Next: The Future Just Happened

Next: The Future Just Happened 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. " C]onsistently smart, and its highpoints are among the high points of Lewis' writing life."-"New York Observer" "Next does not come too late to the crash-and-burn Internet book fest. It come just in time-at the speed of a falling safe."-"USA Today"

Editorial Reviews

  From Publishers Weekly

utting 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." (July 30)Forecast: Lewis's track record, a major media campaign and a 12-city author tour through techie outposts will make this hard to ignore. As a breezy summer read, it's fun enough, but those looking for profound business insights will be disappointed.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  Review

A wake-up call at a time when many believe the net was a flash in the pan. -- BusinessWeek

[C]onsistently smart, and its highpoints are among the high points of Lewis' writing life. -- New York Observer

  From the Inside Flap

Read by The Author
Four CD's


In LIAR'S POKER barbarians seized control of the bond markets. In THE NEW NEW THING some guys from Silicon Valley redefined the American economy. Now, with his knowing eye and wicked pen, Michael Lewis reveals how the Internet boom has encouraged great change in the way we live, work, and think. He finds that we are in the midst of one of the greatest revolutions in the history of the world, and the Internet is a weapon in the hands of revolutionaries. The old priesthoods-lawyers, investment gurus, professionals in general-have been toppled. The amateur, or individual, is king: fourteen-year-old children manipulate the stock market; nineteen-year-old take down the music industry; and wrestlers get elected to public office. Deep, unseen forces seek to undermine all forms of collectivism, from the mass market to the family. Where does it all lead? And will we like where we end up? --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  About the Author

Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of Liar’s Poker, The Money Culture, The New New Thing, Moneyball, The Blind Side, Panic, Home Game, The Big Short, and Boomerang, among other works, lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and three children.

  From Audio File

Bestselling writer Michael Lewis is here to tell you in his own voice--Northeastern elite, with just a touch of his New Orleans boyhood--that there's a technological revolution going on. A 15-year-old boy using the Internet became the first minor ever charged with stock market fraud. Furthermore, he got to keep $550,000. Still don't believe the rules are changing? What about TiVo, the black box that allows you to skip all the commercials? Will a similar gadget soon settle national issues with immediate electronic referendums? Lewis reads his own inspired reports with passion and conviction. When he confronts SEC chairman Arthur Levitt, he's right there, in the moment. And so are you. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The New New Thing

The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story As American capitalism undergoes a seismic shift, Michael Lewis, author of the bestselling Liar's Poker, sets out on a Silicon Valley safari to find the true representative of the coming economic age. All roads lead to Jim Clark, the man who rewrote the rules of American capitalism as the founder of (so far) three multi-billion dollar companies--Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon. Lewis's shrewd, often brilliantly funny, narrative provides ahead-of-the-curve observations about the Internet explosion and how the success of Silicon Valley companies is forcing a reassessment of traditional Wall-Street business models. Weaving Clark's story together with that of this new business phenomenon, Lewis has drawn us a map of markets and free enterprise in the twenty-first century and blown the lid off the changing economy.

Editorial Reviews

  From Publishers Weekly

While it purports to look at the business world of Silicon Valley through the lens of one man, that one man, Jim Clark, is so domineering that the book is essentially about Clark. No matter: Clark is as successful and interesting an example of Homo siliconus as any writer is likely to find. Lewis (Liar's Poker) has created an absorbing and extremely literate profile of one of America's most successful entrepreneurs. Clark has created three companiesASilicon Graphics, Netscape (now part of America Online) and HealtheonAeach valued at more than $1 billion by Wall Street. Lewis was apparently given unlimited access to Clark, a man motivated in equal parts by a love of the technology he helps to create and a desire to prove something to a long list of people whom he believes have done him wrong throughout his life (especially his former colleagues at Silicon Graphics). As Lewis looks at the various roles of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and programmers and at how these very different mindsets fit together in the anatomy of big deals, he gives readers a sense of how the Valley works. But the heart of the book remains Clark, who simultaneously does everything from supervise the creation of what may be the world's largest sloop to creating his fourth company (currently in the works). Lewis does a good job of putting Clark's accomplishments in context, and if he is too respectful of Clark's privacy (several marriages and children are mentioned but not elaborated on), he provides a detailed look at the professional life of one of the men who have changed the world as we know it. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

