Guy Kawasaki (Author) on Lessons from a Life in Technology | #TNW2019

[Music] sorry I was a little late there I'm a software guy software is always late so I'm welcome my name is Guy Kawasaki and I live in Silicon Valley I am here today to talk to you about a book that I just finished called wiseguy and in this book I tell all these stories of my life life in Silicon Valley a life in technology and it's I'm just so happy to be here I I've been kicking myself for you know why did I wait for 14 times before I came to the next wave this is a fantastic show so I'm very happy to be here did you see that your father can dance did you learn that and yeah did he embarrass you yeah that's what father's do trust me so I'm gonna talk to you today about the lessons from a life in technology and I'm so happy to be here I just I like I have never ever come to a speech on a ferry I have to say it I was a first for me today so this is a picture I'll use to explain a little bit my context this is a picture of the Macintosh division taken in 1984 I'm in the far upper left hand corner you cannot really see me one of the mistakes I made in my career is that I didn't stand in the front of this very famous picture because frankly I had no idea that Apple would be as successful as it has become a little bit about this group of people the Macintosh division it's probably the largest collection of egomaniacs in the history of America and that's saying a lot because as you know America has a lot of egomaniacs you know back then Apple was a successful company already it had the Apple 2 division which was making all the money because they were shipping Apple twos and there was the Macintosh division which was spending all the money because we were still trying to complete the Macintosh but we were such arrogant people I I look back on those days with some chagrin we were such arrogant people we believe that we were hand selected by Steve Jobs so the rules didn't apply to us and I'll give you some stories so the story number one is you're seeing us in front of the Macintosh division building we would not let Apple 2 division employees into that building so if you can imagine working for a company where you work for the same company but you're not allowed into the building of the company and then the Macintosh division people quickly figured out that they were not being allowed into a building they had just paid for and so that pissed them off a great deal and so they came up with this great joke about the Macintosh division which is how many Macintosh division employees does it take to screw in a light bulb the answer is one the Macintosh division employee holds up the light bulb and expects the universe to revolve around him is it where's Boris Boris is is Microsoft a sponsor of this do you want them to be a sponsor you don't care okay so the Microsoft the Microsoft version of this joke is how many Microsoft employees does it take to screw in a light bulb and the answer is none because Bill Gates has declared darkness the new standard so arguably the most important person in this picture is the person kneeling in the front that's Steve Jobs holding a Macintosh 128k and one of the reasons why this photo is so significant is this is that this is the only known instance of Steve Jobs ever getting on his knees for anything in his life whenever people find out that I work for the Macintosh division they of course want a Steve Jobs story all the movies all the reports all the blog posts all the everything you've read books magazines everything you've read and heard and seen about Steve Jobs is true he was very difficult to work for very demanding but just a certifiable genius and visionary I would not be where I am today were not for Steve Jobs and there is nobody in this picture who regrets working for the Macintosh division it was a it was a privilege and an honor so my stop my Steve Jobs story for you so one day I'm in my cubicle and Steve Jobs shows up with someone I had never seen in my life and he says guy what do you think of this company called nowhere KN o waa re it was an educational software company knowledge software and I said well Steve it's a mediocre company with mediocre products the products don't take advantage of the Macintosh graphical user interface it's very simplistic arithmetic two plus two equals four it's not a strategic product it's not a strategic company don't even think about it Steve and then Steve says I want you to meet the CEO of nowhere so welcome to my life that's what working for Steve Jobs was like on to the lessons so I'm 64 years old and it's taken me this long to acquire all this wisdom and this is kind of a sweet spot for me because it took me this long to acquire it and so previously I could not write this book and if I wait any longer I'm gonna forget the wisdom so you're hitting me right as I got it but before I lost it so that's what this book is and I'm gonna give you the top ten wisdoms of my life that I hope that you can take and you can as Steve would say dent the universe with the knowledge that I've acquired okay so the first thing that I figured out as I look back over my life is that you should always change a losing game and this became so true for me as I look back on the life and the decisions of my great-grandparents and my grandparents this is a picture of my family my father is the tallest guy the second guy from the left my my great-grandfather and grandparents they came from Japan to Hawaii they left Japan because of a lack of opportunity because they could not progress anymore there was a lack of jobs so they changed the losing game they left Japan and they came to Hawaii and with hindsight I've now figured out that that's an attitude for life if you are stuck in a place where you cannot progress where the opportunities are not great enough you cannot sit by and just let things happen to you you need to change a losing game second thing that I learned is that education is the absolute key to success you know I travel all over the world and everybody talks to me with Silicon Valley envy you know how do we make Berlin the next Silicon Valley how do we make Austin the next Silicon Valley how do we make everywhere the next Silicon Valley and people