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Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
"Don't even think about trying to launch a startup without reading Guy Kawasaki's Reality Check." -BizEd For a quarter of a century, in his various guises as an entrepreneur, evangelist, venture capitalist, and guru, Guy Kawasaki has cast an irreverent eye on the dubious trends, sketchy theories, and outright foolishness of what so often passes for business today. Too many people frantically chase the Next Big Thing only to discover that all they've made is the Last Big Mistake. Reality Check is Kawasaki's all-in-one guide for starting and operating great organizations-ones that stand the test of time and ignore any passing fads in business theory. This indispensable volume collects, updates, and expands the best entries from his popular blog and features his inimitable take on everything from effective e-mailing to sucking up to preventing "bozo explosions."
508 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 30, 2008
162 people are currently reading
7174 people want to read
About the author
Guy Kawasaki
93 books2,647 followersI was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1954. My family lived in a tough part of Honolulu called Kalihi Valley. We weren’t rich, but I never felt poor-because my mother and father made many sacrifices for my sister and me. My mother was a housewife, and my father was a fireman, real estate broker, state senator, and government official during his long, distinguished career.
I attended Iolani School where I graduated in 1972. Iolani is not as well known as its rival, Punahou because no presidents of the U. S. went there, but I got a fantastic and formative education there. (Punahou is “USC,” and Iolani is “Stanford”—but I digress.) I pay special tribute to Harold Keables, my AP English teacher.He taught me that the key to writing is editing. No one in the universe would be more shocked that I have written ten books (or one book ten times) than Harold Keables.
After Iolani, I matriculated to Stanford; I graduated in 1976 with a major in psychology—which was the easiest major I could find. I loved Stanford. I sometimes wish I could go back in time to my undergraduate days “on the farm.”
After Stanford, I attended the law school at U.C. Davis because, like all Asian-American parents, my folks wanted me to be a “doctor, lawyer, or dentist.” I only lasted one week because I couldn’t deal with the law school teachers telling me that I was crap and that they were going to remake me.
The following year I entered the MBA program at UCLA. I liked this curriculum much better. While there, I worked for a fine-jewelry manufacturer called Nova Stylings; hence, my first real job was literally counting diamonds. From Nova, its CEO Marty Gruber, and my Jewish colleagues in the jewelry business, I learned how to sell, and this skill was vital to my entire career.
I remained at Nova for a few years until the the Apple II removed the scales from my eyes. Then I went to work for an educational software company called EduWare Services. However, Peachtree Software acquired the company and wanted me to move to Atlanta. “I don’t think so.” I can’t live in a city where people call sushi “bait.”
Luckily, my Stanford roommate, Mike Boich, got me a job at Apple; for giving me my chance at Apple, I owe Mike a great debt. When I saw what a Macintosh could do, the clouds parted and the angels started singing. For four years I evangelized Macintosh to software and hardware developers and led the charge against world-wide domination by IBM. I also met my wife Beth at Apple during this timeframe—Apple has been very good to me.
Around 1987, my job at Apple was done. Macintosh had plenty of software by then, so I left to start a Macintosh database company called ACIUS. It published a product called 4th Dimension. To this day, 4th Dimension remains a great database.
I ran ACIUS for two years and then left to pursue my bliss of writing, speaking, and consulting. I’ve written for Macuser, Macworld, and Forbes. I call these the “Wonder Years” as in “I wonder how I came to deserve such a good life.”
In 1989, I started another software company called Fog City Software with three of the best co-founders in the world: Will Mayall, Kathryn Henkens, and Jud Spencer. We created an email product called Emailer which we sold to Claris and then a list server product called LetterRip.
In 1995 I returned to Apple as an Apple fellow. At the time, according to the pundits, Apple was supposed to die. (Apple should have died about ten times in the past twenty years according to the pundits.) My job on this tour of duty was to maintain and rejuvenate the Macintosh cult.
A couple years later, I left Apple to start an angel investor matchmaking service called Garage.com with Craig Johnson of Venture Law Group and Rich Karlgaard of Forbes. Version 2.0 of Garage.com was an investment bank for helping entrepreneurs raise money from venture capitalists. Today, version 3.0 of Garage.com is called Garage Technology Ven
I attended Iolani School where I graduated in 1972. Iolani is not as well known as its rival, Punahou because no presidents of the U. S. went there, but I got a fantastic and formative education there. (Punahou is “USC,” and Iolani is “Stanford”—but I digress.) I pay special tribute to Harold Keables, my AP English teacher.He taught me that the key to writing is editing. No one in the universe would be more shocked that I have written ten books (or one book ten times) than Harold Keables.
