100+ Guy Kawasaki Quotes | InspiringQuotes.us

source: - George Cooper Stevens, John Mason Brown (1974). “Speak for yourself, John: the life of John Mason Brown, with some of his letters and many of his opinions”, Viking Adult

Topics: Business, Mark, Good Conversation

A good idea is about ten percent and implementation and hard work, and luck is 90 percent.

Topics: Work, Ideas, Luck, Luck And Hard Work, Implementation

It's easy to say that entrepreneurs will create jobs and big companies will create unemployment, but this is simplistic. The real question is who will innovate.

Topics: Jobs, Real, Entrepreneur, Real Questions, Big Companies

Good people hire people better than themselves. So A players hire A+ players. But others hire below their skills to make themselves look good. So B players hire C players. C players hire D players, etc.

Topics: Player, Skills, People

If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing, If you have more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing.

Topics: Focus, Brain, Marketing, Online Marketing, Digital Media

Ambitious failure, magnificent failure, is a very good thing,

Topics: Ambitious, Good Things, Very Good, Brilliant Minds

If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society's heroes.

Topics: Teacher, Hero, Pedestal

The jewelry business is a very, very tough business - tougher than the computer business. You truly have to understand how to take care of your customers.

Topics: Care, Jewelry, Tough

The hardest thing about getting started, is getting started.

Topics: Getting Started, Hardest, Hardest Thing

Entrepreneur is not a job title. It is a state of mind of people who want to alter the future.

Topics: Jobs, People, Entrepreneur, Job Titles

Better to fail at doing the right thing than to succeed at doing the wrong thing.

Topics: Leadership, Succeed, Failing

Everyone is passionate about something. It's your job to find out what it is.

source: - Guy Kawasaki (2011). “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions”, p.41, Penguin

Topics: Jobs, Passionate

The Future belongs to those who can spread ideas.

Topics: Ideas, Mind Your Own Business, Spread, Own Business

Provide good content and you’ll earn the right to promote your product.

Topics: Products

Facebook is for people, Twitter is for perspective, Google+ is for passion, LinkedIn is for pimping

Topics: Passion, People, Perspective, Pimping, Linkedin

Enchantment is the purest form of sales. Enchantment is all about changing people's hearts, minds and actions because you provide them a vision or a way to do things better. The difference between enchantment and simple sales is that with enchantment you have the other person's best interests at heart, too.

Topics: Heart, Simple, Differences, Best Interests At Heart

Best way to succeed is to do things for the customer, not to the competition. Very few people buy a product in order to help you hurt the competition. To think otherwise is lunacy.

source: - Source: www.sonshi.com

Topics: Hurt, Thinking, Order

When you're a good person, good things happen to you. You shouldn't be a good person with the expectation of therefore deserving good things, but in its purest form, I believe when you do good, good comes back to you.

source: - Source: www.sonshi.com

Topics: Believe, Expectations, Good Person, Deserving, Being A Good Person

Happiness is temporary and fleeting. ... Joy is the right goal.

Topics: Goal, Joy, Fleeting

High achievers tend to have major weaknesses. People without major weaknesses tend to be mediocre.

source: - Guy Kawasaki (2015). “The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything”, p.145, Penguin

Topics: People, Weakness, Mediocre, Achiever

The world is a big place. There are lots of smart people in it. Entrepreneurs are kidding themselves if they think they have any kind of monopoly on knowledge. And, sure as I'm a Macintosh user, on the same day that an entrepreneur tells this lie, the venture capitalist will have met with another company that's doing the same thing.

Topics: Smart, Lying, Thinking, Venture Capitalists

You know in a startup, you only need three people. You need someone who can make something. You need someone who can sell it. And you need someone to collect the money. That's the only three roles in a startup. So which one are you?

Topics: People, Three, Needs

Companies should always want to delight their customers.

source: - "Interview with Guy Kawasaki | Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Author (Enchantment)". Interview with Sameer Kamat, www.mbacrystalball.com. June 26, 2011.

Topics: Delight, Want, Should

If achieving success were easy, more people would do it.

