A biography for Guy Kawasakihasn’t been written yet.
“Simple and to the point is always the best way to get your point across.”
“There are two ways to approach the application process: trying to hit a home run by getting an immediate 'Yes, here's an offer' or trying not to be eliminated. I recommend the second approach.”
“Companies in Europe should stop trying to do the U.S. version of a European idea.”
“A company should search for every instance of the use of its name and zoom in when there are issues - both good and bad.”
“When you enchant people, your goal is not to make money from them or to get them to do what you want, but to fill them with great delight.”
“A crash is when your competitor's program dies. When your program dies, it is an 'idiosyncrasy'.”
“When I was getting my education, I fell in love with the writings of Peter Drucker. He was my hero. I had a naive belief that when I became a manager, it was going to be like Peter Drucker's books. That is, I was going to be the effective executive. I was going to talk to people about their goals. I was going to help them actualize.”
“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.”
“Entitlement is the opposite of enchantment.”
“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.”
“While we're living, we need to get over ourselves and accept others if we want to enchant people.”
“Want to change the world? Upset the status quo? This takes more than run-of-the-mill relationships. You need to make people dream the same dream that you do.”
“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.”
“I'm a lousy predictor of the future.”
“If you make money, you might not make meaning.”
“Different parts of the world have different attitudes to failure. Arguably, it may take more courage to be an entrepreneur in Sydney, or Paris, or London, or Japan, or Singapore... but an entrepreneur sees the world for what it could be, not what it is.”
“A good idea is about ten percent and implementation and hard work, and luck is 90 percent.”
“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.”
“Most people who graduate from college think they have to make a perfect choice. Is it Goldman Sachs? Is it Google? Is it Apple? They think that their first job is going to determine their career, if not their life.”
“The right algorithm is to put off seeking funds for as long as physically possible. And in an ideal world, a startup would never have to seek funds at all.”