The New New Thing by Michael Lewis
Essay title: The New New Thing by Michael Lewis
I found this novel quite easy and fun to read. In addition to enjoying the book I feel as if I have a much better understanding of the technology and business world. My knowledge of the Silicon Valley before reading this book was limited to the general location and the fact that “computer stuff” was done there. The impact Silicon Valley has had on the American economy was much more that I ever realized. The stability of companies, no matter how big or promising, is much less secure than I once thought them to be. The manner in which new products are introduced to the public is not nearly as orderly or planned and studied than I ever imagined. A single person thinking “outside the box” can bring this new product into reality and keep all the competitors and investors guessing.
I always knew that the Silicon Valley is where a lot of cool technologies are invented but to learn how all those inventions effected the economy was interesting to me and opened my eyes as to how big an impact a few new ideas can have. The book alludes to the fact that perhaps trillions of dollars were made in the time from the mid 1990пїЅs to present making it the “greatest legal creation of wealth in the history of the planet.” I also did not realize that it was Netscape that really started the Internet boom and led the way to all that creation of money.
The way a new idea would give birth to a start-up company that could threaten another large company that failed to see where the future was going or failed to see where the future had the capability to go gave me a new found respect for the management of these large companies. Any small group of people working in a garage somewhere in the United States could eventually threaten a company that relies on a vertical market. That, I suppose is capitalism at its best.
The way Jim Clark would come up with ideas that in a matter of months would make him millions and in some cases eventually a few billion dollars was awesome. I was very surprised