Topics: People, Easy, Achieve

One must understand what people are thinking, feeling and believing in order to enchant them.

source: - Guy Kawasaki (2011). “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions”, p.24, Penguin

Topics: Inspirational, Believe, Thinking

The goal is to provide inspiring information that moves people to action.

source: - Guy Kawasaki (2011). “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions”, p.146, Penguin

Topics: Moving, Communication, People, Business Relationship

Revolutionary leaders have to care more about what they think of themselves than what the world thinks of them.

Topics: Leadership, Business, Thinking, Revolutionary Leaders

Don't ask people to do something you wouldn't.

source: - Interview with Cyriel Kortleven, www.cyrielkortleven.com.

Topics: People, Asks

Leverage your brand. You shouldn't let two guys in a garage eat your shorts.

Topics: Two, Guy, Shorts, Two Guys

If you make meaning, you'll make money.

Topics: Making Money, Ifs

Accept diversity and don't take any crap.

Topics: Diversity, Accepting, Crap

If you don't toot your own horn, don't complain that there's no music.

source: - FaceBook post by Guy Kawasaki from Nov 01, 2013

Topics: Enchantment, Complaining, Horns

Don’t be discouraged by the size of your network – inspire one person and you are doing good.

Topics: Inspire, Size, Discouraged

You have to sit by the side of a river a very long time before a roast duck will fly into your mouth.

Topics: Rivers, Ducks, Long

The first good reason to write a book is to add value to people’s lives.

source: - Twitter post from May 12, 2013

Topics: Book, Writing, People

Eat like a bird, poop like an elephant.

source: - "Rules For Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services". Book by Guy Kawasaki and Michele Moreno, May 3, 2000.

Topics: Elephants, Bird, Poop

You say: "I'm a blue sky thinker." Investor thinks: "You have no business model, and you don't know how to ship."

Topics: Thinking, Blue, Sky, Business Models, Blue Sky

Do you know what the difference is between PR and advertising? Advertising is when you say how great you are. PR is when other people say how great you are. PR is better.

Topics: Differences, People, Advertising

I think that no one, or very few, are born as good presenters. It's a skill that you learn.

Topics: Thinking, Skills, Born, Presenter

• People deserve a break. The stressed and unorganized person who doesn’t have the same priorities as you may be dealing with an autistic child, abusive spouse, fading parents, or cancer. Don’t judge people until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. Give them a break instead.

source: - FaceBook post by Guy Kawasaki from Oct 30, 2015

Topics: Sympathy, Children, Cancer, Autistic Children, Abusive

Writing a book isn’t an easy process nor is it always enjoyable, but it is one of life’s most satisfying achievements.

Topics: Book, Writing, Achievement

Take my word for it: More people will like you if you believe that people are good until proven bad.

source: - Guy Kawasaki (2011). “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions”, p.45, Penguin

Topics: Believe, People, Like You

The companies that are successful, they start out to make meaning, not to make money.

Topics: Successful, Servant Leadership, Making Money

Instant success are seldom instant and if you talk to the people behind these successes, you'll find out that they came after months of fear, uncertainty and confusion along with a flagrant lack of adoption.

Topics: People, Confusion, Adoption

If you're in enough places at enough times, then some of them are bound to be the right ones.

Topics: Enough Time, Enough, Ifs

If you must use more than ten slides to explain your business, you probably don't have a business.

Topics: Business, Use, Slides

Luck favors the people who are willing to grind it out.

Topics: People, Luck, Favors

Here's what you should say [to an investor]: 'this is what my company does' It's that simple. What you're trying to do is get potential investors to fantasize about how your product or service will make a boatload of money. They can't fantasize if they don't know what you do.

Topics: Simple, Trying, Doe

You need to save some mental, physical, and emotional resources for enhancing your product after you ship. A revolution is a triathlon, not a hundred-yard dash-it requires long distance stamina and multiple skills such as creating, churning, and evangelizing.

Topics: Distance, Emotional, Skills, Churning, Triathlon

Money is not the sole or most powerful motivation for many people. A higher and tougher test is to look back and see how you've made the world a better place.

source: - "Interview with Guy Kawasaki | Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Author (Enchantment)". Interview with Sameer Kamat, www.mbacrystalball.com. June 26, 2011.

Topics: Motivation, Powerful, People

Evangelism is selling a dream.

Topics: Inspirational, Dream, Selling

The desire to change the world is a tremendous advantage as you travel down the difficult path ahead because focusing on a lofty goal is more energizing and attracts more talent than simply making a buck.

