Michael Lewis is the author of five previous books, including "Liars Poker" and "The New New Thing." His latest book, subtitled "The Future Just Happened" is about the social consequences of the Internet or as he puts it, "the Internet consequences of society.". But, it is not just a sociology book, it is a book of significant business value.

The British Broadcasting Company provided Michael Lewis considerable assistance in creating this book. They hired a team of pro web surfers to help Lewis scour the Internet for interesting subjects. Then they would all go out together and knock on the front doors of the people behind the events and see what they were like in the flesh. "Next" chronicles a number of these people and tells their fascinating stories.

"Next" consists of only four chapters. The first two primarily tell stories about children and some of their remarkable exploits that were made possible by the anonymity the Internet permits. The stories, although extremely interesting and well told, had me thinking--well, that's interesting, but so what? By chapter three, I understood the "so what."

Let me summarize the "so what" with a few excerpts from the book:

	In the long run the Internet will become invisible and ubiquitous, and no one will spend a minute thinking about its social effects any more than they now think about the social effects of electricity. p. 16
	If the Internet was giving the world a shove in a certain direction, it was probably because the world already felt inclined to move in that direction. p. 16
	It may be that we are moving to a model where the peak earning years occur before a person is thirty years old, after which he effectively retires. It's the pro athlete model, extended to everyone. p. 26
	And as Michael Lewis quoted Jonathan Lebed's father, "As soon as that computer come into the house, that was it, childhood ended.". p. 18
	...when capitalism encourages even more rapid change, children enjoy one big advantage over adults: they haven't decided who they are. p. 18
	To a child, being on the wrong end of a trend is not a sign that it's time to dig in and defend the old position; it's a signal to cut and run. Progress depends on these small acts of treason. p. 22

Finally, venture capitalist Andy Kessler's algorithm describing the relationship between upstarts on the fringe and the incumbents at the center: p. 160

Rules are established to create order and maintain profits for incumbents. Examples of rules are: social mores, professional licenses, government regulation, locked-up distribution channels.
Cheaper technology suddenly allows for the bypassing of the rules.
Incumbents are fat and dumb and happy with current monopolistic profits and their general situation, so they bad-mouth any new stuff which threatens their incumbency or profits, or both.
Fringe players emerge to use this ever cheaper technology to simply ignore the rules.
Fringe companies attract venture capital since there are great profits to be made by underselling the incumbents.
Incumbents are in denial until their profits are really threatened and/or market share begins to erode meaningfully.
Chaos ensues; fringe players are threatened with lawsuits, government regulation, public shaming, etc.
Growth at the fringe accelerates, as it is the right way to do business using new technology.
Incumbents co-opt the fringe, or fringe players become the new incumbents and seek to establish new rules.
Go to 1.

"Next" is an insightful and excellent book. It is well worth reading, and I will refer often to my heavily marked-up copy.