After Iolani, I matriculated to Stanford; I graduated in 1976 with a major in psychology—which was the easiest major I could find. I loved Stanford. I sometimes wish I could go back in time to my undergraduate days “on the farm.”
After Stanford, I attended the law school at U.C. Davis because, like all Asian-American parents, my folks wanted me to be a “doctor, lawyer, or dentist.” I only lasted one week because I couldn’t deal with the law school teachers telling me that I was crap and that they were going to remake me.
The following year I entered the MBA program at UCLA. I liked this curriculum much better. While there, I worked for a fine-jewelry manufacturer called Nova Stylings; hence, my first real job was literally counting diamonds. From Nova, its CEO Marty Gruber, and my Jewish colleagues in the jewelry business, I learned how to sell, and this skill was vital to my entire career.
I remained at Nova for a few years until the the Apple II removed the scales from my eyes. Then I went to work for an educational software company called EduWare Services. However, Peachtree Software acquired the company and wanted me to move to Atlanta. “I don’t think so.” I can’t live in a city where people call sushi “bait.”
Luckily, my Stanford roommate, Mike Boich, got me a job at Apple; for giving me my chance at Apple, I owe Mike a great debt. When I saw what a Macintosh could do, the clouds parted and the angels started singing. For four years I evangelized Macintosh to software and hardware developers and led the charge against world-wide domination by IBM. I also met my wife Beth at Apple during this timeframe—Apple has been very good to me.
Around 1987, my job at Apple was done. Macintosh had plenty of software by then, so I left to start a Macintosh database company called ACIUS. It published a product called 4th Dimension. To this day, 4th Dimension remains a great database.
I ran ACIUS for two years and then left to pursue my bliss of writing, speaking, and consulting. I’ve written for Macuser, Macworld, and Forbes. I call these the “Wonder Years” as in “I wonder how I came to deserve such a good life.”
In 1989, I started another software company called Fog City Software with three of the best co-founders in the world: Will Mayall, Kathryn Henkens, and Jud Spencer. We created an email product called Emailer which we sold to Claris and then a list server product called LetterRip.
In 1995 I returned to Apple as an Apple fellow. At the time, according to the pundits, Apple was supposed to die. (Apple should have died about ten times in the past twenty years according to the pundits.) My job on this tour of duty was to maintain and rejuvenate the Macintosh cult.
A couple years later, I left Apple to start an angel investor matchmaking service called Garage.com with Craig Johnson of Venture Law Group and Rich Karlgaard of Forbes. Version 2.0 of Garage.com was an investment bank for helping entrepreneurs raise money from venture capitalists. Today, version 3.0 of Garage.com is called Garage Technology Ven
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March 12, 2009
I was skeptical of this book because the author, Guy Kawasaki, is a member of the Silicon Valley pundit class of which I am always skeptical. He also seems to be a member of the subspecies that has coasted for the last 20 years based on one gig at one high-profile company; the Bay Area tech community is overflowing with people who answered phones for a few years at Microsoft, Sun, etc. and have since parlayed that into a vague executive bio and a string of 80 failed startups. I actually enjoyed this book, though. His straightforward, conversational style is well-suited to the material. He is also one of the only authors in the universe who understands that it's OK to have a two-page chapter when you only have two pages worth of stuff to say on a subject. Overly long chapters in nonfiction are a pet peeve of mine, because it makes it impossible to skip around to parts you care about, so I applaud Kawasaki for giving his book a structure that is USEFUL to the reader. On the content side, it covers the whole spectrum from enlightening to mindnumbing, but, per the previous point, you can easily skip the weak parts (or the parts that don't apply to you) without losing the thread. I think the title of the book is a good summary: most of the insights are commonsensical, but in practice Silicon Valley entrepreneurs all seem to lose their common sense, and this book would make a good refresher on the basics for when you've gone off the reservation.
November 20, 2012
Guy Kawasaki is an entertaining writer, a curious mind, and most important, a straight shooter.