Topics: Goal, Desire, World, Energizing, Lofty Goals

At the end of the day in business, it's not about peer review and getting into a scientific journal. You either increase sales, or not.

Topics: The End Of The Day, Peers, Peer Review

I want to know which idea you're going to kill yourself trying to make successful, not which ideas have crossed your idle mind.

Topics: Successful, Ideas, Mind

When I finally got a management position, I found out how hard it is to lead and manage people.

Topics: Leadership, People, Management

Not many people agree with what I do.

Topics: People, Agree

I do have a peripatetic and active intellectual curiosity.

source: - "Guy Kawasaki: No 'Secret Sauce' for Tech Success". Interview with Jason Fell, www.entrepreneur.com. June 1, 2012.

Topics: Intellectual, Curiosity, Active, Intellectual Curiosity

Every person has the ability to improve the life of someone else.

Topics: Ability, Persons

You have to start with the basic premise that you need to know what your competition is doing.

Topics: Competition, Marketing, Needs

Skillful pitching... is a necessary, but not sufficient, part of raising capital. More important are the realities of your organization: Are you building something meaningful, long lasting, and valuable to society?

Topics: Meaningful, Reality, Organization, Building Something

I've always wanted to be a professional golfer. So what if you always wanted to be an entrepreneur?

Topics: Entrepreneur, What If, Golfers

Let yourself be enchanted in small ways.

source: - FaceBook post by Guy Kawasaki from Mar 30, 2013

Topics: Way, Enchanted

Steve Jobs has a saying that A players hire A players; B players hire C players; and C players hire D players. It doesn't take long to get to Z players. This trickle-down effect causes bozo explosions in companies.

source: - "12 Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Guy Kawasaki". Guy Kawasaki's speech at Silicon Valley Bank's CEO Summit, www.youtube.com. October 6, 2011.

Topics: Jobs, Player, Long, Trickle Down

Let's say a startup is hot. It ships something great, and it achieves success. Thus, it's able to attract the best, brightest, and most talented. These people have been told they're the best since childhood. Indeed, being hired by the hot company is "proof" that they are the A and A+ players; in fact, the company is so hot that it can out-recruit Google and Microsoft.

Topics: Success, Player, People

If you use social media right, you will piss people off. It's actually recommended!

Topics: Media, People, Use

Unfortunately, they develop a fixed mindset that they're the most talented, and they think that continued success is a right. Problems arise because pure talent only works as long as the going is easy. Furthermore, they don't take risks because failure would harm their image of being the best, brightest, and most talented. When they do fail, they deny it or attribute it to anything but their shortcomings.

Topics: Success, Business, Thinking, Continued Success

Think different in order to change the rules. By definition, if you don't change the rules you aren't a revolutionary, and if you don't think different, you won't change the rules.

Topics: Change, Thinking, Order, Think Different

At the end of my life, I want to say that I made the world a better place because I raised good children, loved my wife, and empowered entrepreneurs. If I do these things, then I can rest knowing that I made the world a better place.

source: - Source: www.sonshi.com

Topics: Children, Knowing, Wife

An MBA is a great degree for career paths like investment banking, finance, consulting, and large companies. An MBA is not necessarily the right path for starting a tech company. You should be building a prototype, not getting an MBA in that case.

source: - "Interview with Guy Kawasaki | Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Author (Enchantment)". Interview with Sameer Kamat, www.mbacrystalball.com. June 26, 2011.

Topics: Mba, Careers, Degrees, Large Companies, Career Path

Social media puts reciprocity on steroids because now you can reach more people in more ways to do more things for them faster and at lower expense. Positive word about your reciprocity can spread faster than ever.

source: - "Interview: Guy Kawasaki on Reciprocity, Influencers, Ecosystems and the Art of Enchantment". Interview with Ian Greenleigh, www.business2community.com. March 17, 2011.

Topics: Positive Words, Media, People, Steroid

Defy the crowd. The crowd isn’t always wise. It can also lead you down a path of silliness, sub-optimal choices, and downright destruction. Enchantment is as necessary for people to diverge from a crowd as it is to get people to join one.

source: - FaceBook post by Guy Kawasaki from Feb 07, 2013

Topics: Wise, People, Choices

Knowledge is great. Competence is great. But the combination of both encourages people to trust you and increases your powers of enchantment. And in this world, the combination is a breath of fresh air.

source: - Guy Kawasaki (2011). “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions”, p.53, Penguin

Topics: Air, People, Enchantment

Go APE: Author a great book, Publish it quickly, and Entrepreneur your way to success. Self-publishing isn’t easy, but it’s fun and sometimes even lucrative. Plus, your book could change the world.