think it's about the venture capital funding it's about the amount of infrastructure you know is there cloud-based services are there PR firms are there ad firms are the recruiters and my observation is that the most important thing in an area if you want to succeed in technology is the quality of the engineering education get educated some pictures from my past this is a picture of my elementary school I came from a lower middle-class part of Hawaii Kalihi elementary let's just say that it's not at the top of the rung of the education system in Hawaii and the arc of my life changed because my sixth grade teacher took my parents aside one day and they told my parents you know guy has too much potential for you to leave him in the public school system you need to pull him out of the public school system and put him in a college prep school and if she had not pulled my parents aside and told them that and if they had not listened to her I would not be here today the key to my success then was education and in my education this is a picture of my high school English teacher his name is Harold kibbles and I have an insight for you that as I look back on my life the hardest teachers and the hardest bosses taught me the most I think there's a temptation as you're going through life that you're always looking for the easy route who's the easy boss who's the easy teacher how can I get through life with doing as little as possible but as you reach the end of your life I think you'll come to the realization that the greatest influences on your life will be the toughest teachers and the toughest bosses this English teacher we would write essays he would mark up the essays with all the errors in it and then there was a three-step process you had to write the sentence incorrectly as you did you had to cite the rule of English grammar that you broke and then you had to write the sentence correctly every error required three steps so you very quickly learned English Graham composition is the best teacher I ever had just like Steve Jobs was the best boss that I ever had the next thing that I learned is that motivation is often dressed up in very highfalutin terms you want to dent the universe you want to change the world you want to end global warming you want to foster world peace and I need to follow my sword a little bit I'm going to tell you about what motivated me and my youth and what drove me to where I am today so this is a picture of a bus stop this bus stop is at a high school in Hawaii called Chi Mookie Kaimuki is the lower middle class part of Hawaii right off Waikiki and when I was in high school I was once robbed at this bus stop and that was a very formative experience because when I was robbed at that bus stop I vowed that I would study hard and I would work hard so that I would never have to live in a place where I could be robbed again source of motivation number one this is a picture of a Ferrari Daytona when I was in college my roommate came from a very wealthy family from Phoenix Arizona their backyard was the golf course of the Arizona Biltmore estates so in college you sometimes go home with your buddies so once I went home with him for a weekend and we went to dinner at the Arizona Biltmore at the end of the dinner his mom said guy would you please drive me home in my Ferrari so I got to drive this car and I will tell you that was a life-altering experience to drive a Ferrari I said this is why you need to study guy this is why you need to work hard so while everybody's talking about changing the world all I wanted to do was change the car my third source of motivation this is a picture of me and this is a Jackie Chan now it's not the real Jackie Chan because I have never met the real Jackie Chan this is in the wax museum in Beijing and I hope I don't violate any copyright or trademark by standing with a wax figure but this is not the real Jackie Chan so here's the story so about 15 years ago I owned the Porsche 911 and I stopped at this light on El Camino in Menlo Park I'm in this 911 and I look over to the left and there's a car with four teenage girls in it and they're giggling and they're laughing and they're making eye contact with me and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking guy you have truly arrived teenage girls know who you are it's because of your work at Apple you're writing you're speaking that you founded a hot comm company so I'm sitting there just totally smug the girl in the front seat says roll down the window clearly not a Porsche owner because you don't roll down a Porsche window you press a button but anyway I rolled down my window she sticks her head out and she says to me are you Jackie Chan well you could take that as an insult but one of my motivations in life since that day is that one day Jackie Chan is in his s-class or his Maybach or his Bentley or his Rolls Royce and he's at a stoplight in Hong Kong and he looks to his left and there's a car with four teenage girls giggling smiling making contact with Jackie Chan girl in the front seat roll down your window Jackie Chan rolls down the window teenage girl in the front says to him are you Guy Kawasaki that's the goal my message here is that you know what don't worry about what motivates you just get motivated next lesson you know I meet with a lot of young people and a lot of young people have this very lofty expectation of how do you get that job how do you get in and I'll tell you my experience is that in high tech anyway it doesn't matter how you get into the company get in any way that you can because what matters is not how you got in what matters is what you do once you are in and if you get in as a temporary if you get in because you're delivering lunches if you get in because you're testing code whatever it is it doesn't matter get in any way that you can this is a picture of the first three generations of evangelists in the Macintosh division the guy in the left is Mike Boyd he's the first software evangelist he hired me the reason why I got hired at Apple is not because of my stellar work experience nor my stellar educational background PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon anything like that I got hired at Apple because Mike Boyd was my college mate