So much of business, especially the business press, is filled with abstract hype. Cheerleading for a specific style of doing things, or reverse engineering the possible causes of some outcome --- but without including all of the information about people who took the same steps, but did not come up with the outcome described. Basically, much of the business press --- especially the popular stuff, is nice sounding and made to sell, but it's not going to change entrepreneurs or managers for the better.
"Reality Check" on the other hand, is all extremely practical. It's a lot like The Knack but with so much more information about so many more topics.
Most of Kawasaki's advice boils down to:
* Don't run out of cash
* Create Badass Products that customers want to buy
* Put yourself out there and always tell the truth
* Keep releasing more and more badass products
Of course Kawasaki does it in a fun and interesting way. You'll laugh out loud several times during the course of the read. There are so many useful sections that go into detail about how to handle specific circumstances that my copy is now full of sticky note reminders and I'll reference it often. Most of the best sections are available as blog posts on the authors site, blog.guykawasaki.com
My favorite sections included, all of which happen to be available online as blog posts:
* Art of Financial Projections (cut the entrepreneur's sales forecast by 90%, don't get expenses wrong)
* The actual"Redfin" numbers to use as the baseline for your own financial projections
* Guy's process of building a Web2.0 site for $12K
* Stupid Ways to Hinder Market Adoption --- Use this checklist anytime you launch something
* Art of Branding: Take the opposite test and Examine the Bounce-Back
* Frame or Be Framed: Be True to Yourself
* Tam's Art Gallery: DO ONE THING WELL
* Art of Distribution: Obey the law of big numbers
* Art of Evangelism: Deep, Intelligent, Complete, Elegant, Emotive. LEARN TO GIVE A GREAT DEMO
* DIY PR: The Rolodex is already online. See journalists own blogs, LinkedIn and JigSaw. Make time for it!
* Straight from the Press's Mouth --- re-read before talking with the press. Do research on WHO you are talking to
* How to get a standing ovation: Practice and speak all the time. Give the speech 20 times to get good at it. Focus on being entertaining. Overdress. Tell stories. Speak at the start of the event.
* Art of Blogging: Think BOOK not Diary
* What's your EQ (Entrepreneurial Quotient) --- I got 17. Result: " Your score is high, so you can focus on doing, not learning"
Additionally, Kawasaki provided several good book references and summaries:
- The Sticking Point: Creating a message that people remember (See: Made to Stick
--- Simple: a single, clear mission
--- Unexpected: a man on the moon, sounds like sci-fi
--- Concrete: success was defined so clearly. a man on the moon this decade
--- Credible: it was the president of the USA speaking
--- Emotional: appealed to the aspirations of the citizens
--- Story: astronaut overcomes great obstacles, becomes classic hero story
- The relationship between Evangelism and Stickiness: See MacIntosh Way
- The purest form of Engineering: See iWoz
- Are you an Egomanic? See: Egonomics
- The No Asshole Rule: See No Asshole Rule
So much of business, especially the business press, is filled with abstract hype. Cheerleading for a specific style of doing things, or reverse engineering the possible causes of some outcome --- but without including all of the information about people who took the same steps, but did not come up with the outcome described. Basically, much of the business press --- especially the popular stuff, is nice sounding and made to sell, but it's not going to change entrepreneurs or managers for the better.
"Reality Check" on the other hand, is all extremely practical. It's a lot like The Knack but with so much more information about so many more topics.
Most of Kawasaki's advice boils down to:
* Don't run out of cash
* Create Badass Products that customers want to buy
* Put yourself out there and always tell the truth
* Keep releasing more and more badass products
Of course Kawasaki does it in a fun and interesting way. You'll laugh out loud several times during the course of the read. There are so many useful sections that go into detail about how to handle specific circumstances that my copy is now full of sticky note reminders and I'll reference it often. Most of the best sections are available as blog posts on the authors site, blog.guykawasaki.com
My favorite sections included, all of which happen to be available online as blog posts:
* Art of Financial Projections (cut the entrepreneur's sales forecast by 90%, don't get expenses wrong)
* The actual"Redfin" numbers to use as the baseline for your own financial projections
* Guy's process of building a Web2.0 site for $12K
* Stupid Ways to Hinder Market Adoption --- Use this checklist anytime you launch something
* Art of Branding: Take the opposite test and Examine the Bounce-Back
* Frame or Be Framed: Be True to Yourself
* Tam's Art Gallery: DO ONE THING WELL
* Art of Distribution: Obey the law of big numbers
* Art of Evangelism: Deep, Intelligent, Complete, Elegant, Emotive. LEARN TO GIVE A GREAT DEMO
* DIY PR: The Rolodex is already online. See journalists own blogs, LinkedIn and JigSaw. Make time for it!
