Next

The Future Just Happened

By: Michael Lewis

Narrated by: Michael Lewis

In Liar's Poker, the 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 much the Internet boom has encouraged great changes in the way we live, work, and think. He finds that we are in the midst of one of the greatest status revolutions in the history of the world, and the Internet turns out to be a weapon in the hands of revolutionaries.

Old priesthoods - lawyers, investment gurus, professionals in general - are toppling right and left. In the new order of things, the amateur, or individual, is king: 14-year-old children manipulate the stock market and 19-year-olds take down the music industry. Deep, unseen forces are undermining all forms of collectivism, from the family to the mass market: one little black box has the power to end television as we know it, and another one - also attached to the television set - may dictate significant changes in our practice of democracy. Where does it all lead? And will we like where we end up?

©2001 Michael Lewis (P)2001 Random House, Inc., Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, a Division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"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)

Great Listen

If you've read Liar's Poker or The New New Thing by Michael Lewis, you'll probably know what to expect here. Lewis reverse engineers business advancement and evolution, then hints at what trends may result from these changes. Liars Poker shone light into the stock market, The New New Thing into the birth of the mainstream internet. Next builds on both of these concepts and delivers even more hints at where the business world may be looking next.

Lewis writes less as a question/answer writer, where at the beginning there is a linear hypothesis that will be proven or disproven by the end, then quickly summed up to tie loose ends and make a point, than he does as an inquiring mind looking at how new business trends are the way they are. He carefully picks his examples, then tells an elaborate story about them to advance the theme of the book. It's wonderfully done and, as one of my favourite authors, I was entertained throughout.

Don't listen if you're looking for answers, listen in order to add perspective to your own questions. Lewis is an enabler of ideas, and uses the success of others through his writing to express these views. This book is not written to tell you what will happen next, but written so you can better understand where we may truly be headed.

Highly recommended as a 'light' read. Those looking to learn where the 'Next Big Thing' will be, I'll spoil the plot by saying the answer in not in these pages... it's for you to figure out on your own.

Good Vinettes.

Lewis does a very good job at what he understands, which is business. He takes us through vignettes of young kids and disenfranchised adults who view the world differently and use this to change the business future.

The only down side is that authors should understand what they are writing about, and the last chapter about the BIG future is just random bits of mildly interesting science fiction. Since he is not a scientist, he does not know how to filter plausible science from impossible and it shows. But the beginning, with his keen insights into business, I found very valuable.

As far as authors go who read their own works, he is much better than most; he neither detracts, as Steven King, nor adds to the book, as John le Carre.

Next

This book is a masterpiece! A must read. Michael Lewis truly understands the impact of technology on our society.

Ignore the Title

The book’s cover, title, and subtitle are terrible/outdated. But the contents are solid.

‘Next’ should be repackaged with a new foreword and a more fitting title like:

The First Wave:
Profiles from the Rise of the Internet in the 1990s

Despite the book’s title, it isn’t so much about predicting the future. Instead, it documented the present from a specific vantage point when much change was occurring.

In this light, it is a worthwhile addition for a Michael Lewis fan. It’s lesser Michael Lewis, but it’s still Michael Lewis.

If you like this, read Po Bronson’s ‘The Nudist on the Late Shift.’

Interesting

I found the book an interesting view of things to come. The interviews and stories were well researched and nicely done.

Story was ok. Lacked the substance of Lewis' other

I listened to Flash Boys first, which was extremely engrossing. This book seemed to waffle around more than necessary, with lengthy bits of rambling and reflection, leading to a less cohesive story.

Worth your time

This book brought to light several very interesting events and technologies currently directing change in our society. While it hinted at general trends in power shifts and the effects of certain technologies, it didn't do a great job of synthesizing what exactly the author thinks is coming up.

This isn't really a positive or negative, but the book definitely provoked more questions than it gave answers. It also looked more at current happenings than predicting future ones. That said, it succeeded at picking out some great representative case studies of how our lives are truly being changed by technology. Most succesfully, it described a power shift. With the value of experience decreasing, and being replaced by an openness to new habits and thinking best embodied by children.

I didn't get everything I hoped for out of this book, but I was very pleased with what I did get. I look forward to this authors next book, and definitely think "Next" is more than worth your time.

5 stars for three stories. 2 stars for the rest.

The author researched and interviewed people and then wrote several stories with some interpretation at the end. Most of the stories are internet related and happened more than ten years ago. Three of the stories I hadn’t heard of, and I was fascinated. I was laughing out loud with the first two stories, hearing conversations with parents and other adults. The book is worthwhile for those three stories. For me, on hindsight, I’d skip the rest.

1. Jonathan Labed began playing the stock market at age 13. He learned about the markets watching TV and the internet. He bought stocks, then wrote and published his comments about the stocks on the web. He made a lot of money. The SEC punished him for things that brokerage firms and analysts did on a regular basis without being punished. I laughed at conversations with SEC personnel, Jonathan’s parents, Jonathan’s friends, and Jonathan himself. Jonathan sounded so much more intellectual and knowledgeable than the adults. The chairman of the SEC appeared incompetent because he didn’t understand what Jonathan did and was unable to explain what law Jonathan broke.

2. Marcus Arnold was 15 years old. He learned about the law from TV shows like Judge Judy. As a volunteer he began answering legal questions for people through Ask com (or AskMe com). He became the Ask com #1 legal expert, based on the number of questions he answered and favorable votes given to him. When lawyers learned his age, they began attacking him on Ask com. I laughed at a number of things in his story as well.

3. In 2000 people were getting free music through Napster and similar software. There was a lot of controversy about the future of the music industry and who would survive in this environment. What happened with the British music group Marillion surprised and delighted me. They had no money for a tour. There was an online fan club that took up a collection. They raised $60,000 and the group was able to do a North American tour. A while later, the group needed 100,000 pounds to make a record. The recording company wasn’t interested. So again, the fans raised the money for the group. With this, the group went to the recording company and set their own terms for rights, royalties, etc. They made the record. I was fascinated with fans paying for the group to do things.

Other stories in the book were interesting but not as funny or as fascinating. They included music sharing software, TIVO and Replay TV boxes, TV advertising, marketing surveys, and a clock to last 10,000 years.

NARRATOR: The author narrated his own book. It was ok, but I’d prefer he use an actor. The author has a southern accent which was distracting. It made me think of “him” instead of his material. I guess I‘m spoiled with (or used to) all the generic TV anchor-speak out there.

GENRE: computer industry nonfiction.

Must read

More through a series of seemingly disjointed tales about the Net, the author tries to take a look into the crystal ball that is technology and see what the future holds. The seperate stories themselves are pretty interesting just as stand-alones, though I'm still not clear what the central point (if there is one) that the author is trying to make. Still, forecasting the future and making sense of the present is hard business to be in, and the author does a good job of presenting his material in a straight-forwards and understandable manner. It's worth a read if you're at all interested in how technology is shaping our world.

good read, very interesting thoughts and perspecti

this is a book about the impact on technology on society. It was a very interesting perspective. Worth the time to listen to.