  From Library Journal

Listeners are due for a thrilling ride through the strange landscape of computer geeks and billionaires, with a focus on the unique story of after-tax multibillionaire Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI), Netscape, and the newly emerging Healtheon. Lewis (Liar's Poker) focuses on Clark's story as the key to comprehending the newly emerging Internet wealth, emphasizing his battles between Netscape and Microsoft; his almost immediate success with SGI; his emotional investment in his computer-driven sailboat, the Hyperion; leading up to his next new, new thing, Healtheon, Clark's Internet health site envisioned literally to transform the $1 trillion healthcare industry. Clearly, Clark's nonpareil personae is an excellent example of how vastly different it is doing business in the age of the Internet, but this is not so much an analysis of Clark's business successes as it is a sort of technobiography. The numerous lengthy anecdotal tales and scenarios, narrated by Bruce Reizen, enrich the understanding of this exemplary personality, a high-tech rags-to-riches tale of a poor boy from Plainview, TX, but add little to a full appreciation for the strategies around these companiesDa story yet to be told. Highly recommended for all public libraries.DDale Farris, Groves, TX
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  From Booklist

Lewis, in his eye-opening and best-selling Liar's Poker (1989), told tales on himself: about his meteoric rise from trainee at Salomon Brothers investment firm to very successful trader. Now he tells tales on someone else: Jim Clark, who created Netscape and thus "triggered the Internet boom." To write this profile, Lewis more or less shadowed Clark for a while, and dogging him meant participating in Clark's transatlantic journey in his obsessively designed, totally computerized sailing ship, Hyperion. Lewis' book, in effect, provides a look at the whole computer industry, for the more we learn about Clark, the more we learn about the industry as a whole. Silicon Valley, referred to as "the greatest legal creation of wealth in the history of the planet," is the Wall Street of the 1990s, and Clark is a primary mover and shaker. He is strictly an idea man, coming up with new ideas of how to make millions and leaving his engineers to arrive at workable details. Clark, as we follow and marvel at his career, invents his life as he goes along. What drives him is his abiding need to pursue new concepts and experiences. He is protypical of the superwealthy leadership in Silicon Valley: "the geek holed up in his basement all weekend discovering new things to do with his computer." That's the point of the Silicon Valley computer industry: people don't have to build new computers to make a fortune, they just have to devise new things for the computer to do. This book will prove very popular, not only with readers interested in business and computers but also with those who are simply curious about "the new new thing." Brad Hooper --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

  Review

"The most significant business story since the days of Henry Ford...Lewis achieves a novelistic elegance." --Boston Globe

"May be to Silicon Valley what Pepys's diary was to 1660's London or Twain's Roughing It to the American West of the last century." --Kurt Andersen, The New York Times Book Review(front-page review)

  About the Author

Michael Lewis is the author of several books, including the international bestseller Liar's Poker. He has been the American editor of the British weekly The Spectator and a senior editor at The New Republic. He writes regularly for The New York Times Magazine and Bloomberg. Lewis lives in Paris with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their newborn daughter.

  From Audio File

Michael Lewis's foray into Silicon Valley through a portrait of Netscape founder Jim Clark is an interesting look at one of the chief architects of the new economy and the collection of "geeks and billionaires" he calls friends. Tabbed as the book that does for Silicon Valley what LIAR'S POKER (another Lewis book) did for Wall Street, THE NEW NEW THING shows how brilliance can lead all at once to wonderful breakthroughs and ridiculous excess. Narrator Bruce Reizen does a commendable job of leading the listener through the lengthy look at a key pioneer in the Internet age, but the subject matter requires more than a passing interest in Silicon Valley to make it truly enjoyable. J.B.B. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The Money Culture

The Money Culture The 1980s was the most outrageous and turbulent era in the financial market since the crash of '29, not only on Wall Street but around the world. Michael Lewis, as a trainee at Salomon Brothers in New York and as an investment banker and later financial journalist, was uniquely positioned to chronicle the ambition and folly that fueled the decade.