it's his mother who had the Ferrari Daytona the only reason why I got hired at Apple was nepotism it was pure and simple nepotism but you know what that's how I got in why I succeeded is for very different reasons so my message to you as you're facing employment opportunities thinking of starting companies thinking of hiring people don't worry about how people get in just worry about what they do once they're in you know I think the current HR wisdom is that you always look at people's educational background and work experience for relevance I'm not saying you should ignore that but I think you should add a third variable when you are hiring or being hired which is do you love what the company is doing because when I saw Macintosh for the first time I was coming from the jewelry business I literally were slepping golden diamonds around the United States but when I saw Macintosh for that first time when I saw Mac Paint and Mac right for me it was a religious experience the clouds parted angel started to sing and the reason why I succeeded in the Macintosh division is because I love the Macintosh so I succeeded despite the lack of the right education and the like the right work experience I will also tell you that I've come to believe the people with the perfect background education and work if they don't love what you do it doesn't matter if they have the perfect background so the lack of the perfect background can still make you successful the presence of the perfect background can still make you fail just get in next lesson is the lesson in life that will help you have a happy life which is don't look for problems where they don't exist this is a picture of me standing in front of a house on Union Street and an Francisco you see that hedge so about 16 years ago I lived in this house this is a very nice house in a very nice part of San Francisco Union Street dead ends into the Presidio so it's a it's a part of San Francisco called Cow Hollow one of the nicest parts of San Francisco so one day I was outside of my house trimming this bogan Velia hedge trimming it all right snipping the branches this older white woman comes up to me and says do you do lawns also and I said to her so I'm japanese-americans so you figure I'm japanese-american I must be the Yard Man right she goes no no no no it's not that it's just you were doing such a great job at trimming the hedge I wanted to ask you if you also do lawns so right there there's some wisdom the wisdom about racial profiling but wait it gets better two weeks later my father comes and visits me I'm third-generation japanese-american he's second served in the US Army you know the whole thing and I tell him this story and I fully expect him to just go off on her right how dare she ask you you're the Yard Man does she not realize that you went to Stanford that you worked for Apple that you've written five books but just because you're Japanese she thinks you're the Yard Man he did not say that at all what he said to me was son Japanese guy cutting a hedge on Union Street statistically the probability was that you were the Yard Man so shut up and don't look for problems where they don't exist take the high road give people the benefit of the doubt and since that day it's been very hard to a and me don't look for problems where they don't exist next thing I learned is about grinding it out if there is a secret to my success it has been my willingness to grind it out I love to work I can work anywhere at any time I just need an internet connection this is a picture of a hoodie this hoodie was given to the Macintosh division and it commemorated a spirit and the Spirit was that we were on a mission a mission to increase people's creativity and productivity so in 1982 and 1983 we were working 90 hours a week and we were loving it because we weren't trying to simply ship a new personal computer we were trying to change the world we were trying to prevent totalitarianism we're trying to prevent a George Orwellian 1984 world so it wasn't about shipping another computer it was about changing the world and we were doing this 90 hours a week and loving it we were grinding it out next piece of wisdom is to remember your friends this is a picture of me with Marc Benioff Marc Benioff is the founder of salesforce.com I gave Marc Benioff his first job ever in his career I gave him a job as a summer intern when I was at Apple and he was at USC he spent the summer writing assembly language program examples for the Macintosh division fast forward 30 years he is not the intern he is now the man salesforce.com donated hundreds of millions of dollars to medical research and the story I want to tell you is this so a few years ago the son of Mike boy the guy who hired me at Apple mother who owns the Ferrari the first software evangelist at Mackintosh Mike boys his son wanted an interview at Salesforce I sent an email to mark I said mark do you remember Mike Boyd she now has a son who just graduated from college he was my boss when I gave you your job at Apple he wants an interview at Salesforce and Marc Benioff bless his heart in less than an hour made that interview happen fast word another couple years my son graduates my son says he wants an interview at salesforce.com sends an email to Marc Benioff again bless his heart in less than an hour my son had an interview at Salesforce and let me tell you something this was really meaningful to me because 30 years earlier I gave him an internship and he never ever forgot that there are lots of people in Silicon Valley who would have not answered that email much less got than our son's interviews and eventually jobs at salesforce.com remember your friends next thing I learned you know lots of people ask me so what is the key to evangelism guy you've evangelize McIntosh now you're evangelizing canva you know what is the key so I want to explain a concept called guys golden touch guys golden touch is not whatever I touch turns to gold guys golden touch is whatever is gold guy touches this is a picture of the moment that I met the cofounders of canva how many of you use canva in this row yeah so canvas is an online graphics design service and what it enables you to do is create great graphics every one of you can