The New New Thing, Michael Lewis

The New New Thing, by Michael lewis

This book is a sort of biography of Jim Clark. Clark founded Silicon Graphics and Netscape (most notably). The book spends much time looking at Clark's compulsive need to move on - from one business to the next, from one wife to the next, from one boat to the next - and how this helped to bring about the Internet revolution (and perhaps more important for some) the Internet bubble of the 1990s.

I spent most of the book just thinking what an ass Jim Clark is. I'm not sure if I should be nastalgic for the boom or angry over the whole thing. I spent the boom years at Intel, wondering what life would be like over the hedge. I toyed with a couple of ideas with fellow Intel people, but never made a move away from the comfort of the big company until long after the bubble was over. (The guys I was kicking ideas around with are still at Intel). So maybe I'm just a little bitter that I didn't partake in any of the tremendous riches created during the period.

Pixmonix has a decidedly different approach. I am not interested in venture capital and extremely rapid growth. We have more of a small (but growing) small business approach while at the same time leveraging all of the web and new media tools that are out there. This is a traditional small business but with a decidely new economy approach: you can appeal to people outside of your geographc area and still be a small business using web tools. In some ways, this is the true legacy of Jim Clark and his ilk who made and lost fortunes during the bubble years - they left behind a great deal of infrastructure that is now useful, even without venture capital, even though nobody had a clue about how to use it at the time of creation. I don't know how the sailboat industry fared; I suspect that the rise of Wall Street has continued to fuel the boat industry even after Silicon Valley returned from the stratosphere.

The book is a good read. If you were even tangentially involved in the tech boom of the past 20 years, you will find it interesting.