Editorial Reviews

  From Publishers Weekly

Essays on the money-mad '80s from the author of the bestselling Liar's Poker .
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  From Library Journal

Lewis wrote a very funny and trenchant book about life as a junior bond trader on Wall Street in the mid-1980s and called it Liar's Poker ( LJ 9/1/89). In this new book, he revisits familiar ground. In essays and pieces that originally appeared in magazines and newspapers, he strolls down Wall Street and takes aim at such targets as Michael Milken, the RJR Nabisco takeover, Louis Rukeyser, the Savings & Loan crisis, the Japanese, etc., and dissects them. There is not much in the way of true revelation here, but, with Lewis's puckish humor and inimitable writing style, the stories are entertaining and thought-provoking. And he proves that "the raw itch for money is still with us as surely as ever . . . and the money on Wall Street is better than elsewhere." This should be a big hit with the readers of his previous book. For all popular nonfiction collections.
- Richard Drezen, Merrill Lynch Lib., New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  From Kirkus Reviews

With this collection of 30-odd pieces (all previously published in a half-dozen magazine and newspapers), Lewis (Liar's Poker, 1989) stakes a further claim to being the wittiest critic of private enterprise since the pseudonymous ``Adam Smith'' was plying his merry trade during the go-go 1960's. Young, gifted, and glib, the author delivers a wealth of deliciously wicked profiles on contemporary Wall Streeters, their offshore counterparts, and other predatory notables whose status is dollar denominated. Among others, he dispatches nouveau-riche Australians, Japan's kamikaze capitalists, TV-personality Louis Rukeyser (the nominal sponsor of seaborne investment seminars remarkable mainly for their ship-of-fools quality), the juvenile delinquents whose passion for speculating in financial futures has convulsed the Paris bourse, Donald Trump, LBO accessories, and other fast-trackers who show little care for socioeconomic consequences. Though largely informed by the serious purpose of capturing instances of greed, pretension, and wretched excess in the global financial village, Lewis's often antic reportage goes down with deceptive ease. A delightfully light touch is evident even in his assessment of such weighty subjects as what havoc a natural disaster (e.g., an earthquake) in Tokyo could wreak on the world's capital markets. Not every entry is a winner; there is, for example, an overlong and not very original expos‚ on the putatively upscale charge cards merchandised by American Express. On the whole, however, the compilation sets a very high standard and provides an evocative, if not precisely nostalgic, record of the recent past's megabuck madnesses. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  Review

“Journalism of a high order. . . . Lewis's insouciance is one of his great charms as a writer, along with a graceful prose style, a mordant wit, and a thorough grounding in the world of finance. . . . One of those rare works that encapsulate and define an era.” (Fortune )

“The funniest and most trenchant commentator on the money-mad moguls reshaping our world today.” (USA Today )

“One of our most entertaining writers. . . . The Money Culture rivals Liar's Poker in giggle-inspiring quality.” (BusinessWeek )

“With Lewis's puckish humor and inimitable writing style, the stories are entertaining and thought-provoking.” (Library Journal )

  From the Publisher

6 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  About the Author

Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of Liar’s Poker, The Money Culture, The New New Thing, Moneyball, The Blind Side, Panic, Home Game, The Big Short, and Boomerang, among other works, lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and three children.