* Straight from the Press's Mouth --- re-read before talking with the press. Do research on WHO you are talking to
* How to get a standing ovation: Practice and speak all the time. Give the speech 20 times to get good at it. Focus on being entertaining. Overdress. Tell stories. Speak at the start of the event.
* Art of Blogging: Think BOOK not Diary
* What's your EQ (Entrepreneurial Quotient) --- I got 17. Result: " Your score is high, so you can focus on doing, not learning"
Additionally, Kawasaki provided several good book references and summaries:
- The Sticking Point: Creating a message that people remember (See: Made to Stick
--- Simple: a single, clear mission
--- Unexpected: a man on the moon, sounds like sci-fi
--- Concrete: success was defined so clearly. a man on the moon this decade
--- Credible: it was the president of the USA speaking
--- Emotional: appealed to the aspirations of the citizens
--- Story: astronaut overcomes great obstacles, becomes classic hero story
- The relationship between Evangelism and Stickiness: See MacIntosh Way
- The purest form of Engineering: See iWoz
- Are you an Egomanic? See: Egonomics
- The No Asshole Rule: See No Asshole Rule
October 9, 2011
Another of Guy Kawasaki’s excellent handbooks for startups. He dispels many myths and provides practical steps to starting and growing a business. The chapters are short but thought-provoking, and will enhance your “entrepreneurial quotient” whether you sell products or services.
Kawasaki expands on the lessons of The Art of the Start, which I found very worthwhile (read my review). In addition to his ample firsthand experience, Kawasaki includes interviews with experts, research from recent studies, and wisdom from popular books. I liked the advice on starting, executing, innovating, marketing, and selling. I skimmed the chapters that aren’t yet applicable to me: fund raising, hiring and firing, and managing.
Raising money
“Venture capital is something to do at the end of your career, not the beginning. It should be your last job, not your first.” You need real-world experience, ideally in engineering or sales.
Planning & executing
A business plan should take less than 1 week to write and be less than 20 pages. Write deliberate, act emergent: write as if you know what you’re going to do, but execute flexibly to react to new information and opportunities.
The primary goal of a startup: don’t run out of money.
Bootstrapping
• Cash flow is more important than profitability.
• Ship when the product/service is good enough, then improve it.
• Focus on function over form.
Innovating
• Build something that you want to use.
• Make meaning. Enable people to do old things better, do things they always wanted to do, and do things they never knew they wanted to do.
• Don’t worry, be crappy. Don’t wait for perfection; the first version can be crappy.
• Don’t stay crappy. Improve every version.
• Don’t be afraid to polarize. Create great products that make segments of people very happy, even if it makes other segments unhappy.
• The purpose of innovation is not cool products but happy people.
• To be successful, be the sole provider of something people really want.
The most powerful ideas in business are the ones that set forth an agenda for reform and renewal - the ones that turn a company into a cause: strategy as advocacy. Reshape the sense of what’s possible for customers.
Marketing
• The most important lesson of marketing/branding: do one thing well.
• The foundation of successful branding is to create an excellent product/service.
Selling & evangelizing
• Sales fix everything. Sales means cash, and cash means you can fix your team, technology, and marketing.
• People don’t buy revolutions. They buy aspirins to fix the pain or vitamins to supplement their lives.
Beguiling
• Give people value and they’ll want to return the favor.
• Every time someone thanks you, immediately ask for a testimonial or referral.
Influencing
• Reciprocation. Take care of your customer, and they’ll take care of you.
• Scarcity. It’s easier to sell your product if people perceive it as popular and in short supply.
• Authority. The customer will believe in you if you’re knowledgeable.
• Liking. Customers will only buy from you if they like you.
• Consensus. Customers are more likely to buy when everyone around them is buying your product.
• Don’t point fingers, just fix the problem.
Schmoozing
• It’s not what you know or who you know, but who knows you.
