Next: The Future Just Happened

The first section of the Michael Lewis book "Next" is an extremely interesting story about Jonathan Lebed, a kid who basically found a loophole in the SEC's rules about what is right and wrong when it comes to stock manipulation. You see, Jonathan found out that he could buy a stock cheap and then drive up it's price by posting all over internet forums, convincing others to buy it. Then, he would sell high and make a killing. The fascinating thing is that this is similar to what stock analysts and other experts in the industry do every day. They make projections and recommend stocks, which will have the same outcome: changing the stock price. And these supposed analysts actually have a financial incentive to do this!!

The next kid, Marcus Arnold, has all kinds of knowledge on law, most of which he evidently gleaned from CourtTV. The lesson of Marcus is that you can become whoever you want on the internet (wearing a mask, the author terms it), and gain people's respect, even more so than the supposed experts.

The third teenager of this novel, Daniel Sheldon, didn't really do much on his own that was innovative, except he provides a transition story to other experts such as Justin Frankel (original creator of Winamp and Gnutella). There is another short blurb on this old woman being surveyed by some interactive TV hardware. These final stories are relevant, they're just not nearly as entertaining as the first two kids.

The conclusion is actually pretty good: we have Danny Hillis creating the Millennium Clock, which was supposed to be this grandiose symbol about us looking to the future with hope. Yet, before the project can be completed, it winds up being a monument meant to keep him from being forgotten. Likewise, we have Bill Joy (chief scientist at Sun Microsystems) somehow writing a book about a supposed Armageddon substance called "Gray Goo," screaming that the sky is falling despite not being any kind of expert in the field. It's just kind of ironic, because they have become the washed-up "incumbent" technologists, and the future isn't in their hands anymore.

The general theme is that the internet has allowed children to become experts. And despite the book being chiefly about technology, Lewis doesn't lose the reader in computer terminology. Although, he does spend a bit too much time on the social ramifications of TiVo.

The first two parts are fairly strong, as was the concluding pages. This book is simply about Lewis traveling around, interviewing lots of people, and then reiterating their story. Not spectacular, but still worth a read.

This book was just written after the dot com hype and the stock market collapsed. It tells a few stories about a 15 year old boy who beats professionals in the stock market and earns a few hundred K. It is about the internet that has changed a big part of the economy. I still think it is strange -- no ridiculous -- that building websites has started a whole new economy. It is strange that people have a day job running their virtual business in second life. Next shows and tells you that the world has changed and that the internet might be the next information revolution after the steam engine started the industrial revolution...

The internet and it's ramifications. It enables one kid to make tons of money "manipulating" the stock market by his online comments, and another kid to provide legal advice even though he has no legal training. It disrupts the TV industry, etc...... Yeah, it's old news, but the stories are still entertainig.

To my mind, this is the best of Michael Lewis's work. His style and observations show the humor and zing that have become his hallmark, and his writing is at top form. Next examines the changes wrought by the Internet from the perspective of several entrepreneurs who have exploited its potential, mainly in the form of vignettes. There is no beginning, middle or end, so if you're looking for a story with a plot line, this is likely not going to appeal to you. The lack of story line is, however, what I found compelling - the theme of the book is, "There's this 1800-pound bull out there that everyone is studying and avoiding, and here are a few folks who have ventured out and ridden the bull and had great rides." This is pretty much quintessential Michael Lewis - he finds an individual, or an event, or an industry that has fomented a paradigm shift (a deliberate choice of words here, since Moneyball dealt with the emergence of SABRmetrics, whose acolytes all seem to have read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions").

Not a profound book. Lots of story-telling to make a few good points. A fast and fun read.