Guy Kawasaki (born August 30, 1954) is an American marketing specialist, author, and

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

venture capitalist Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which hav ...

. He was one of the

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

employees originally responsible for marketing their

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

computer line in 1984. He popularized the word ''evangelist'' in marketing the Macintosh as an "

Apple evangelist The Apple community is a group of people interested in Apple Inc. and its products, who report information in various media. Generally this has evolved into a proliferation of websites, but latterly has also expanded into podcasts (both audio and ...

" and the concepts of

evangelism marketing Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word-of-mouth marketing in which companies develop customers who believe so strongly in a particular product or service that they freely try to convince others to buy and use it. The customers become vo ...

and

technology evangelism A technology evangelist is a person who builds a critical mass of support for a given technology, and then establishes it as a technical standard in a market that is subject to network effects. The word ''evangelism'' is borrowed from the context ...

platform evangelism Platform evangelism (also called developer relations, developer and platform evangelism, developer advocacy, or API evangelism) is the application of technology evangelism to a multi-sided platform. It seeks to accelerate the growth of a platform' ...

in general. From March 2015 until December 2016, Kawasaki sat on the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

board of trustees, the non-profit operating entity of

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

. Kawasaki has also written fifteen books, including ''

The Macintosh Way ''The Macintosh Way'' was the first book written by former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki. Subtitled "the art of guerrilla management", the book focused on technology marketing and management and includes many anecdotes culled from Kawasaki's e ...

'' (1990), ''The Art of the Start'' (2004), and ''Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life'' (2019).

Early life

Guy Kawasaki was born in

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

to Duke Takeshi Kawasaki (d. 2015) and Aiko Kawasaki. His family lived in an area outside Honolulu called

Kalihi Kalihi is a neighborhood of Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu in Hawaiʻi, United States. Split by the Likelike Highway (Route 63), it is flanked by downtown Honolulu to the east and Mapunapuna, Moanalua and Salt Lake to the west. Kalihi is th ...

Valley. His father, Duke, once served as a fireman, real estate broker, state senator, and government official while his mother was a housewife. He attended

ʻIolani School Iolani School, located at 563 Kamoku Street in Honolulu, Hawaii, is a private coeducational college preparatory school serving over 2,020 students with a boarding program for grades 9 - 12 as well as a summer boarding program for middle school gra ...

and graduated in 1972. Kawasaki graduated from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1976 with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

. He then attended

law school A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, ...

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

, but quit after about a week of classes when he realized that he hated law school. In 1977, he enrolled in the

UCLA Anderson School of Management The John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management, also known as the UCLA Anderson School of Management, is the graduate business school at the University of California, Los Angeles, one of eleven professional schools. The school offers MBA (ful ...

, where he earned an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

degree. While there, Kawasaki also worked at a jewelry company, Nova Stylings. Kawasaki observed, "The jewelry business is a very, very tough business, tougher than the computer business... I learned a very valuable lesson: how to sell."

Career

In 1983, Kawasaki got a job at

through his Stanford roommate,

Mike Boich Mike Boich was a major figure at Apple Computer who was in charge of demonstrating the first Macintosh to software developers and potential customers. He is notable as a technology evangelist who persuaded developers to write computer software. ...

. He was Apple's chief evangelist for four years. In a 2006 podcast interview on the online site Venture Voice, Kawasaki said, "What got me to leave is basically I started listening to my own hype, and I wanted to start a software company and really make big bucks." In 1987 he was hired to lead ACIUS, the U.S. subsidiary of France-based ACI, which published an Apple database software system called 4th Dimension. Kawasaki left ACIUS in 1989 to further his writing and speaking career. In the early 1990s he wrote columns that were featured in ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' and ''

MacUser ''MacUser'' was a monthly (formerly biweekly) computer magazine published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. and licensed by Felden in the UK. It ceased publication in 2015. In 1985 Felix Dennis’ Dennis Publishing, the creators of MacUser in the UK, l ...

'' magazines. He also founded another company, Fog City Software, which created Emailer, an email client that sold to

Claris Claris International Inc., formerly FileMaker Inc., is a computer software development company formed as a subsidiary company of Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) in 1987. It was given the source code and copyrights to several programs that were ...

. A collection of namesake software utilities called ''Guy's Utilities for Macintosh'' (GUM), was published by After Hours Software in the early 1990s. An edition of GUM for

PowerBook The PowerBook (known as Macintosh PowerBook before 1997) is a family of Macintosh laptop computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from 1991 to 2006. During its lifetime, the PowerBook went through several major revisions and r ...

systems was acquired by

Gordon Eubanks Gordon Edwin Eubanks, Jr. (born November 7, 1946) is an American microcomputer industry pioneer who worked with Gary Kildall in the early days of Digital Research (DRI). Eubanks attended Oklahoma State University, where he was involved as a me ...

and was subsequently remarketed by Symantec as ''The Norton Essentials for PowerBook''. He returned to Apple as an

Apple Fellow Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

in 1995. In 1998, he was a co-founder of Garage Technology Ventures, a

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

firm that has made investments in

Pandora Radio Pandora is a subscription-based music streaming service owned by Sirius XM Holdings based in Oakland, California, United States. The service carries a focus on recommendations based on the "Music Genome Project" — a means of classifying indiv ...

