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Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life Hardcover – February 26, 2019

by Guy Kawasaki (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 304 ratings
Editors' pick Best Biographies & Memoirs
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Silicon Valley icon and bestselling author Guy Kawasaki shares the unlikely stories of his life and the lessons we can draw from them.

Guy Kawasaki has been a fixture in the tech world since he was part of Apple's original Macintosh team in the 1980s. He's widely respected as a source of wisdom about entrepreneurship, venture capital, marketing, and business evangelism, which he's shared in bestselling books such as The Art of the Start and Enchantment. But before all that, he was just a middle-class kid in Hawaii, a grandson of Japanese immigrants, who loved football and got a C+ in 9th grade English.

Wise Guy, his most personal book, is about his surprising journey. It's not a traditional memoir but a series of vignettes. He toyed with calling it Miso Soup for the Soul, because these stories (like those in the Chicken Soup series) reflect a wide range of experiences that have enlightened and inspired him.

For instance, you'll follow Guy as he . . .

  • Gets his first real job in the jewelry business--which turned out to be surprisingly useful training for the tech world.

  • Disparages one of Apple's potential partners in front of that company's CEO, at the sneaky instigation of Steve Jobs.

  • Blows up his Apple career with a single sentence, after Jobs withholds a pre-release copy of the Think Different ad campaign: "That's okay, Steve, I don't trust you either."

  • Reevaluates his self-importance after being mistaken for Jackie Chan by four young women.

  • Takes up surfing at age 62--which teaches him that you can discover a new passion at any age, but younger is easier!

Guy covers everything from moral values to business skills to parenting. As he writes, "I hope my stories help you live a more joyous, productive, and meaningful life. If Wise Guy succeeds at this, then that's the best story of all."
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    272 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Portfolio
  4. Publication date
    February 26, 2019
  5. Dimensions
    6.2 x 1 x 9.3 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0525538615
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0525538615
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva (an online design service) and an executive fellow of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, he was the chief evangelist of Apple and special adviser to the CEO of the Motorola business unit of Google. His many acclaimed books include The Art of Social Media and Enchantment. He lives in Silicon Valley with his family and on social media where he has ten million followers.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Portfolio; Illustrated edition (February 26, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0525538615
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0525538615
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.2 x 1 x 9.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 304 ratings

About the author

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Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki

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Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva, an online graphic design tool. Formerly, he was an advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google and chief evangelist of Apple. He is also the author of APE, What the Plus!, Enchantment, and nine other books. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
304 global ratings
Remarkable read…
5 Stars
Remarkable read…
I’ll keep this short and sweet, “Wise Guy” is one of my favorite books! Guy is an absolute legend!
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Top reviews from the United States

Douglas Detling
5.0 out of 5 stars Another Winner from Guy
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2019
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Back in 2013, while I was working as Human Resources Director for the City of Medford, Oregon, I was pleased to be asked to be an early reader of an interesting publication called APE: Author-Publisher-Entrepreneur by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch. This was an amazing guide for budding authors and even experienced ones seeking to move into the digital age. This year, the task was different--to review a pre-publication copy of Guy’s 15th book: Wise Guy, released today by Penguin Random House/Portfolio Books.

Wise Guy is Guy’s most personal book. It’s not a traditional memoir but a series of vignettes. It reflects a wide range of experiences that have enlightened and inspired him. He tells stories from his childhood in Hawaii, his education at Stanford and UCLA, his first job in the jewelry business, work for Steve Jobs at Apple, and his adoption of surfing at the age of 62.

Guy, who served two “tours of duty” as he puts it for Apple (from 1983-1987 and 1995-97), writes extensively and distills his experience there into 11 points of wisdom:
• Only excellence matters.
• Customers can’t tell you what they need.
• Innovation happens on the next curve.
• Design counts
• Less is more.
• Big challenges beget big accomplishments.
• Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence.
• Engineers are artists.
• Price and value are not the same thing.
• But value isn’t enough.
• Some things need to be believed to be seen.

While expressing that he “made a mistake” at not returning for a third tour when asked by Steve Jobs to run Apple University, he clearly says if he had stayed at Apple, he wouldn’t have started companies, become a venture capitalist, advised dozens of other entrepreneurs and written more than a dozen books.

While these points are instructive, they are only four pages of this easily read 260-page book. Guy covers everything from moral values to business skills to parenting.

In addition to his story telling, I found most enlightening his 10 distilled lessons in the chapter he calls Postpartum:
• Get high and to the right (be unique and valuable).
• Adopt a growth mindset (among others, he recommends Carol Dweck’s book Mindset, which is a fascinating work of its own).
• Embrace grit (achieving success is hard work).
• Smile (there’s no such thing as being too nice).
• Default to yes (say no only after contemplating information)
• Raise the tide (life is not a zero-sum game).
• Pay it forward (do good works and make the world a better place.
• Examine everything (healthy skepticism not negativity)
• Never lie, seldom shade (lying takes too much time and energy).
• Enable people to pay you back (fostering self-worth in others).

