This is an ebook I bought because it was an offer and I have read some other books from the author.
I didnt have a clue about the book for a start. So it is about the booming years of Silicon Valley from James Clark. It starts with Silicon Graphics, that just learned that XFS was opensource from them, and other interesting bits, then Netscape, the 1st browser, JavaScript, HTTP cookies, SSL, etc that eventually ended being Mozilla! and the idea came from Marc Andreesen (that is actually a co-founder of the VC Andreesen Horowitz). Then founded Healtheon, that I have no clue about but looked like a killing business in a 1.5T healthcare market…. it doesnt look like the healthsystem in USA is any better? And that finishes there. As well, there is a lot story about the boat Hyperion, that looks a bit boring in some part.
The good things, it how at the Healtheon startup, he wanted to make millionaires the engineers. And as well, there is an important point in the Silicon Valley boom “caused” from many Indian engineers produced by the equivalent of India MIT: IIT.
It is interesting how Micro$oft was at the end “killing” those business as they wintel platform became better at graphics and MS had a monopoly of the workstations so installing a browser from a 3rd party wasn’t going to be made easy….
It is not one of the best books from Michael Lewis, but was nice to read the Silicon Valley history from another point as we mostly remember the companies that have survived till today.