Guy Kawasaki Biography Quotes 7 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Guy Kawasaki was born in 1954 in Honolulu, Hawaii, and grew up in a Japanese American family that emphasized hard work, practicality, and education. He attended Iolani School in Honolulu, where he developed a reputation for diligence and clear, concise writing, skills that would later shape his style as an author and speaker. He went on to Stanford University, earning a degree in psychology in 1976, a discipline that sharpened his interest in how people perceive products and ideas. After several years in the workforce, he completed an MBA at the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1979, rounding out a foundation that combined human insight with business training.

Early Career
Kawasaki began his career in sales, working in the jewelry business in Los Angeles. The experience taught him the mechanics of persuasion, the importance of relationships, and the value of resilience in the face of rejection. Those lessons, grounded in day-to-day negotiations and customer contact, were indispensable when he shifted into technology. He moved to Silicon Valley as the personal computer industry was taking shape, positioning himself where product innovation depended on a vibrant community of developers, early adopters, and storytellers.

Apple and the Birth of Evangelism
In 1983, he joined Apple to work on the launch and growth of the Macintosh. His title, software evangelist, captured his approach: he was not just marketing a product, he was championing a cause. Reporting into the Macintosh Division, he worked closely with Mike Boich, who led third-party software efforts, and operated in the orbit of Steve Jobs, whose drive and intensity defined the team. Kawasaki built trust with developers, convinced them to write for the then-unproven Macintosh, and helped create the ecosystem that made the platform useful. He engaged with people across the project, from engineers like Andy Hertzfeld and designers like Susan Kare to marketing colleagues such as Joanna Hoffman, translating the Macintosh vision into demos, developer briefings, and conference appearances. This period made him a public face of evangelism marketing, the idea that belief and authenticity are as critical as features and price.

Leadership Roles and Return to Apple
After leaving Apple in 1987, Kawasaki led ACIUS, the U.S. subsidiary of the company behind the 4th Dimension database. The role gave him executive experience and deepened his understanding of software markets beyond personal computing platforms. In 1995, he returned to Apple as an Apple Fellow, an acknowledgment of his earlier impact. He again focused on mobilizing developers and customers, applying lessons learned during the earliest Macintosh years and navigating a company in transition under leaders who followed John Sculley.

Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital
In the late 1990s, Kawasaki co-founded Garage Technology Ventures, a firm built to help seed-stage startups get off the ground. He worked closely with longtime partner Bill Reichert to evaluate pitches, coach founders, and invest selectively. In that role he crystallized practical rules for entrepreneurs, among them his 10-20-30 rule of pitching: 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30-point font. He emphasized mantras over long mission statements, advocated for rapid prototyping, and encouraged a focus on customer validation. His advice was shaped by thousands of founder meetings and by hard-won experience on both sides of the investor-entrepreneur table.

Author and Speaker
Kawasaki became a prolific author whose books reflected the evolution of technology and entrepreneurship. Early works such as The Macintosh Way and Selling the Dream examined how to build movements around products. Rules for Revolutionaries and Reality Check distilled insights about innovation and execution. The Art of the Start and its expanded edition, The Art of the Start 2.0, became handbooks for founders on everything from positioning to fundraising. Enchantment explored how to earn trust and foster loyalty. He co-authored APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur with Shawn Welch to demystify self-publishing, and partnered with Peg Fitzpatrick on The Art of Social Media to guide individuals and organizations navigating digital platforms. His memoir, Wise Guy, offered personal lessons, highlighting formative episodes, mentors, and missteps. On stage he evolved into a sought-after keynote speaker, known for direct, memorable guidance and a sense of humor that made complex topics approachable.

Advisor and Chief Evangelist in the Social Era
As mobile and social technologies matured, Kawasaki took advisory roles that leveraged his experience building communities around products. In 2013 he served as a special advisor to the Motorola business during its time under Google, speaking to the ways hardware, software, and ecosystems combine to shape user experience. In 2014 he became chief evangelist of Canva, working closely with co-founders Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams to introduce the platform to a global audience. At Canva he applied the same developer-centric instincts from the Macintosh era to a new generation of creators, emphasizing accessibility and speed for non-designers while engaging professional designers as advocates.

Digital Presence and Media
Kawasaki adopted social media early, using it to test ideas, share content, and interact with audiences at scale. His high-volume, curated approach drew attention and debate, offering a real-time laboratory for what works in digital outreach. Extending his media footprint, he launched the Remarkable People podcast, interviewing leaders across science, business, technology, and the arts. The show reflected his curiosity and his belief that practical wisdom emerges when accomplished people explain how they overcame obstacles and refined their craft.

Approach and Influence
Kawasaki's enduring influence lies in reframing marketing as evangelism grounded in honesty, utility, and respect. He argues that great products deserve believers and that the job of an evangelist is to help people achieve their goals with those products. Colleagues such as Steve Jobs shaped his standard for excellence, while collaborators including Mike Boich, Bill Reichert, Peg Fitzpatrick, Shawn Welch, and Melanie Perkins reflected the networks that enabled him to move between corporate roles, startups, venture capital, and media. His playbook emphasizes clarity over complexity, iteration over perfection, and the disciplined generosity of helping others succeed. These themes have made his books, talks, and advisory work staples for entrepreneurs and product builders worldwide, linking the lessons of the early Macintosh era to the realities of cloud software, mobile devices, and creator platforms.

Our collection contains 7 quotes who is written by Guy, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Writing - Marketing - Startup.