• Ask good questions and listen.
• Unveil your passions.
• Follow up.
• Give favors, return favors, and ask for favors.
• Make small talk to discover common interests and experiences.
Sucking up
• Appeal to empathy. Take advantage of people’s desire to help an underdog.
• Provide present or future value.
• Thank for what you’ve already received.
• Give favors.
Kawasaki expands on the lessons of The Art of the Start, which I found very worthwhile (read my review). In addition to his ample firsthand experience, Kawasaki includes interviews with experts, research from recent studies, and wisdom from popular books. I liked the advice on starting, executing, innovating, marketing, and selling. I skimmed the chapters that aren’t yet applicable to me: fund raising, hiring and firing, and managing.
Raising money
“Venture capital is something to do at the end of your career, not the beginning. It should be your last job, not your first.” You need real-world experience, ideally in engineering or sales.
Planning & executing
A business plan should take less than 1 week to write and be less than 20 pages. Write deliberate, act emergent: write as if you know what you’re going to do, but execute flexibly to react to new information and opportunities.
The primary goal of a startup: don’t run out of money.
Bootstrapping
• Cash flow is more important than profitability.
• Ship when the product/service is good enough, then improve it.
• Focus on function over form.
Innovating
• Build something that you want to use.
• Make meaning. Enable people to do old things better, do things they always wanted to do, and do things they never knew they wanted to do.
• Don’t worry, be crappy. Don’t wait for perfection; the first version can be crappy.
• Don’t stay crappy. Improve every version.
• Don’t be afraid to polarize. Create great products that make segments of people very happy, even if it makes other segments unhappy.
• The purpose of innovation is not cool products but happy people.
• To be successful, be the sole provider of something people really want.
The most powerful ideas in business are the ones that set forth an agenda for reform and renewal - the ones that turn a company into a cause: strategy as advocacy. Reshape the sense of what’s possible for customers.
Marketing
• The most important lesson of marketing/branding: do one thing well.
• The foundation of successful branding is to create an excellent product/service.
Selling & evangelizing
• Sales fix everything. Sales means cash, and cash means you can fix your team, technology, and marketing.
• People don’t buy revolutions. They buy aspirins to fix the pain or vitamins to supplement their lives.
Beguiling
• Give people value and they’ll want to return the favor.
• Every time someone thanks you, immediately ask for a testimonial or referral.
Influencing
• Reciprocation. Take care of your customer, and they’ll take care of you.
• Scarcity. It’s easier to sell your product if people perceive it as popular and in short supply.
• Authority. The customer will believe in you if you’re knowledgeable.
• Liking. Customers will only buy from you if they like you.
• Consensus. Customers are more likely to buy when everyone around them is buying your product.
• Don’t point fingers, just fix the problem.
Schmoozing
• It’s not what you know or who you know, but who knows you.
• Ask good questions and listen.
• Unveil your passions.
• Follow up.
• Give favors, return favors, and ask for favors.
• Make small talk to discover common interests and experiences.
Sucking up
• Appeal to empathy. Take advantage of people’s desire to help an underdog.
• Provide present or future value.
• Thank for what you’ve already received.
• Give favors.
December 25, 2012
Kawasaki, Guy (2008) Reality Check, Portfolio, The Penguin Group, New York, NY. This book is a bible for Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs. Read it, enjoy it, and put its advice into practice in your startup. Guy Kawasaki tells it like it is and is a great source of insight into what goes on behind the scenes in Silicon Valley.
September 14, 2017
Škoda papíru! Je to kompilát všech knih, které kdy Kawasaki napsal. Pokud jste už nějkou knížku od něj četli, tahle bude jen nudné opakování. Pokud jste od něj nic nečtli doporučuji spíš The Art of the Start.
June 30, 2025
useless examples, documented as deep as the 1995 cnn.com search would allow. equally useless remarks.
September 23, 2013
There are rare moments when you come across a book that has so much of content, logic & wisdom squeezed into its pages, you do not feel you have done justice to the book by reading it just once. Books like The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, The Element by Sir Ken Robinson and Influence by Robert Cialdini. To my biggest surprise, I would be adding Guy Kawasaki to this list - at least for now.
Who is Guy Kawasaki
No, he is not the founder of Kawasaki Speed Bikes or the Owner of the Brand Kawasaki.
