Next: The Future Just Happened
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3.8 • 28 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
The New York Times bestseller. "His book is a wake-up call at a time when many believe the net was a flash in the pan."—BusinessWeek
With his knowing eye and wicked pen, Michael Lewis reveals how the Internet boom has encouraged changes in the way we live, work, and think. In the midst of one of the greatest status revolutions in the history of the world, the Internet has become a weapon in the hands of revolutionaries. Old priesthoods are crumbling. In the new order, the amateur is king: fourteen-year-olds manipulate the stock market and nineteen-year-olds take down the music industry. Unseen forces undermine all forms of collectivism, from the family to the mass market: one black box has the power to end television as we know it, and another one may dictate significant changes in our practice of democracy. With a new afterword by the author.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Putting an engaging and irreverent spin on yesterday's news, Lewis (Liar's Poker; The New, New Thing) declares that power and prestige are up for grabs in this look at how the Internet has changed the way we live and work. Probing how Web-enabled players have exploited the fuzzy boundary between reality and perception, he visits three teenagers who have assumed startling roles: Jonathan Lebed, the 15-year-old New Jersey high school student who made headlines when he netted $800,000 as a day trader and became the youngest person ever accused of stock-market fraud by the SEC; Markus Arnold, the 15-year-old son of immigrants from Belize who edged out numerous seasoned lawyers to become the number three legal expert on AskMe.com; and Daniel Sheldon, a British 14-year-old ringleader in the music-file sharing movement. Putting himself on the line, Lewis is freshest in his reportage, though he doesn't pierce the deeper cultural questions raised by the kids' behavior. As a financial reporter tracing the development of innovative industries like black box interactive television and interactive political polling from their beginnings as Internet brainstorms, Lewis reminds readers that the twin American instincts to democratize and commercialize intertwine on the Internet, and can only lead to new business. In the past, Lewis implies, industry insiders would simply have shut out eager upstarts, yet today insiders, like AOL Time Warner, allow themselves "to be attacked in order to later co-opt their most ferocious attackers and their best ideas."
Customer Reviews
Another Fantastic insider's Look from Michael Lewis
You can't ask for a more exciting, descriptive, or lucid look into the soul of Silicon Valley. The book is a kind of biography of one man - Jim Clark - and through him a captivating portrait of one of the most fascinating economic developments in history -the rise of the Internet in Silicon Valley in the '90s. Every book Lewis writes is fantastic. Read them all!
Interesting but disappointing
Michael Lewis starts out exploring some interesting characters and themes, but although the journey has potential, it just doesn't come together in his usual insightful way. I finished the book feeling disappointed because it's not his usual level of greatness, and his readers should expect more from him than other authors. I felt like Michael had a great vision for this book about the Internet, and had collected some amazing preliminary stories, but when he sat down to write it, he forced conclusions between the stories that weren't there. Even in his epilogue, he admits to rereading his own book with similar dissatisfaction. For that, I give him points for being honest.