It is hard to fathom Jim Clark, whom this book is really about, lead three different Billion Dollar companies: Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon (WebMD). He and his companies are the focus of this book. The author also gives a heck of a review of the crazy times that were the late 1990s in technology but as well as the stock market. I think Biff Tannen (you know Biff from Back to the Future) would have been better off with this book than his Sports Almanac. Imagine knowing the exact companies to pick in the stock market during the tech stock bubble. Not only that but when to take your money off the table and out of the market.
After having read first Moneyball, then the Blindside it was wired to go backwards and read one of Michael Lewis's earlier works. He has certainly improved as time has gone forward. This book seemed a bit more raw, and less polished than his later works. It was nice to walk through the time line of the internet bubble again and think back to when the most legally created money was happening in history. Again this is why I think Biff would have been better off with this than the almanac from Back to the Future. Our good friend Biff probably would have had a hard time finding his way to Vegas to make a legal bet. Just as in the line from the book "Change leads to wealth and wealth means money", in Biff's case or Jim Clark's.
It was shocking to find out the main reason Clark pushed for the Netscape IPO was to finance his boat. In fact the story of the boat he built felt really disjointed but they do tie together Silicon Valley and starting up companies with building a computerized yacht. I really despise the fact Jim created myCFO. To create yet another company after he has already start 3 with such a simple concept is irritating to us mere mortals.
I would say only three groups of people would enjoy this book:
1. Michael Lewis Fans
2. Tech nerds who want to hear the inside story of SGI and Netscape
3. People from the valley who want to recall the gold old days
Other than those groups you can probably skip this one. Well, that is unless you have a time machine and want to make some serious money in the stock market.
Get more detail about The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story.
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