Guy Kawasaki born August 30, 1954 is a Silicon Valley author, speaker, investor and business advisor. He was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. He was also a co-founder of Garage Technology Ventures and a news aggregation site called Alltop. (Courtesy Wikipedia)
Among the 12 books he has authored, on Amazon.com the top 5 most reviewed are:
1. APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur - How to publish a book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch,
2. Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions,
3. The Art of Start
4. What the Plus!: Google+ for the Rest of Us
5. Rules For Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services by Guy Kawasaki and Michele Moreno
Reality Check - The Review
This book is a Must have Bible for anyone who wants to move into the Shark Infested Seas of Entrepreneurship. The book has 95 chapters - each one containing not one but many nuggets of valuable advice that if I were to start a detailed analysis, I will end up making this review itself into a book. However, I will just touch upon the overview of what stood out in my mind.
Kawasaki, includes in the book
1. How to raise money from Venture Capitalists
2. What to say and what not to say when in a business meeting with Potential Investors
3. Bullshit given by CEO's Partners, Investors, Lawyers & Entrepreneurs
4. Financial Plans, Predictions and Pitfalls of such exercises
5. How to cut down expenses
6. Tips on Branding, Social Media, Presentations, Networking, Blogging and Making Ideas Stick
7. Tips on Evangelizing, Selling, Handling PR, Sending Email Communication and Career Guidance
8. The Art of Schmoozing, Sucking Down, Sucking Up, Hiring, Firing, Defensibility and Dealing with Mavericks
9. Silicon Valley - Stuff you didn't know, how to get a job, Hiring, Firing,
10. Humorous yet profound bits on Bozo Explosion, The No-Asshole Rule, Being an Egomaniac and Why Smart People & Smart Companies do Dumb Things
Phew!
I know. That in itself is quite a lot. So imagine what would you say after you had read this book?
So moment of truth
You must buy this book even if you are not planning to start your own business. Why?
Because this book really makes you think and gives you the street smart and the wisdom you wish someone had shared with you at some point of your life.
Overall Rating - 9 out of 10
Loy Machedo
loy machedo dot com | whoisloymachedo dot com
Who is Guy Kawasaki
No, he is not the founder of Kawasaki Speed Bikes or the Owner of the Brand Kawasaki.
Guy Kawasaki born August 30, 1954 is a Silicon Valley author, speaker, investor and business advisor. He was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. He was also a co-founder of Garage Technology Ventures and a news aggregation site called Alltop. (Courtesy Wikipedia)
Among the 12 books he has authored, on Amazon.com the top 5 most reviewed are:
1. APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur - How to publish a book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch,
2. Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions,
3. The Art of Start
4. What the Plus!: Google+ for the Rest of Us
5. Rules For Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services by Guy Kawasaki and Michele Moreno
Reality Check - The Review
This book is a Must have Bible for anyone who wants to move into the Shark Infested Seas of Entrepreneurship. The book has 95 chapters - each one containing not one but many nuggets of valuable advice that if I were to start a detailed analysis, I will end up making this review itself into a book. However, I will just touch upon the overview of what stood out in my mind.
Kawasaki, includes in the book
1. How to raise money from Venture Capitalists
2. What to say and what not to say when in a business meeting with Potential Investors
3. Bullshit given by CEO's Partners, Investors, Lawyers & Entrepreneurs
4. Financial Plans, Predictions and Pitfalls of such exercises
5. How to cut down expenses
6. Tips on Branding, Social Media, Presentations, Networking, Blogging and Making Ideas Stick
7. Tips on Evangelizing, Selling, Handling PR, Sending Email Communication and Career Guidance
8. The Art of Schmoozing, Sucking Down, Sucking Up, Hiring, Firing, Defensibility and Dealing with Mavericks
9. Silicon Valley - Stuff you didn't know, how to get a job, Hiring, Firing,
10. Humorous yet profound bits on Bozo Explosion, The No-Asshole Rule, Being an Egomaniac and Why Smart People & Smart Companies do Dumb Things
Phew!
I know. That in itself is quite a lot. So imagine what would you say after you had read this book?
So moment of truth
You must buy this book even if you are not planning to start your own business. Why?
Because this book really makes you think and gives you the street smart and the wisdom you wish someone had shared with you at some point of your life.