create great graphics a nice way to think of canva is that you know in the time it takes you to boot Photoshop you could finish a graphic in canva so when people ask me so what's the key to evangelism is it an outgoing personality is it the ability to shock and jive and network is it the ability to do a great demo is persistence what is the key to evangelism the key to evangelism is to evangelize great stuff because it's very easy to evangelize great stuff it is very hard to evangelize crap the key to evangelism is to find create align yourself with great stuff evangelism comes from Greek words meaning bringing the good news so what an evangelist does is bring the good news I brought the good news of McIntosh it makes people more creative and productive I am bringing the news of canva it makes everybody into a graphic designer so if you want to evangelize something it starts with that something has to be good news that it empowers people it makes people's lives better that it changes the world next thing that I learned is you have to continue to learn you know when I was younger I thought oh so learning stops when you get your degree you know you you you get your degree you you march down in the commencement ceremony and bada bing bada bang learning is over now it's just reaping and it's making money for the rest of your life and I found that to be absolutely untrue if you want to optimize your life you have to continue to learn I like to use sports examples so this is me about two years ago and let's just say if you know anything about surfing this is not the ideal position so at the age of 62 I decided to take up surfing that is roughly 58 years too late and I took up surfing because my daughter took up surfing this is a picture of me surfing with my daughter and the message here is that you know what surfing is probably the hardest thing I've ever tried to learn it is way too late to do it at 62 but you know what it can be done the message is continue to learn learning is a process it is not an event continue to learn next thing I learned little peace the wisdom is in life you have to do what it takes I'll tell you an example so I once had a book called enchantment and I ran a crowdsource cover contest and so I went on social media and I told people I'm running a cover contest submit your cover design to me and I'm going to pick one and pay $1,000 for the cover and what happened was very interesting so a lot of professional graphic artists complained that I was exploiting their industry because what I was essentially doing was asking hundreds and hundreds of graphic designers to create covers submit them to me and I would only pay one so one person would be adequately rewarded everybody else I screwed that's not how I look at it I looked at it like I am opening it up for true meritocracy I don't care if you work for a large firm I don't care if you have a degree in graphic design I just want a great cover anybody can enter and so my attitude was if you want to succeed in life you do what it takes if if you can enter a graphic design contest to show off your talent you enter you know I speak 50 to 75 times a year many of my speeches I give for free but the more you speak the more you speak because someone here for example may say oh I heard guy talk at tnw 2019 he would be very good for my spouse's company's meeting and so speakers give away speeches for free hackers and enter hackathons and so my message here is that it is not about how you succeeded you do what it takes and this is an example this is a picture of me with Richard Branson Richard and I were in Moscow together to speak at a conference Richard comes into the speaker ready room and he says to me guy do you fly on virgin and I said Richard I'm United Airlines Global Service I don't know how you get to be global service I don't want to jeopardize my global service status because if you're United global service even United becomes a tolerable airline and when I said this this is what he did he got down on his knees and he started polishing my shoes other than that picture I've never seen Steve Jobs get down on his knees for anybody Richard Branson billionaire owner of an island wind surfs with Barack Obama night gets down on his knees to get another passenger for Virgin this is the moment I started flying on Virgin America and the lesson here is that you know what if Richard Branson can get on his knees and do what it takes all of us can get on our knees and do what it takes now you may be wondering why is this picture so lousy and I have to say I completely agree with you so what happened was I didn't exactly expect Richard to get on his knees and start polishing my shoes so when he did this I handed my camera to someone in the room I said take this picture this is such a great moment and the camera was set to manual focus at that point and so this person just picked up the camera and snapped the picture and one of my big regrets is that I don't have an InFocus version of this picture I may have to recreate this picture one day the point is do what it takes and this is my last piece of wisdom for you this is not something about politics or drugs okay I'm not suggesting you get high and to the right in that sense at all I guess I mean Amsterdam though so maybe the get high part is okay so I want to give you what I consider the only graph you need to chart your life to chart how you create a product how you create a service how you position yourself as an employer as an employee how you find dates how you get happily married how you do everything in life can be explained with this one chart in this chart there are two axes the vertical axis measures your degree of uniqueness your differentiation the horizontal axis measures the value of what you bring to the party there are four corners in this 2x2 matrix some big consulting firms would charge you five million dollars to tell you you need to be in the upper right hand corner you're getting it free here today at tmw 2019 so let us go through all the corners in the bottom right corner we have the corner where you do something useful valuable you're Michael Dell right you make Dell computers but you don't want a Dell computers fundamentally windows on hardware that any other