Liar's Poker

Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street In this shrewd and wickedly funny book, Michael Lewis describes an astonishing era and his own rake's progress through a powerful investment bank. From an unlikely beginning (art history at Princeton?) he rose in two short years from Salomon Brothers trainee to Geek (the lowest form of life on the trading floor) to Big Swinging Dick, the most dangerous beast in the jungle, a bond salesman who could turn over millions of dollars' worth of doubtful bonds with just one call. With the eye and ear of a born storyteller, Michael Lewis shows us how things really worked on Wall Street. In the Salomon training program a roomful of aspirants is stunned speechless by the vitriolic profanity of the Human Piranha; out on the trading floor, bond traders throw telephones at the heads of underlings and Salomon chairman Gutfreund challenges his chief trader to a hand of liar's poker for one million dollars; around the world in London, Tokyo, and New York, bright young men like Michael Lewis, connected by telephones and computer terminals, swap gross jokes and find retail buyers for the staggering debt of individual companies or whole countries. The bond traders, wearing greed and ambition and badges of honor, might well have swaggered straight from the pages of Bonfire of the Vanities. But for all their outrageous behavior, they were in fact presiding over enormous changes in the world economy. Lewis's job, simply described, was to transfer money, in the form of bonds, from those outside America who saved to those inside America who consumed. In doing so, he generated tens of millions of dollars for Salomon Brothers, and earned for himself a ringside seat on the greatest financial spectacle of the decade: the leveraging of America.

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1: Liar's Poker

Michael witnessed a classic bluff and re-bluff between John Gutfreund (chairman of Salomon Brothers) and John Meriwether (board member + bond trader). Gutfreund challenged Meriwether to "One million dollars. No tears", to which Meriwether replied, after seconds of thought, "No, I'd rather play for real money. Ten million dollars. No Tears!"

Chapter 2: Never Mention Money

Michael landed a job at Salomon Brothers through a chance encounter with two wives of Salomon MDs (managing directors) in 1984. He reflects on his previous job hunting experience after getting his undergrad degree 2 years earlier. Everyone wanted to work for Wall Street, and investment banking was a hot career. Michael interviewed with Lehman and failed to get the job. Ironically, "I'm in it for the money" is not a good reason to want a job on Wall Street.

Chapter 3: Learning to Love Your Corporate Culture

Salomon Brothers traded equities and bonds, but mainly the latter. The bond market exploded in the 80's due to two events:

The Fed announced that the money supply would be fixed, and interest rates would float.

America borrowed money at a faster pace in the 80s than ever before, from $323 billion in 1977 to 7 trillion in 1985.The first year at Salomon is the training program. Class is segregated into first row (serious types, geeky) and back row (aloof, mischievous). Trainees sometimes abuse each other, but traders on the 41st floor abuse the trainees at will.

Chapter 4: Adult Education

The class involves lectures from various MDs and speeches given by upper management. Most were there to gloat about themselves and looking for ego-boosts. Rarely anything useful came out of these classes. Memorable speakers included: The Human Piranha - Perfect example of the fuckspeak culture on the trading floor. Sangroid - cold and intimidating, made a point that every trainee must live and breathe the financial world. Richard O'Grady - a young trader who started at Salomon as a lawyer. He told true, personal stories of various abuses at Salomon. Once walked out on an interview with the company but came back a year later. Everyone wanted to be in the mortgage bond department because that is where the money is at, and no one wanted to be in equities. "Equity in Dallas" became the lowest of the low for a trainee to end up in.

Chapter 5: A Brotherhood of Hoods

1978-1981 Bob Dall proposed the establishment of a mortgage bond department based on his prediction that there will be an increase in demand for mortgage bond trading. Lewis Ranieri was tapped to lead the trading desks. He soon replaced Bob and was put in charge of the entire mortgage department. In the beginning, there was little trade and the department didn't make much money. It was viewed as the backwater of the company. There is tension between the departments (mortgage, corporate and government), but the mortgage department is essentially a separate entity with its separate support staff.

Chapter 6: The Fat Men and Their Marvelous Money Machine 1981-1986 Since the 1979 interest rate float, rates skyrocketed and banks who loaned out mortgages at low rates are losing money. In 1981, government passed a tax break to save the thrifts (savings and loans banks) from wide-spread bankruptcy. To benefit from these tax breaks, the thrifts can sell their mortgages at significant losses. The supply for mortgage bonds increased tremendously and so did trading. Salomon had the only fully staffed mortgage department so it made a killing. New traders are hired and they presented new ideas for making money, such as buying low yield mortgage loans at discount prices that are likely to see pre-repayment. As (mortgage) traders see more discrepancies between their contribution and pay, they started leaving the company, often poached by rival firms at staggering salaries.