Overall Rating - 9 out of 10
Loy Machedo
loy machedo dot com | whoisloymachedo dot com
February 1, 2013
This book is like a bible for entrepreneurs. The first and only read is never sufficient as the book has too many takeaways. When relevant situation permits, you will flip through this book again and again just to grasp your reality.
Straight to the point and plenty of tough needed love. 5 stars for the comprehensive information.
Straight to the point and plenty of tough needed love. 5 stars for the comprehensive information.
October 2, 2011
While the focus is on Apple, Silicon Valley, tech firms, and start ups, Guy Kawasaki shares many gems of wisdom for those out to change the world or help a nonprofit succeed.
April 13, 2012
This book slaps your face and wake you up to check the reality! Really worth to read!
April 2, 2022
Focused on the Silicon Valley/VC world and their unique vernacular, it offers little to regular 'main street' businesses. But an entertaining read nonetheless!
June 30, 2018
tl;dr - It's easier to monetize a book than a blog
Caveat: I read this as an audiobook, so what I gleaned is different than if I'd read it.
The first forward was enough to tell me this is a brogrammer's roadmap for the brogrammer's daydream: be rich and feel smart. Not an auspicious beginning.
The middle and the end didn't get much better. Clocking in at a hundred chapters, it was clearly 20+ months of weekly blog posts printed out and bound together with a staple. The chapters written by the author himself sound like the 'Mark Beaks' character in the rebooted Duck Tales. (That's not a compliment.)
The chapters that are actually Q&A with other people the author knows, are much better. I didn't always agree with their assessment of the topic, but they were clear and focused and deserved to be heard as an expert on that topic. If you couldn't just search out and read those blog posts online, I might bump the book to 3/5 for those contributions to the book. But they're out there so I'm not.
Ultimately, the book presents entrepreneurship as the "jan ken pon" problem. Money is easy to come by, but ideas are hard. But Ideas are easy, it's implementation that's hard. But Implementation is easy, except getting money is hard. Which is why the trick, such as it is, is not to find the magic bullet but to admit the paradox and just start working.
nota bene: It's not fair, but being a 10 year old book about how to make it in Silicon Valley means you get to listen to the author wax eloquently about MySpace and Yahoo! and never about Amazon and Facebook. This delivers irony and warning in equal measure.
Caveat: I read this as an audiobook, so what I gleaned is different than if I'd read it.
The first forward was enough to tell me this is a brogrammer's roadmap for the brogrammer's daydream: be rich and feel smart. Not an auspicious beginning.
The middle and the end didn't get much better. Clocking in at a hundred chapters, it was clearly 20+ months of weekly blog posts printed out and bound together with a staple. The chapters written by the author himself sound like the 'Mark Beaks' character in the rebooted Duck Tales. (That's not a compliment.)
The chapters that are actually Q&A with other people the author knows, are much better. I didn't always agree with their assessment of the topic, but they were clear and focused and deserved to be heard as an expert on that topic. If you couldn't just search out and read those blog posts online, I might bump the book to 3/5 for those contributions to the book. But they're out there so I'm not.
Ultimately, the book presents entrepreneurship as the "jan ken pon" problem. Money is easy to come by, but ideas are hard. But Ideas are easy, it's implementation that's hard. But Implementation is easy, except getting money is hard. Which is why the trick, such as it is, is not to find the magic bullet but to admit the paradox and just start working.
nota bene: It's not fair, but being a 10 year old book about how to make it in Silicon Valley means you get to listen to the author wax eloquently about MySpace and Yahoo! and never about Amazon and Facebook. This delivers irony and warning in equal measure.
December 27, 2023
This book, published in 2008 (and probably sitting in my Audible library since about then), has not aged well. While the author is trying to take the Silicon Valley style of brash arrogance down a peg, he can't seem to help but let his own brash arrogance leak through all over the place. I'm not sure I appreciated his method of writing one chapter giving his own guidelines for the reader (presumably someone starting up a tech company), then following that chapter with an "on the other hand" chapter written by someone else. Chapters of Q&A seemed lazy as well. The end seemed tacked on and off topic - veering into the territory of effective altruism. When I woke up there, I thought I'd drifted into a different book. It's a lot of info presented in a pastiche of styles, none of which adds up to much substance. Reading this back in 2008, when many of us still admired the "move fast, break things" style of the tech bros which this book feeds into, this whole mishmosh might have landed on me differently. My impression of it as a piece of writing is that it was thrown together fast from a bunch of blog posts or newsletter articles, then lightly edited to try to achieve some sort of flow. As I said, this has not aged well. One plus from adding to this to my "read" pile: the reader of the audible version had the right style for putting me to sleep as I listened to this when first getting into bed at night, so it did serve a useful purpose - just not the intended one.