Topics: Fun, Book, Self

A magnificent cause can overcome a prickly personality, but your ability to enchant people increases if they like you, so you should aspire to both. You’ll know that you’re likeable when you can communicate freely, casually, and comfortably with people.

source: - FaceBook post by Guy Kawasaki from Feb 18, 2014

Topics: People, Personality, Overcoming

Topics: Funny, Thoughtful, Thinking

'Branding' has taken on too much of a role as a specialized craft performed by voodoo artists.

Topics: Taken, Artist, Roles

Smart, well-meaning people get it wrong when they start believing that the world owes them something and that the rules are different for them.

Topics: Smart, Believe, People

"Patents make our product defensible." The optimal number of times to use the P word in a presentation is one. Just once, say, "We have filed patents for what we are doing." Done. The second time you say it, venture capitalists begin to suspect that you are depending too much on patents for defensibility. The third time you say it, you are holding a sign above your head that says, "I am clueless."

source: - Guy Kawasaki (2008). “Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition”, p.49, Penguin

Topics: Business, Clueless, Numbers, Venture Capitalists

Arguably, in business books, I don't think there's much that has never been said before.

Topics: Book, Thinking, Said

You know you're ready to write a book when you have a feeling that you should do it, no matter what anybody says. It's like falling in love or starting a company. When you're still wondering if you should get married or you're still wondering whether you should start a company that might be not the right person or the right idea. And writing is the same way. When you've locked on to the topic, you'll just write it.

source: - "Guy Kawasaki Interview on His Latest Book – APE". Interview with Helen Nesterenko, writtent.com. March 10, 2017.

Topics: Falling In Love, Book, Writing, Right Ideas

I don't "need" the rush to be happy. I'd be perfectly happy without the attention and action.

source: - "Interview with Guy Kawasaki | Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Author (Enchantment)". Interview with Sameer Kamat, www.mbacrystalball.com. June 26, 2011.

Topics: Needs, Attention, Action

If you start out to solely make money, you will attract the wrong kind of employees.

Topics: Servant Leadership, Kind, Making Money

A successful self-publisher must fill three roles: Author, Publisher, and Entrepreneur—or APE.

source: - FaceBook post by Guy Kawasaki from Nov 14, 2013

Topics: Successful, Self, Entrepreneur

The two most important things about people on a revolutionary team are their ability and passion. Their educational level or work experience is meaningless--most of the engineers who did ground-breaking work of the Macintosh design didn't even graduate from college.

Topics: Educational, Team, Passion, Macintosh, Work Experience

A crash is when your competitor's program dies. When your program dies, it is an 'idiosyncrasy'.

source: - Guy Kawasaki (1990). “The Macintosh Way”, HarperCollins

Topics: Crash, Program, Competitors, Idiosyncrasies

The key to evangelism is a great product. It is easy, almost unavoidable, to catalyze evangelism for a great product. It is hard, almost impossible, to catalyze evangelism for crap.

source: - Guy Kawasaki (2008). “Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition”, p.157, Penguin

Topics: Business, Keys, Impossible

Great leaders are paradoxical. They catalyze, rather control, the work of their teams. They have an overarching vision for the team but are not autocratic in the realization of this vision. Their eyes are open to whatever results occur-not just planned goals, because serendipity is a great innovator.

Topics: Leadership, Team, Eye

For me writing is as close to being an engineer as possible.

source: - "Guy Kawasaki Interview on His Latest Book – APE". Interview with Helen Nesterenko, writtent.com. March 10, 2017.

Topics: Writing, Engineers

Writing is one way to achieve enchantment.

source: - "Guy Kawasaki Interview on His Latest Book – APE". Interview with Helen Nesterenko, writtent.com. March 10, 2017.

