The New New Thing

A Silicon Valley Story

By: Michael Lewis

Narrated by: Bruce Reizen

Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewis sets out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world's most important technology entrepreneur, the man who embodies the spirit of the coming age. He finds him in Jim Clark, who is about to create his third, separate, billion-dollar company: first Silicon Graphics, then Netscape - which launched the Information Age - and now Healtheon, a startup that may turn the $1 trillion healthcare industry on its head.

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' celebrated storytelling, the listener 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 new 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 21st century.

©2001 Michael Lewis (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

A good story aside from US centric concededness

A good story aside from US centric concededness. Too much about boats. Not enough about the main character

loved it

I suggest this book to anyone. It has helped me with a new sense of awareness.

Interesting and encouraging

What made the experience of listening to The New New Thing the most enjoyable?

The voice performance was brilliant and bring out the anglo saxon perspective of a lot of silicon valley elements

Who was your favorite character and why?

Alan Prior

Which scene was your favorite?

When they were on the boat and battling between engineer and software geek.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Yes, when Jim Clark was such a street kid and moved on.

Any additional comments?

Excellent book. Yet a little bit monotone.

Poor narration, Great Story

Love Michael Lewis and he delivers a very interesting story of the why and what of when Silicon Valley gave birth to the Internet Economy through Jim Clark. Absolutely fascinating.

Only problem with this audio book is the narrator. He reads way too fast, is too monotone and towards the end, loses his voice so the reading sounds gravelly in a less-comprehensible rather than cool way. He also attempts to ethnically sound like the characters and he does this rather comically. For example, for the Indian programmers he tries to imitate he comes off as a southern hick trying to imitate a heavily accented and stereotyped Indian. The imitation is both comical and insulting. If this book had a decent narrator, it would so much better.

Classic Michael Lewis

Great author, great encapsulation of the contemporary technology entrepreneur mindset. Must read for anyone looking to understand human beings and the rise of Silicon Valley.

Good to check out yesterday's cutting edge

Worth listening to despite how out of date the book is. Also worth checking out Lewis's earlier writing style, which is very good but not as confident as his more current work.

Excellent story, marred by hurried reading

I’m a great fan of Michael Lewis but I was disappointed that his fine story lost its impact due to an unnecessarily fast reading pace

Great text, HORRIBLE performance

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Seriously, this has got to be the WORST reading of an audiobook I've ever heard. I literally cannot enjoy and/or concentrate on the story because the reading is so bad. It's too fast, and too crisp--you can't relax into the story the way you can with most books (i.e., every other audiobook I've ever listened to).

What was one of the most memorable moments of The New New Thing?

Not going to spoil the book.

What didn’t you like about Bruce Reizen’s performance?

He spoke too quickly. Also, yeah it's great the guy can do voices, but those voices aren't really necessary if the listener can relax into the book. This man read as though he had no understanding of what he was reading--he read too quickly, with no inflection, and the only time he slowed down was when he did one of those voices, but by then he'd done such a horrible job on the lead-up that the voice ended up being more of a distraction than anything. I don't know if he's just normally a fast-talker or he had too much coffee that day, but holy crap it's horrible. You guys should commission a re-reading, seriously.

Meh

I've read many of Michael Lewis' books and was captivated with the others but this one fell flat. He spends WAY too much time talking about Jim Clark's boat. Also, I'm pretty sure he made a bet with someone that he could use the word "grope" a thousand times in a book - spoiler alert: he won the bet.

about 40% silicon valley and 60% hero worship

I had expected more substance and research on what had and currently drives the valley... instead it was a puff piece to Jim Clark with some titbits of information about the culture then strewn about ... the author has gone to great lengths to glamorize and show how the computer revolution began and ended with his hero and I did not quite understand why he even talked about myCfo..the 3rd company Clark started... I was also surprised by several instances of racist overtones in the dialogues and the ridiculous rendition of accents by the narrator... quite disappointed