The New New Thing

I'm a fan of Michael Lewis and when I had the chance to pick up his 2000 book The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story I jumped at it.

Lewis' modus operandi is to have a subject and illustrate that subject through the lens of two main characters while bouncing between these characters with chapters in between discussing examples of how the subject hand is illustrated by various people. In Moneyball the subject was statistics and how they were changing baseball. The two main characters were Billy Beane and Bill James. Players like Chad Bradford and Kevin Youkilis were used to illustrate the main point of the book.

In The New New Thing one main character is obviously Jim Clark but the second main character is not so obviously Jim Clark's new sailboat the Hyperion. Silicon Valley big shots and start-ups are used to illustrate the main point of the book of how the new, new thing had created the Internet IPO boom and changed the way business is done in the modern day.

It was interesting to look back at the Internet boom of the 90's through the lens of Jim Clark - a giant of an American Industrialist who does not get his proper recognition. All the time spent discussing the new state of the art sailboat the Hyperion - not so interesting. I recommend this book but because Lewis has a skill in telling a story but it wasn't his best work.