Topics: Writing, Enchantment, Way

For me, while writing I am an engineer, so if I decide to change the format, I want to add a section, to move a section, reorganize the section, anything I want to do, I just boot words, and I do what I want to do. So, I feel completely empowered when I'm a writer.

source: - "Guy Kawasaki Interview on His Latest Book - APE". Interview with Helen Nesterenko, writtent.com. January 11, 2013.

Topics: Moving, Writing, Add

The most powerful sign is that your work no longer enchants you - it's not deep, delightful, and mutually satisfying. When this happens, it may be time to look for new challenges.

source: - Source: www.mbacrystalball.com

Topics: Powerful, Challenges, Looks

Organizations are successful because of good implementation,not good business plans.

Topics: Successful, Organization, Good Business, Business Plan, Implementation

A 50-year-old company can innovate as well as two guys/gals in a garage.

Topics: Years, Two, Guy, Garage, Two Guys

For startups, SM is now crucial: it has never been cheaper and easier to reach one's customers. Entrepreneurs should thank God for Twitter, Facebook.

Topics: Entrepreneur, Thank God, Sms

Sales fixes everything.

source: - "Entrepreneur Secrets From The Inspiring Guy Kawasaki". Interview with Karen Salmansohn, notsalmon.com. September 23, 2016.

Revolutionary products don't fail because they are shipped too early. They fail because they aren't revised fast enough.

Topics: Business, Revolutionary, Failing

What you learn in school is the opposite of what happens in the real world. In school, you're always worried about minimums. You have to reach 20 pages or you have to have so many slides or whatever. Then you get out in the real world and you think, 'I have to have a minimum of 20 pages and 50 slides.

Topics: Real, School, Thinking

Frequently, crashes are followed with a message like 'ID 02'. 'ID' is an abbreviation for idiosyncrasy and the number that follows indicates how many more months of testing the product should have had.

source: - Guy Kawasaki (1990). “The Macintosh Way”, HarperCollins

Topics: Should Have, Numbers, Abbreviations

My recommendation for SEO is very simple. It’s Write Good Stuff. In my mind, Google is in the business of finding good stuff. It has thousands of the smartest people in the world, spending billions of dollars to find the good stuff. All you have to do is write the good stuff; you don't need to trick it. Let Google do its job and you do your job.

Topics: Letting Go, Jobs, Writing, Seo

Doing, not learning to do, is the essence of entrepreneurship.

Topics: Essence, Entrepreneurship

The self-edited author is as foolish as the self-medicated patient.

Topics: Self, Patient, Foolish, Edited

It's a very valuable skill to succeed in life whether you work for a startup or a Fortune 500 company.

source: - "Interview with Guy Kawasaki | Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Author (Enchantment)". Interview with Sameer Kamat, www.mbacrystalball.com. June 26, 2011.

Topics: Skills, Succeed, Fortune

Just do what's right for the customer, and you'll be okay.

source: - "Interview with Guy Kawasaki | Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Author (Enchantment)". Interview with Sameer Kamat, www.mbacrystalball.com. June 26, 2011.

Topics: Okay, Customers

There was no "decision" per se to re-position myself. I simply decided that I wanted to write a book that would help people influence others.

source: - Source: www.mbacrystalball.com

Topics: Book, Writing, People

Original visions are often wrong. Companies have to morph as they learn what customers don't want.

source: - "Interview with Guy Kawasaki | Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Author (Enchantment)". Interview with Sameer Kamat, www.mbacrystalball.com. June 26, 2011.

Topics: Vision, Want, Company

Don't get stubborn, flow with the go. The key is to be open to unintended success. Some companies just can't take yes for an answer.

source: - Source: www.sonshi.com

Topics: Keys, Stubborn, Answers

The record of what you do is forever recoverable because of Google. The lofty upside and scary downside makes reciprocity more important than ever. This is all good because it makes people think more before they do something that reduces their trustworthiness.

source: - "Interview: Guy Kawasaki on Reciprocity, Influencers, Ecosystems and the Art of Enchantment". Interview with Ian Greenleigh, www.business2community.com. March 17, 2011.

Topics: Thinking, People, Scary

Companies in Europe should stop trying to do the U.S. version of a European idea.

Topics: Europe, Ideas, Trying

Entrepreneurship is not for everyone.

Topics: Entrepreneurship

You need to earn the right to promote.

Topics: Needs

Twitter, Facebook, Google + are the trifecta of marketing for authors (and bloggers).

