Insider Rowing

The New New Thing is the third book from bestselling author Michael Lewis and was published in 2001. Lewis readers will be familiar with the structure. The author follows a central figure for a season or two and traces the evolvement of that person’s industry. We get down to the level of personal conversations, and the author must have been in a lot of back pockets to achieve this. In this case, the central figure is Jim Clark, the third richest man in America, and the founder of three multibillion dollar companies: Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon (which later became WebMD). The industry, of course, is technology and the Internet, and by staying close to Jim Clark we get a insider’s look at the explosive rise of the Internet, the bursting of the tech bubble, and emergence of a new model for doing business on the Web.

Jim Clark is a fascinating person. By combining his intelligence with sheer moxy and maniacal determination, he was able to create three companies that were among the most successful in history, each bigger than the previous. Readers may be fascinated or repelled by Clark’s quirks as well, which some may interpret as the flightiness of the mega rich: his adventures piloting a helicopter after only a handful of hours of instruction; creating a hyper-luxury sailboat that is almost entirely run by Silicon Graphics workstations; and his abandoned attempt at creating the home of the future.

The author is at his best when detailing the relationships of the various businesses and businessmen and how deals were made in those days. I found the whole venture-capitalist-startup-IPO concept interesting and I really got into those sections of the book. I wasn’t so keen on Lewis’s characterizations and I thought he tried too hard to inject humor into the dialogue, which is the same complaint I’ve had with his other books. The content is so interesting that the emphasis on humor seemed like an overreach. Despite that minor complaint, this was an excellent and informative read.

How does it relate to rowing? It doesn’t! At least there’s no direct connection. Reading about Jim Clark, though, does give you a sense of what insane determination combined with creativity and attitude can get you, and that is basically anything in the world. If you’re interested in business and the Internet, The New New Thing is a good summer reading choice.