October 19, 2020
I'm glad it said "irreverent" on the cover, so I knew what to expect! Kawasaki's compendium of tidbits is best digested a slice at a time, which is well, since that's how it's structured. His humor is palpable, his openness genuine. His diverse interviewees reflect attention to lifelong learning, and anyone may take something of value away from this book, for entrepreneurship, for business in general, or for life. Kawasaki covers a breadth of topics from pitching an idea, to raising capital, to group psychology (the famed Philip Zimbardo, creator of the iconic Stanford Prisoner Experiment, makes an appearance), to finding meaning in one's work and life (Nobel Peace Prize winner Jerry White also makes an appearance). The work has a significant bend toward tech, and toward entrepreneurship, but, as mentioned, many of its lessons are much bigger than that.
December 10, 2017
At the end of the book, Guy shares a commencement speech he gave 10 years prior to writing the book. I think he should have opened with this, as most of the advice seemed geared towards newly graduated young professionals. While there were a few good takeaways, if a business owner, a manager, or an employee over 30 doesn’t grasp 99% of these concepts intuitively, the book is most likely to go in one ear and out their other.
3 Stars due to the lack of mind-altering concepts and the incessant lists made it very difficult to stay engaged.
This book would have been better were it half the length.
3 Stars due to the lack of mind-altering concepts and the incessant lists made it very difficult to stay engaged.
This book would have been better were it half the length.
March 28, 2018
If I wanted to be a serious entrepreneur (think s-corp or c-corp level, not LLC) this is a fabulous, fabulous book to get the right strategy and expectations. It really is a mini-MBA in a book. It's comprehensive and thorough, while also being succinct. I'd say this is the better book to read than Art of the Start, but you should probably go to both for reference.
October 5, 2020
Con-trepreneur!
This bloke is on the board of Canva : thieves & liars. They stole a years subscription from me & refuse to respond to ANY support requests.
See their trustpilot rating - https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/canv...
So, basing my rating on his actions rather than his BS.
Avoid anything related to this chump. Liar & Hypocrite.
This bloke is on the board of Canva : thieves & liars. They stole a years subscription from me & refuse to respond to ANY support requests.
See their trustpilot rating - https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/canv...
So, basing my rating on his actions rather than his BS.
Avoid anything related to this chump. Liar & Hypocrite.
November 4, 2023
91%
Repeat after me, I will not get an MBA.
This book has so much specific structural information on how to found and build your business, that it out shines everything I have previously encountered in comparison.
Guy Kawasaki's work is the definitive reference for how to guides on business management.
Repeat after me, I will not get an MBA.
This book has so much specific structural information on how to found and build your business, that it out shines everything I have previously encountered in comparison.
Guy Kawasaki's work is the definitive reference for how to guides on business management.
May 16, 2018
Guy is very honest and provides in-depth experiences and interviews for insights into the lessons he teaches. It’s a must-read for those interested in entrepreneurship or facing challenges in following the entrepreneurial path.
June 5, 2017
Great advice, not wild about the format. Give it a bit and you'll surely find relatable and necessary business advice.
December 16, 2017
Best two chapters: Top 10 Lies Entrepreneurs Tell VCs; Top 10 Lies VCs Tell Entrepreneurs. (Back to back)
March 24, 2018
I just wish I had read this when it came out.
March 24, 2019
This book has a lot of good advise but is too big and now feels dated. Not worth reading IMO
April 10, 2019
We are in 2019. It's too old now
July 12, 2019
Great read for business leaders and entrepreneurs...and aspiring professionals.
September 26, 2020
Dear Lord how a guy who has done so much say so many bland thigs is beyond me.
June 14, 2021
Reality check: not great! not that irreverent! not that much better than any other book on start-ups and fast moving companies.
June 12, 2024
10 slides 30 font 20 minutes
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