false 10658 4 Michael Lewis was supposed to be writing about how Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics and Netscape, was going to turn health care on its ear by launching Healtheon, which would bring the vast majority of the industry's transactions online. So why was he spending so much time on a computerized yacht, each feature installed because, as one technician put it, "someone saw it on <I>Star Trek</I> and wanted one just like it?"<p> Much of <I>The New New Thing</I>, to be fair, <I>is</I> devoted to the Healtheon story. It's just that Jim Clark doesn't do startups the way most people do. "He had ceased to be a businessman," as Lewis puts it, "and become a conceptual artist." After coming up with the basic idea for Healtheon, securing the initial seed money, and hiring the people to make it happen, Clark concentrated on the building of <I>Hyperion</I>, a sailboat with a 197-foot mast, whose functions are controlled by 25 SGI workstations (a boat that, if he wanted to, Clark could log onto and steer--from anywhere in the world). Keeping up with Clark proves a monumental challenge--"you didn't interact with him," Lewis notes, "so much as hitch a ride on the back of his life"--but one that the author rises to meet with the same frenetic energy and humor of his previous books, <I>Liar's Poker</I> and <I>Trail Fever</I>.<p> Like those two books, <I>The New New Thing</I> shows how the pursuit of power at its highest levels can lead to the very edges of the surreal, as when Clark tries to fill out an investment profile for a Swiss bank, where he intends to deposit less than .05 percent of his financial assets. When asked to assess his attitude toward financial risk, Clark searches in vain for the category of "people who sought to turn ten million dollars into one billion in a few months" and finally tells the banker, "I think this is for a different ... person." There have been a lot of profiles of Silicon Valley <I>companies</I> and the way they've revamped the economy in the 1990s--<I>The New New Thing</I> is one of the first books fully to depict the sort of man that has made such companies possible. <I>--Ron Hogan</I> 2331922 1 1 1999 The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story total:405|5:56|4:128|3:179|2:36|1:6| 405 1407 566 30 3 1 false false Sat Aug 30 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 30 17:02:31 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 30 17:12:25 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 true false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 05 18:40:43 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 05 23:20:15 -0700 2009 dot.com bubble from a very unique perspective. I have learned A LOT about how companies develop or used to develop in Silicon Valley, and how collaboration and belief lead to creation of multi-billion dollar companies from scratch.

In short, the book is centered around the ...more...]]> 3 0 false true Sun Jul 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 03 19:49:21 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 04 15:28:59 -0700 2009
Not as good as Liar's poker.


Quotes:

"Whatever radar Clark possessed told him that it was okay to sprint into the dark. That's when he was most dangerous. It was also ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Feb 27 12:27:56 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 27 12:27:56 -0800 2009 Liar's Poker. It's a book about mania and obsession and a strange subculture of American business. The fact that Clark is a fascinating individual is ju...more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Feb 03 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Thu Mar 26 15:16:13 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 15:16:13 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Mon Jun 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 15 18:30:38 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 15 18:31:20 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 04 11:25:16 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 04 11:25:48 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Sun Mar 19 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Sat Sep 26 17:45:29 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 26 17:46:19 -0700 2009 1 0 false false Thu May 07 10:03:56 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 05 13:57:53 -0700 2009
I had create a new shelf to categorize ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jul 29 17:00:32 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 29 17:05:30 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 24 21:25:52 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 01 18:00:02 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false true Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 16 17:54:43 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 21 10:56:50 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2003 Sun Dec 09 23:02:52 -0800 2007 Mon Dec 10 00:04:42 -0800 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Oct 06 15:35:01 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 06 15:38:44 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Mon Apr 14 07:11:13 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 14 07:12:54 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jun 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 27 19:24:19 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 30 11:36:38 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 29 11:11:06 -0700 2008 Wed Nov 19 10:31:55 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Wed May 02 00:00:00 -0700 2001 Tue Feb 19 14:48:10 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 19 14:48:10 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 19 07:07:06 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 26 06:28:50 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Jul 27 10:55:31 -0700 2007 Fri Jul 27 10:57:17 -0700 2007 computers
silicon valley
outrageous people
the underpinnings of the tech boom
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