Jim Clark was 38 when he set out to reinvent himself. He had just lost his job as a professor at the New York Institute of Technology, and his second wife had left him. Describing this low point to Michael Lewis, author of The New New Thing, Clark says he was suddenly possessed with "a maniacal passion . . . to achieve something." And he did: In the years since then, Clark, now 55, has created three multibillion-dollar computer companies, including Netscape. In the process he has made himself and the people around him unbelievably rich.
But how? What does it take to become a dominant individual in human society? How do we identify our alpha males and females and decide to give them our allegiance? Our would-be leaders don’t butt heads like rival elk. They don’t signal their ascent from beta to alpha status by turning bright blue, as ...