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and enthusiastically recommend it.
16 people found this helpful
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Scott MacGregor
5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable read…
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2024
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I’ll keep this short and sweet, “Wise Guy” is one of my favorite books! Guy is an absolute legend!
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Scott MacGregor
5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable read…
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2024
I’ll keep this short and sweet, “Wise Guy” is one of my favorite books! Guy is an absolute legend!
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Paulo Roberto Ramos Ferreira
4.0 out of 5 stars Good insights, but a bit over the top
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2019
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Fillet with great ideas and fun to read. Sometimes seems a little bit too much "me & me details". But the title kind of serves as warning, so if you already like Guy; you'll like thins one. If you don't like him, get as far as you can from it.
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Maja Vujovic
5.0 out of 5 stars Inimitable Guy and his unusual book
Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2019
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Guy is inimitable and so is his most personal book to date. It is a deceptively lighthearted look at his life’s story, but with some unexpected turns and intriguing stopovers along the way.

I found it to be an unusual mix: part memoir, part lessons learned, part Guy’s own take on people and things. Quirky and full of common sense at the same time.

I cannot easily peg this book, as it covers Guy’s family story, education, career, business ventures, skills, beliefs, errors, and more. But even if “mosaic” or “tapestry” were real categories in book publishing, they would not do this story justice – there is a definite and deliberate narrative arc in it. Life itself, ultimately.

Anyone familiar with Guy’s transformations knows his career path includes some key points in the growth of IT. Here, Guy retells them as fascinating snapshots and with just a few brief scenes helps us grasp how a blend of business tactics, strategic decisions and tons of mundane labour fueled the development of the world we have today.

Guy’s writing style reflects his cheerful personality, warmth, and upbeat attitude. He sets the scenes with just enough details to make each one vivid, but then quickly moves on and the reader fills in the rest.

People interested in entrepreneurship, IT, and lives of thought leaders can get a ton of value from this book. But be advised: the simple scenes, the situations any of us could have experienced, are the most memorable, because Guy’s conclusions are so clear and he states them so candidly.

I’ve enjoyed this book a lot and am rereading it. It does feel like I've suddenly got a close friend in Hawaii.
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Bruna Martinuzzi
5.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable and worthwhile read!
Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2019
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I expect that Kawasaki will always write a worthwhile book, and this one, as usual, doesn’t disappoint. The book is full of real-world advice on a variety of topics, such as writing, public speaking, parenting, social media, and negotiating, to name a few.

There are many entertaining anecdotes that also impart a message. There is one, for example, about Kawasaki’s father reacting to a situation Kawasaki encountered outside his house in Silicon Valley: don’t look for problems, for discrimination, don’t go through life angry and negative. Man up.

Kawaski has a frank, and often humorous approach to communication which is also displayed in this book. For example: “It’s very hard to evangelize crap.” Or: “Be positive or be silent. If you don’t have something positive to say, shut up and keep scrolling. I don’t advise making it obvious that you’re a jerk.”

There are also some intriguing new concepts I learned such “aintegration,” the ability to cope with contradictions, paradoxes, and discontinuities.

I also liked the advice on what books to read and have made a list of the ones I haven’t read yet.

My overall impression of the book is that Kawasaki wants to genuinely share the life lessons he learned to help others. And the sincerity shines through on each page. Readers would do well implementing some of his advice. It could pay dividends in one’s life.

One of the many quotes Kawasaki uses to start each chapter is Oscar Wilde’s “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” That’s what this book does. It encourages you to look at the stars.

Disclosure: Kawasaki mentions my book.
3 people found this helpful
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Rob
3.0 out of 5 stars Ok read
Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2020
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Ok read, does lean to liberal left politically which is when I stopped reading.
I felt he could have stayed more to middle ground and not alienating a large group of readers,
With his political view points.
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Top reviews from other countries

Kristina El Hage
5.0 out of 5 stars Love love love
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 12, 2022
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Enjoyed every chapter of this book. Very personal and touchy
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samuel fortin
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Nuggets of Wisdom
Reviewed in Canada on March 14, 2019
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Wise Guy nuggets of wisdom helped me a lot to handle difficult situations as an entrepreneur. I feel less alone in this very tough world and I truly think that if everybody listened to the Wise Guy this world will be a better one.
Good Job Wise Guy,
Sam
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Denise Wilhelms
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good book.
Reviewed in Germany on December 29, 2019
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Very good book.
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Aditya Prasad
5.0 out of 5 stars Cannot get any awesome-er!
Reviewed in India on June 6, 2019
Verified Purchase
This one is a keeper, i will always keep this book and refer or re read whenever am feeling low or when i need to lift my spirits up much higher. Guy is the Guy, i have seen him speak, i have seen his videos, i have read his book and follow him all over his social media accounts. Read this book, NOW!
3 people found this helpful
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ZioNando
5.0 out of 5 stars Fluent read from one of the greats
Reviewed in Japan on April 11, 2019
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Great book from one of the most influential people in social media.
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