Summary of Flash Boys

This is an Instaread Summary of Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis

With Instaread Summaries, you can get the summary of a book in 30 minutes or less. We read every chapter, summarize and analyze it for your convenience. 

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Chapter 1

In 2007, stock brokers were frustrated by the varying speed of communication between the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the data center beside the Nasdaq stock exchange in Carteret, New Jersey. A former stock broker, Dan Spivey, researched the situation and discovered that most fiber optics buried between the two cities followed train tracks and major cities. The problem lay in the fact that this route was not straight, as was ideal for speed of communication, but made many twists and turns. Spivey studied maps and found a route following small paved roads and dirt roads that were straighter. Spivey traveled the route with a construction man, looking for obstacles. They were unable to find any. 

Spivey founded a company with Jim Barskdale, the former CEO of Netscape Communications, called Spread Networks. Through this company they began the complicated process of laying the fiber. This included more than four hundred deals that had to be arranged with the many towns the route transected...