Chapter 7: The Salomon Diet

1986-1988 The good times are coming to an end as talents left Salomons and mortgage bonds became commoditized (partly through Salomon's own invention of CMOs, or Collatorized Mortgage Obligations). New products are being invented such as IO/PO, which increased levels of speculation on mortgage bonds. Andy Stone lost 250 million at Merryl Lynch betting on PO. Ranieri was finally squeezed out in 1988.

Chapter 8: From Geek to Man

Michael started in the London office as a corporate bond salesman. It took sometime for Michael to master the special dynamics between salesmen and traders. His two mentors, Dash (across the desk) and Alexander (across the ocean) taught most of what he knew. Michael became a Big Swinging Dick when he managed to sell a priority (bond the firm wants all salesmen to push) of 86 millions of Olympia and York.

Chapter 9: The Art of War

Michael described the backstabbing incident when another MD took all the credit for the new German gov't bond warrant (call option) that he and Alexander created. He sought revenge by secretly doing a new Japanese gov't bond deal which the MD couldn't explain to his management and peers. MD threatened Michael which backfired when Michael told a syndicate manager (who manages these deals).

Chapter 10: How Can We Make You Happier? In 1987, Salomon Brothers became a takeover target from Revlon, backed by Drexel Burnham, Salomon's long time rival on Wall Street. Drexel Burnham, under the leadership of Michael Milken, fostered an era of corporate takeovers by supplying a way to finance such take over with junk bonds collateralized by the assets of the target itself. In the author's view, the takeover attempt materialized because of the failure of Salomon's leadership to see it in the first place. John Gutfreund then made a deal with Warren Buffet to avoid the takeover, at the expense of Salomon shareholders. Michael painted a picture of Gutfreund's hypocrisy.

Chapter 11: When Bad Things Happen to Rich People

A huge round of firing and trimming of Salomon workforce proceeded one of the worst stock market crashes in history (winter of '87). Reflecting the gross failure and lack of vision from the top management, the company summarily closed down departments and fired a thousand employees. Michael escaped the cut and was instead rewarded with a surprisingly large year end bonus. Salomon did not go under, it continued to operate, but earning much, much less than in its heydays.

Editorial Reviews

  From Library Journal

As described by Lewis, liar's poker is a game played in idle moments by workers on Wall Street, the objective of which is to reward trickery and deceit. With this as a metaphor, Lewis describes his four years with the Wall Street firm Salomon Brothers, from his bizarre hiring through the training program to his years as a successful bond trader. Lewis illustrates how economic decisions made at the national level changed securities markets and made bonds the most lucrative game on the Street. His description of the firm's personalities and of the events from 1984 through the crash of October 1987 are vivid and memorable. Readers of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities ( LJ 11/15/87) are likely to enjoy this personal memoir. BOMC and Fortune Book Club selection.
- Joseph Barth, U.S. Military Acad . Lib., West Point, N.Y.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

  Review

“Lewis has a gift for the rapid portrait. Unless you find his flippant one-liners irritating, it is a pleasure to be guided around the jungle of bond markets by his reminiscences and trenchant asides. . . . Apart from the belly-laughs, one of the triumphs of Liar's Poker is that it makes the financial complexities of investment banking and the markets accessible to the layman. . . . Everything from yields to selling short is painlessly clarified in the course of the narrative.” (Victor Mallet - London Review of Books )

“Vivid and memorable.” (Library Journal )

“Lewis takes the reader through his schoolboy's progress as trainee and geek in the trading room, to high-powered swashbuckler. The author has a puckish appreciation for the comic. Yet he also has the knack of explaining precisely how complex deals really work. He provides the most readable explanation I've seen anywhere of the origin within Salomon Brothers of the mortgage-backed securities market....It is good history, and a good story.” (National Review ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.