Topics: Google, Marketing, Blogging, Trifecta

"No one is doing what we're doing." This is a bummer of a lie because there are only two logical conclusions. First, no one else is doing this because there is no market for it. Second, the entrepreneur is so clueless that he can't even use Google to figure out he has competition. Suffice it to say that the lack of a market and cluelessness is not conducive to securing an investment. As a rule of thumb, if you have a good idea, five companies are going the same thing. If you have a great idea, fifteen companies are doing the same thing.

source: - Guy Kawasaki (2008). “Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition”, p.48, Penguin

Topics: Lying, Clueless, Ideas, Bummer

Enchantment can be done with writing but I think enchantment is basically a prospective or an operating system for life. That you can enchant a person who is assigning your airplane seat, your hotel room, your waiter, your waitress.

source: - "Guy Kawasaki Interview on His Latest Book - APE". Interview with helen Nesterenko, writtent.com. January 11, 2013.

Topics: Writing, Airplane, Thinking, Waiter

People are free or cheap. Marketing: using Twitter or blogs. Cheap or free. Infrastructure: call up Amazon, call up Rackspace, terabytes of data in the clouds, thousand dollars, two thousand dollars.

Topics: Clouds, Data, Two

Klout and various measurements of influence are fun. I love to see where I score on them, but there's a computer algorithm behind the calculation. If there's an algorithm, it can be gamed. Even if it's not gameable, you have to take a leap of faith that the number of followers, retweets, mentions, whatever really mean something.

source: - "Interview: Guy Kawasaki on reciprocity, influencers, ecosystems and the art of enchantment". Bazaarvoice blog Interview, blog.bazaarvoice.com. March 17, 2011.

Topics: Fun, Mean, Numbers, Retweet, Calculations

Most of my life is over. I am going to enjoy my family and friends before any of us depart this earth. I'll never start another company. I'll never work long hours again. At this point in my life, I only answer to God, my wife, and my kids. Everything else is secondary - especially the expectations of strangers.

source: - Source: www.sonshi.com

Topics: Kids, Long, Expectations, Long Hours

This is the beauty of social media: it helps you find people and then you can contact them fast and inexpensively.

source: - "Interview: Guy Kawasaki on Reciprocity, Influencers, Ecosystems and the Art of Enchantment". Interview with Ian Greenleigh, www.business2community.com. March 17, 2011.

Topics: Media, People, Helping

The angels started singing, the clouds parted, it was a religious experience. I've never had the same reaction to a product, not in 25 years.

Topics: Religious, Angel, Clouds

An editor who is a mentor, advisor, and psychiatrist. Don't kid yourself-a good editor will make your book better.

Topics: Book, Kids, Editors

The beauty of Goodreads is that you know you’re sowing in a field where everyone, by definition and self-selection, loves to read.

Topics: Self, Sowing, Definitions, Goodreads

When you’ve worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you.

Topics: Opportunity, Done, Doorways

It's just as valuable to curate content as it is to create it.

Topics: Growth, Business Growth, Valuable

At the end of my life, is it better to say that I empowered people to make great stuff, or that I died with a net worth of $10 billion? Obviously I'm picking the former, although I would not mind both.

Topics: People, Mind, Stuff, Net Worth

To say that Windows 95 is just like the Mac is like finding a potato in the shape of Jesus and thinking you have witnessed the second coming

Topics: Jesus, Thinking, Shapes

And this is the beginning of the end.

source: - FaceBook post by Guy Kawasaki from Jun 07, 2014

Topics: Success, Ends

The root of great companies is make meaning vs. make money.

Topics: Roots, Making Money, Great Company

I merely consider myself a father, and one role of a father is to provide financial resources for his family.

source: - "Guy Kawasaki: No 'Secret Sauce' for Tech Success". Interview with Jason Fell, www.entrepreneur.com. June 1, 2012.

Topics: Father, Roles, Financial, Financial Resources

I don't want to make more friends. I have four kids, I have plenty of friends, and all the personal relationships I need.

Topics: Friendship, Kids, Needs

Good blurbs are short, sweet, and limited to six. They answer the question “Why should I buy this book?

source: - Twitter post from Jul 2, 2013

Topics: Sweet, Book, Answers, Should I

The essence of evangelism is to passionately show people how you can make history together.

source: - Guy Kawasaki (1990). “The Macintosh Way”, HarperCollins

Topics: Essence, People, Together

If you're an entrepreneur and you think that the president makes a difference to your business, you should stay at your current job.

