gadgets, so this is the Walter Mitty look for everyone who shares that fascination.

On the other hand, Lewis has little idea why people like Clark are successful and what the lessons are for the rest of us.

If you like the People Magazine approach to financial journalism, you've found your book.

If you want to learn how to be a high tech entrepreneur, I see little that will help you.

This is a soap opera tale, and if read as such you will feel totally rewarded. A larger-than-life character like Jim Clark makes a wonderful subject for a Lewis book.

Enjoy!

If you liked Sandra Bullock in "The Net " you'll love Jim Clark in "The New New Thing ".

In both that movie and Michael Lewis' book, you'll learn diddlysquat about the Internet or the Web. Instead you'll get some hyped up, impressionistic flim flam hoping to move us, and entertain us with the exciting new world (as it was) of the Internet (circa mid 90s). The movers and fakers come straight from central casting.

The book floats along with Clark's cyber-yacht "Hyperion" as the centerpiece of the action. The fate of this boat, with its over-engineered, 25 SGI workstation driven technology was a disaster waiting to happen. Its bloated pretentiousness and lack of real connection with maritime fundamentals (just forget about the weather) is a good allegory to what was going on in those 5 fantastic years that followed the Netscape IPO of 1995. Those investors who went along for the ride thought they had discovered the fail-proof money making machine.

Lewis as a writer and Clark as an engineer, turned billionaire and aspiring yachtsman, appear to know very little about the fundamentals of sailing. You can't cross the Atlantic Ocean " in a straight line as quickly as possible" as Clark commanded his skipper. ( p316). There are some basic elements such as winds, currents and the curvature of the earth to contend with.

There is no doubt that Clark is a driven man, unashamedly escaping his past. There is a strong element of psychobiography in this book. For Clark everything has to be new. The mystery of the old tarnished tuba from Clark's schooldays, which sits in a corner of Clark's guestroom, is one of the keys to the past that Lewis reveals to the reader.

The most worthwhile part of the book (p398) is when Lewis reflects " Why do people perpetually create for themselves the condition for their own dissatisfaction?"

On the following page, he observes " People who are unhappy with the way things are, tend to remain unhappy even after they have changed them." These are profound insights. It is a shame that Lewis distracts us with all the trivia in between.

This book confirms that the two high points of the Californian economic miracle (Silicon Valley and Hollywood), are both a product of a systemic frustration with the shortcomings of reality. What else do we need to drive our hoped-for progress as a civilization and at the same time "enrich" our popular culture? Materialism, whizz-bangery and vicarious thrill seeking fills the gap.

Those readers who have limited familiarity with the technology behind the Internet revolution, deserve more explanation of the significance of the key underpinning developments that were central to Clark's enterprises. Microsoft and the Browser Wars get a good run but surely the role of non-Windows operating systems such as UNIX warrant some passing comment in this book.

Lewis's writing style can be tiresome particularly his use of the F--- expletive on almost every page. Adding color to the dialog is one thing, and it may reflect the way some people talk, but it is more distracting than useful in a work of non-fiction like this.

The author evidently resides in Paris (France not Texas) these days. From that locale, you would think he would be less parochial when discussing the eating habits of non-Americans. He sneers at the cheese sandwiches the young Dutch investment analysts eat for breakfast...

The climax of the book is when the Hyperion has engine failure in mid Atlantic. If this book is ever going to make it as a movie, it will need some good continuity work. On page 345, with the yacht's motor stopped, the engineer goes down to the engine room --- "It was hot. It was loud enough that Robert needed ear mufflers". Did he forget to turn the Hi Fi down?

With so much emphasis in this book on the ups and downs of stock prices, you would think the author and Clark would know when things were heading south. Most of the time they were at sea in the Hyperion no one knew the direction of the wind. The yacht with its over-reliance on technology is reminiscent of lots of bloat-ware that choke up our PCs. The Hyperion was lucky it didn't disappear into a fatal blue screen of oblivion.

The most fascinating scene in the book is where Clark, only two days into the voyage across the Atlantic, becomes totally bored with his new toy boat. This says it all.

"The New New Thing " provides a valuable insight into one of the key personalities of the Internet market frenzy of the late 1990s. Unfortunately, since we all seem to be consumed these days by chasing newness, this book (and the lessons it teaches) will be totally forgotten in a few years time. Henry Ford would be at home in Silicon Valley today. History is still all bunkum when technological advancement, takes precedence over people or nature

For readers who want real insights on where the Web came from, the people who were responsible for it, and the business cultures that have emerged in its wake should read "Architects of the Web", Robert H Reid's great book from 1997. "The New New Thing" in contrast looks like a tired relic from the last century only two years after publication.

What I got was a sycophantic, one-man song of praise for Jim Clarke. It was sickening in its own right, and depresssing to see such a sell out by the author.. That this book ever made it to print is a crime.

You know a book is bad, when the quotes on the dust-cover telling us how good the book is are not about the book in your hand, but another book - in this case Liars Poker.

The only good thing that came out of this is that I went and bought Liars Poker. It was every bit as good as I expected it to be. Shame on you Michael Lewis

I do not agree with some of the posts here stating that the author lives and breathes on the words of Jim Clark. He was a business man that believed there were opportunities and quickly acted upon them. Like everything else, there will always be great and poor business decisions from a leader. No one is an exception here; including Mr. Gates.

So, back to the review; this is an excellent book to give folks an insight into the crazy late 90's, where business vision was accelerated 10 fold. Some big successes and many failure stories.

The author explains that it was not his intention to write an autobiography about Jim Clark, but he was trying to capture the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley. However, due to the amazing enthusiasm of multiple entrepreneur Jim Clark Lewis ends up following Clark. Jim Clark, who originally was a technology professor, is the first person to start 3 companies that each exceed a market valuation of $1 billion each: Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Healtheon. The book starts with the maiden trial of Jim Clark's multi-million dollar yacht 'Hyperion'. This enormous yacht is full of (ridiculous) technology and should be able sail on its own. The trial of the 'Hyperion' is just the start of an almost endless list of crazy, wild stories about technology companies, Internet start-ups, and IPOs'. The author seems to have trouble keeping up with Jim Clark's ideas and (true) stories.

Yes, I do like this book. Although it mainly focuses on multi-entrepeneur Jim Clark, it also describes the stories behind various Internet-companies (AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft, etc.) and the Internet bubble. The writing style of the author is extremely entertaining, while still containing lots of information and facts. The book feels like a rollercoaster, but it is great fun!! I recommend it highly.