Finding the 'Next' Netheads.(Next: The Future Just Happened)(Brief Article)(Review)

One of the iron laws of the Information Age is that every time somebody lays down an iron law of the Information Age, it turns out to be 180 degrees off the mark. Early on, futurists predicted that the computer would lead to the paperless office. Now we are swimming in more paper than ever. Techno-enthusiasts have long predicted that the Internet would upset old hierarchies, empowering the geek rebel and weakening the corporate fat cat. But we are not living in an age of toppled hierarchies and decentralization of power. On the contrary, there is a great wave of consolidation wherever you look--in banking, media, airlines, the automotive sector. Think AOL Time Warner. Think DaimlerChrysler. Even in the high-tech sector, a few giants dominate: Microsoft, Intel, Amazon, Nokia and so on.

Most important, young people--the ones who grew up with the Internet-- are not rebels and free agents. On the contrary, they are incredibly-- even disconcertingly--comfortable with authority. Public-opinion surveys show they respect and defer to their parents more than previous generations did. They don't rebel against their teachers. Instead, they work hard and are eager to please them.

Still, old ideas have enormous power. Since Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Western intellectuals have been in love with the idea that people are born free but kept in chains by crusty old institutions. It's cool to be a rebel and awful to be a pillar of the establishment. This powerful set of prejudices has shaped the way we perceive the Information Age. Almost every piece of writing about Silicon Valley or information technology conforms to this central story line.

Michael Lewis, who is the best chronicler of the high-technological culture, is no exception. The author of "Liar's Poker," one of the definitive books on Wall Street in the 1980s, and "The New New Thing," one of the definitive books on Silicon Valley in the 1990s, Lewis has now produced "Next: The Future Just Happened." It is a series of vignettes all with the same message: the Internet topples hierarchies. Children and outsiders rule.

The first and most brilliant vignette is about Jonathan Lebed, a teenager in New Jersey who made a fortune by buying a stock, jacking up its price by touting it promiscuously in various financial chat rooms and then selling it for a large profit. Another chapter is about Marcus Arnold, a kid in Perris, California, who learned a thing or two about the American legal system by ...