Tripwire A tripwire is a passive triggering mechanism. Typically, a wire or cord is attached to a device for detecting or reacting to physical movement. Military applications Such tripwires may be attached to one or more mines – especially fragme ...

The Motley Fool The Motley Fool is a private financial and investing advice company based in Alexandria, Virginia. It was founded in July 1993 by co-chairmen and brothers David Gardner and Tom Gardner, and Erik Rydholm, who has since left the company. The compa ...

and D.light Design.Ostdick, John
Guy Kawasaki: Advice for Making Your Business Successful
. ''

Success Magazine ''Success'' is a business magazine in the United States published by Success Enterprises, LLC a subsidiary of eXp World Holdings, Inc. According to the company, the magazine "focuses on people who take full responsibility for their own developme ...

''. In 2007, he founded Truemors, a free-flow rumor mill, that sold to

NowPublic NowPublic was a user-generated social news website. The company was based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and was founded by Michael Tippett, Leonard Brody and Michael E. Meyers in 2005. On Sept. 2, 2009 the company was acquired by Clari ...

. He is also a founder at Alltop, an online magazine rack. In March 2013, Kawasaki joined

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

as an advisor to

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

. His role was to create a

Google+ Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

mobile device community. In April 2014, Kawasaki became the chief evangelist of

Canva Canva is an Australian graphic design platform that is used to create social media graphics and presentations. The app includes readymade templates for users to use, and the platform is free and offers paid subscriptions such as Canva Pro and ...

. It is a free

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscipli ...

website for non-designers as well as professionals and was founded in January 2013. On March 24, 2015, Kawasaki joined

board of trustees A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

. He stepped down at the end of December 2016. On April 25, 2017,

WikiTribune WikiTribune (stylized as WikiTRIBUNE) was a news wiki where volunteers wrote and curated articles about widely publicised news by proof-reading, fact-checking, suggesting possible changes, and adding sources from other, usually long establishe ...

mentioned him as an adviser. On February 26, 2019,

Penguin Group Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initial ...

released ''Wise Guy'', described as Kawasaki's most personal book to date. While the book is written as what could be considered a memoir, it contains a series of vignettes that include various personal experiences that Kawasaki says have enlightened and inspired him. December 2019 to Current, Kawasaki created a podcast called Remarkable People. There are now over 90 episodes available including interviews with Jane Goodall, Stephen Wolfram, Andrew Yang and Sal Khan. Kawasaki has stated that he believed the podcast was his best and most under appreciated work.

Personal life

Kawasaki and his wife have four children: Nicodemus ("Nic"), Noah, Nohemi, and Nate. Nohemi and Nate are biological siblings whom the couple adopted from

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

Bibliography

* ''

'' (1990) . * ''Database 101'' (1991) . * ''Selling the Dream'' (1992) . * ''The Computer Curmudgeon'' (1993) . * ''Hindsights'' (1995) . * ''How to Drive Your Competition Crazy'' (1995) . * ''Rules for Revolutionaries'' (2000) . * ''The Art of the Start'' (2004) . * ''Reality Check'' (2008) . * ''Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions'' (2011). Portfolio Penguin, London. . * ''What the Plus! Google+ for the rest of us'' (2012) (only available on

Amazon Kindle Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. ...

iBooks iBooks may refer to: * iBooks, the former name of Apple Books. * ibooks Inc., a book and comics publishing company founded by Byron Preiss Byron Preiss (April 11, 1953 – July 9, 2005)Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...

). * ''APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur—How to Publish a Book'' (2013). (Guy Kawasaki; Shawn Welch) Nononina Press . * ''The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users'' (2015) (Guy Kawasaki; Peg Fitzpatrick) . * ''The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything'' (2015)

Portfolio Portfolio may refer to: Objects * Portfolio (briefcase), a type of briefcase Collections * Portfolio (finance), a collection of assets held by an institution or a private individual * Artist's portfolio, a sample of an artist's work or a ...

. * ''Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life'' (2019)

References

External links

*
Alltop.com
co-founder * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kawasaki, Guy 1954 births 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American businesspeople American technology chief executives American technology writers American writers of Japanese descent Apple Inc. employees Apple Fellows Hawaii people of Japanese descent Businesspeople from Hawaii Edu-Ware Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees members Google employees ʻIolani School alumni Living people Motorola employees Silicon Valley people Stanford University alumni UCLA Anderson School of Management alumni Writers from Honolulu American Wikimedians Shorty Award winners