Topics: Jobs, Thinking, Differences

You know, if you're Guy Kawasaki and you create a car that gets 500 miles a gallon with zero emissions, people on the Internet would say: 'I could have done that in half an hour, and it's been done before. What's the big deal? I expected something more from him.' Meanwhile, they didn't do it, right? They're still living at home with their mothers.

Topics: Mother, Zero, Home, Gallons

It's hard to build community around mediocre and mundane writing.

Topics: Writing, Community, Mediocre

Steve [Jobs] proves that it's OK to be an asshole... He just has a different OS.

source: - "The Art of the Start". Book by Guy Kawasaki, 2004.

Topics: Jobs, Different, Prove

Writing is therapeutic. It helps you cope with issues that seem gargantuan at the time. The process of expressing yourself about a problem, editing your thoughts, and writing some more can help you control issues that you face.

source: - FaceBook post by Guy Kawasaki from Oct 25, 2015

Topics: Writing, Editing, Issues, Therapeutic, Control Issues

Do not write to impress others. Authors who write to impress people have difficulty remaining true to themselves. A better path is to write what pleases you and pray that there are others like you. Your first and most important reader is you. If you write a book that pleases you, at least you know one person will like it.

Topics: Book, Writing, People

Jolt is for Windows programmers. It's typical IBM PC: it goes in brown and comes out yellow. Mountain Dew is for Macintosh programmers: it goes in yellow and comes out yellow. It's WYSIWYP.

Topics: Yellow, Mountain, Dew, Mountain Dew

Coming from the U.S., you tend to look at one homogeneous market with 350 million people. But in Europe, every country has its own customs and laws.

Topics: Country, Europe, Law, Homogeneous

If you look at my Twitter feed it is 99% links, but 1% is me responding and 1% of a big number is a big number.

Topics: Numbers, Links, Looks

Pursue joy, not happiness. This is probably the hardest lesson of all to learn. It probably seems to you that the goal in life is to be happy. Oh, you maybe have to sacrifice and study and work hard, but, by and large, happiness should be predictable.

Topics: Hard Work, Sacrifice, Goal, Study And Work

"(Big name research firm) says our market will be $50 billion in 2010." Every entrepreneur has a few slides about how the market potential for his segment is tens of billions. It doesn't matter if the product is bar mitzah planning software or 802.11 chip sets. Venture capitalists don't believe this type of forecast because it's the fifth one of this magnitude that they've heard that day. Entrepreneurs would do themselves a favor by simply removing any reference to market size estimates from consulting firms.

Topics: Business, Believe, Names, Venture Capitalists

I have developed a Zen-like approach to the operating systems that people use: 'When you're ready, the right operating system will appear in your life.

Topics: People, Use, Operating Systems, Zen Like

The A-listers and the A+ listers, are reporting the news, they're not making it.

Topics: News

Social media allows me to pick my times for social interaction.

Topics: Media, Social, Interaction

If you make money, you might not make meaning.

Topics: Money, Might, Making Money

I'm a lousy predictor of the future.

Topics: Future

I travel all the time.

Topics: Travel, Time Travel

The secret of evangelism is Guy's golden touch - whatever is gold, Guy touches. That’s very different than saying whatever Guy touches turns gold.

Topics: Guy, Secret, Gold, Saying Whatever

What I lack in talent, I compensate with my willingness to grind it out.

Topics: Talent, Grind, Willingness To Help

My theory is that when you're young, you should work eighty hours a week to create a product or service that changes the world.

source: - Guy Kawasaki (2008). “Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition”, p.61, Penguin

Topics: Work, World, Week

Second, you need to spread the large amount of information knowledge that you've gained-pooping like an elephant. This means sharing information and discoveries with your fellow employees and occasionally even with your competitors.

Topics: Knowledge, Mean, Discovery, Information Knowledge, Sharing Information

Disorganizatio n is the enemy of good writing.

Topics: Writing, Enemy, Good Writing

If you truly don't have competition, then zoom out until you can define some. Competition can be as simple as the reliance on the status quo, Microsoft (since at some point Microsoft will compete with everyone for everything), or researchers in universities. Pick something, because saying you have no competition at all is a nonstarter.

