The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story

by Lewis, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780393048131
• ISBN10: 0393048136
• Edition: 00
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-10-17
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

Despite the variety of his achievements, Clark thinks of himself mainly as the creator of Hyperion, which happens to be a sailboat . . . not just an ordinary yacht, but the world's largest single-mast vessel, a machine more complex than a 747. Clark claims he will be able to sail it via computer from his desk in San Francisco, and the new code may contain the seeds of his next billion-dollar coup. On the wings of Lewis's celebrated storytelling, the reader takes the ride of a lifetime through this strange landscape of geeks and billionaires. We get the inside story of the battle between Netscape and Microsoft; we sit in the room as Clark tries to persuade the investment bankers that Healtheon is the next Microsoft; we get queasy as Clark pits his boat against the rage of the North Atlantic in winter. And in every brilliant anecdote and character sketch, Lewis is drawing us a map of markets and free enterprise in the twenty-first century.

Author Biography

Michael Lewis is the author of several books, including the international bestseller Liar's Poker. He has been the American editor of the British weekly The Spectator and a senior editor at The New Republic. Currently a visiting fellow at the University of California-Berkeley, Lewis lives in Berkeley with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their newborn daughter.

Table of Contents

Preface	xv
The Boat That Built Netscape	1	(10)
The Accelerated Grimace	11	(14)
The Past in a Box	25	(10)
Disorganization Man	35	(20)
Inventing Jim Clark	55	(22)
The Boom and the Mast	77	(14)
Throwing Sand in Capitalists' Eyes	91	(11)
The Great Brain Quake of August 9, 1995	102	(22)
The Home of the Future?	124	(9)
God Mode	133	(10)
How Chickens Become Pork	143	(9)
New New Money	152	(17)
Cheese Sandwiches for Breakfast	169	(14)
Could Go Either Way	183	(18)
At Sea in the Home of the Future	201	(17)
Chasing Ghosts	218	(16)
The Turning Point	234	(13)
The New New Thing	247	(13)
The Past outside the Box	260	(5)
Epilogue	265	(2)
Acknowledgments	267