manufacturer could buy so yes it's valuable but it is not unique in that corner you always have to compete on price same operating system same hardware you have to compete on price in the upper left hand corner that's the corner where you are truly unique completely differentiated only do you do what's done in that corner you own a market that doesn't exist in that corner you are just playing stupid in the bottom left corner you are stupid and it's crowded where you're stupid because in that corner you have created something that's not valuable it's stupid people like me in Silicon Valley have fun that other stupid companies that do the same stupid non valuable thing a great example of this is pets calm buying dog food online buying dog food online why was it not valuable yes dog food was cheaper online because there's no retailer but you have to add back shipping and handling so what you discounted because there's no retailer you had to add back with shipping and handling and then somebody had to be at home when the dead cow and the can was delivered to your house so it was less convenient just as expensive not valuable why was it not unique well many of you are entrepreneurs so I'm going to give you a lesson in pitching this is something you should never do what I'm about to do never ever do 300 million Americans one in four owns a dog 75 million owned dogs in America each dog eats two cans of dog food per day and dogs eat every day we are not talking b2b here we're talking b2c dogs eat every day more accurately b2d dogs eat every day so we take a hundred and fifty million cans of dog food and with my Rockstar co-founder how hard could it be to get one percent of that market that's one and a half million cans of dog food per day 365 days a year we're talking 5 or 600 million cans of dog food per year conservatively speaking worst case and because of that pitch there was pets calm my pets calm I pets calm last minute pets.com discount pets calm there are 10 ways to buy dog food online less convenient just as expensive the corner that you want to be in whether you're designing a product a service position yourself in life in dating whatever it is is that iPod corner in the iPod Corner you are valuable and you are unique why was iPod valuable and unique because at the time iPod had a user interface that a mere mortal could operate you could get a wide selection of music from the six largest music publishers it was legal and it was $0.99 those factors made iPod not only valuable but also unique and explains the success of iPod so as you create your products you create your servers as you position yourself as an employer or an employee it's all about getting high and to the right how are you valuable and how are unique if you are valuable but not unique you will always have to compete on price if you are unique but not valuable you are just playing stupid if you're not unique and not valuable you are stupid and you are not alone the corner you want to be in is the unique and valuable corner that's where history's made margins made profits made money's made that's where you dent the universe and this is the collection of my top ten wisdoms in a life of technology thank you very much thank you thank you where's Boris here thank you that was an expiring talk I'm proud you've been a childhood icon for me and III think it's great that we have the 14th edition and that we could open with Jackie Chan so there's just a few questions I want to ask and the first one is the theme of the conference and the tagline for our company is the heart of tech I always thought that the mecca tuition wasn't really about the technology but much more about the humanity can you say something about that so yeah I think that well certainly Apple proves this that fundamentally it's about the emotion it is about the reaction that I don't think people wake up in the morning saying I want to buy tech I think they want music they want entertainment they want productivity they want beauty and so I think your theme fits right in that you have to separate the features of a technology from the benefits of the technology and it's all about the benefits of Technology yeah yeah and when you left Apple and someone once asked you know like why did you leave Apple and then you said because I started to believe my own yes which I thought was a beautiful quote from someone as influential as that I can you talk about that self reflection a little bit for the people in the room like me or might be able might start to believe their own well yeah so I left Apple twice in my career both times to start companies and so you're part of being an entrepreneur is you have to be somewhat delusional you have to believe in your own because if you didn't believe in your how can you possibly get anybody else to believe in your so I think it's necessary though not necessarily sufficient quality of entrepreneurship that you do have to believe your and but then you have to make it true and I think that's one of the keys to the success of Silicon Valley is that we believe our own and in many cases we can also make the come true all right last question yes and of course your you're known as a marketeer you you popular lies the Evangelist honest but then now you're a writer like what's next is the what's next for me yeah so as I told you I'm 64 years old I have four children my children are let's see 25 23 17 and 13 so the 25 and 23 are out we had two IPOs if you will so the 17 and 13 who's gonna go surfing with you the 17 and 13 are both living with us still and I will tell you that I have come to the conclusion that I need to spend as much time as I can with them so I'm not interested in starting any more companies doing anything more like that really I just want to spend time with my kids and surf that's all I really want to do all right let's go sir thank you very much thank you great thank you [Music]

Channel: TNW

Views: 8,353

Rating: 4.9389315 out of 5

Keywords: tnw, the next web, TNW2019, The Next Web, TNW Conference 2019, TNW Conference, The Next Web Conference, Amsterdam, NDSM, Guy Kawasaki, Success, Value, Unique, Career, Business

Id: dDzKN0B5hjY

Length: 39min 55sec (2395 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2019