Topics: Simple, Competition, Zoom, Researchers

Inoculate yourself from dangerous bozos.

Topics: Dangerous

Great teams are usually small-under fifty in total head count. (There are few examples of a team made up of hundreds of people who created anything revolutionary.) Big teams aren't conducive to revolutionary products because such products require a high degree of single-mindedness, unity, and unreasonable passion.

Topics: Team, Passion, People, Single Mindedness

You’ll learn that the key to a great book is editing-grindin g, buffing, and polishing-not writing.

Topics: Book, Writing, Keys

You really can't spend money on social media unless you really try. Social media is really more about effort than expense.

source: - "Guy Kawasaki's Social Media Secret". Interview with Eric Markowitz, www.inc.com. February 28, 2012.

Topics: Media, Effort, Trying

The first 90 percent of a revolution is creating the product or service; the second 90 percent is evangelizing it. At the beginning of a revolution, you need evangelists, not sales, because leverage spreads news.

Topics: Creating, Needs, News

The telephone operator has one of the biggest roles in creating your organization's image....indeed, many people may come into contact with no one except your operator.

Topics: Organization, Creating, People

Most venture capitalists won't read a business plan unless the entrepreneur is introduced to them by a contact.

Topics: Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalists, Plans

What gets me up in the morning is either my daughter crawling into bed or my sons having to go to school. I love my family. They need a certain level of economic resources. They need my time. They need my attention. That's why I do what I do...and don't do what I don't do what I don't do.

source: - Source: www.sonshi.com

Topics: Daughter, Morning, School, I Love My Family, Economic Resources

My real mantra for my life is "empower others".

source: - "Interview with Guy Kawasaki | Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Author (Enchantment)". Interview with Sameer Kamat, www.mbacrystalball.com. June 26, 2011.

Topics: Real, Empowering, Life Is

Companies can add value and simultaneously promote themselves if their product or service truly improves the lives of their customers. I mean really improve lives, not wishful thinking, rationalization. That's the acid test.

source: - "Interview: Guy Kawasaki on Reciprocity, Influencers, Ecosystems and the Art of Enchantment". Interview with Ian Greenleigh, www.business2community.com. March 17, 2011.

Topics: Mean, Thinking, Add

Writing a book is as different from digital curation as night and day. Digital curation is a series of split-second decisions: good/no good. It can even be done algorithmically. Writing is process-intensive activity.

source: - "Interview: Guy Kawasaki on Reciprocity, Influencers, Ecosystems and the Art of Enchantment Read more at https://www.business2community.com/social-media/interview-guy-kawasaki-on-reciprocity-influencers-ecosystems-and-the-art-of-enchantment-019571". Interview with Ian Greenleigh, www.business2community.com. March 17, 2011.

Topics: Book, Writing, Night

Looking back on my own career, I've come to the conclusion that too much money is worse than too little.

Topics: Careers, Littles, Too Much

Someone once said that death is God's way of telling you to slow down. I do enjoy what I do, and the secret of my success is the willingness to grind work out.

source: - "Interview with Guy Kawasaki | Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Author (Enchantment)". Interview with Sameer Kamat, www.mbacrystalball.com. June 26, 2011.

Topics: Work Out, Secret, Way, Secret Of My Success

When you give people too many choices it makes them hesitate and not buy stuff.

Topics: People, Giving, Choices

Look back to the old days: people bought an MS DOS machine and struggled with it for weeks to bring it up to speed. Then Apple created Macintosh, struggled a bit with it, but eventually succeeded. Then it went into other businesses. If your company truly wants to change the world, it would make these problems go away for customers.

source: - PayLane Interview, blog.paylane.com.

Topics: Apples, People, Going Away, Macintosh, Old Days

If you just enchanted one person per day, you would make a big dent in the universe.

source: - "Interview with Guy Kawasaki". PayLane Blog Interview, blog.paylane.com. October 7, 2011.

Topics: Enchanted, Bigs, Persons

My books are always tactical, bullet lists, this is what you need to do because I'm trying to appeal to people who are trying to change the world and they need checklists.

Topics: Book, People, Trying, Checklists, Tactical

Hockey is the only thing that I'm not good at that I love.