Keynote: It's About Meaning Not Money, Says Guy Kawasaki

first of all Greg I want to tell you something okay so I have spoken at literally millions of dollars of sponsored lunches breakfasts and dinners and typically you get a speaking slot like that because you sponsored it right and what usually happens is some vice-president of some company who really does not want to be there comes up and says that all believes that because they pay tens of thousands of dollars to sponsor this thing that they have the right to basically give a fifteen minute pitch and so all they do is they talk about their patent-pending curve jumping paradigm shifting enterprise scale able you know product right and so your the first time I've ever seen any sponsor do something that had actual value and so I just that's kind of an aha moment for me too that you know God a sponsor could eat I'm a social media guy I want to tell you what you did in today's vernacular and social media you did content marketing right so most people just pitch and they say oh we have you know the most reliable whatever or whatever but you provided content so now we're all going to remember Fujitsu for having great content not some so I this is a big day in my life because this is the first time this happened to me in thirty years of you know sponsored lunches and dinners so I congratulate you I want to talk about some aha moments too basically I'll tell you how it worked in the Macintosh division when Steve at aha moment we all did and then it was that simple we had top-down a Honus Apple Apple was at best a benevolent autocracy and so when Steve saw something that was amazing we all saw it later so that's how it were I want to thank you for this opportunity Tim I want you to know that I have not one not two not three not four not five but six AT&T accounts I am I am the baby I am the epitome of the shared data plan and I just wish I knew to convert to the shared data plan earlier but I am a happy more bars in more places baby yeah I'm a happy AT&T customer and I would even have a seventh one because I got another tablet so I really I might add it but there I think there must be some theoretical limit and not only that not only am i share data guy but every month I go past my twenty gigabyte limit so I am your best case and you should you should sponsor me so so I'm going to talk to you tonight about the art of innovation this is something that I learned while working at Apple as well as by own companies as an entrepreneur I am chief evangelist of a small company out of Sydney Australia now that does online graphics design it's kind of a fast free and easy version of Photoshop if you will and so in my career which started in 1983 in technology I've had to learn a lot about innovation I've been around a lot of innovative people I can't tell you I did everything right but this is what I learned about innovation I I have seen many many high tech speakers and other than the ones in telecommunications I'll tell you that there are two very common qualities of tech speakers which is first they suck and second they go long and that's a deadly combination enough you suck and your speech is short it's okay you know and if you're great and your speech is long also okay but if you suck and go long it's like being stupid and arrogant right and so what I did is I I use the top 10 format for my speeches so that in case anybody thinks I suck you know approximately how much longer I'll suck so a little bit more my background I work for Apple twice 83 to 87 I was Apple software evangelist my job was to convince companies to write Mac software this is in the Macintosh division which was arguably the greatest collection of egomaniacs in the history of Silicon Valley that is saying a lot - believe me we held that record for about thirty years until Facebook broke the record you know back then the company had two divisions of the Apple two division which was shipping in the Macintosh division which was not shipping so if you looked at the Apple P&L the P was Apple to the L was Macintosh we were such bad people and we believed we were you know the hand-picked special children of Steve Jobs we would not let Apple two division employees into the Macintosh division building so if you can imagine working for you know one part of 18t and you can't go into another part of AT&T or working for one part of rising not allowed into another part of Verizon or working for one part of Fujitsu not allowing the other part of her jutsu and then the Apple two people figured out that they were not being allowed into a building they essentially were paying for so that upset them some so they came up with this great joke about us which is how many Macintosh division employees does it take to screw in a light well the answer is one the Macintosh division employee holds up the light bulb and expects the entire universe to revolve around him how many of you use windows in this audience I should have told should told me that invent is Microsoft a sponsor they are they're not responsive okay they won't be so the Microsoft version of this joke is how many Microsoft employees to take to school a light bulb and the answer is none because Bill Gates has declared darkness the new standard so the top 10 for innovation so the first thing I learned about innovation I learned it at Apple which is innovation is usually motivated by the desire to make meaning that is to change the world as an investor as an observer of many tech startups I think that the company who start off primarily to make money usually fail they attract the wrong kind of people the genesis of great companies or companies who wanted to make the world a better place I'll give you some examples from Silicon Valley so the first company of course is Apple and Apple wanted to democratize computers the story here is that you know Steven wads were asking why is it that a computer is so expensive so hard to use that you had to work for University work for the government you have to work for a large institution computers should be cheaper and smaller and easy to use and so they created Apple the meaning they made was democratizing computers Google I believe Google has democratized information that it should not be that you know only the Pope and only people with scribes and only people who own libraries can access all the information in the world anybody with computer access should be able to access all the information in the world and the final example I think is eBay eBay has democratized commerce so that anybody making dolls in the middle of Texas could stand toe-to-toe with Walmart or Target they democratize commerce so my observation is that if you want to truly be innovative it is motivated by the desire to make meaning and if you do make meaning one of the natural outcomes of making meaning is you will also make money but it is a natural outcome of a desired goal which is to make meaning step number one step number two is to anticipate what your customers will want you know in the mid-80s we were making an apple tube and if we asked our customers what they wanted they would all say give us a bigger faster cheaper Apple to more memory more space more color more whatever bigger faster cheaper Apple - and in fact nobody was saying give us a Macintosh give us a cute little graphics toy which thanks to my effort had no software had a mouse integrated text and graphics multiple fonts WYSIWYG display WYSIWYG printing and I learned a very valuable lesson at Apple and from Steve in particular that customers usually cannot tell you what they need they can tell you how to revise the status quo but they cannot tell you how to get to the next curve this has to come from you they are great at telling you how to revise a revolution but they cannot describe a revolution because they can only think in terms of what they already know anticipate needs step three is to jump to the next curve so if you're going to anticipate a need I'll tell you most of the time it's because you jumped to the next curve you didn't Duke it out on the same curve if you are on the telegraphed curve you didn't make a better Telegraph you got to the telephone curve if you were on the Daisy wheel printer curve you didn't make more fonts in more sizes you got to the laser printer curve and if you're in the laser printer curve you got to the 3d printing curve it's always about the next curve where innovation occurs classic analog example is 1.0 there used to be an ice harvesting business in the United States in this ice harvesting business bubba and junior would go to a frozen lake or frozen pond with a saw a horse and a sleigh they would cut blocks of ice nine million pounds were harvested in 1900 this had some limitations it had to be a cold time of year it had to be a cold city but it provided something very useful cleanliness convenience the ability to store food longer ice 2.0 happened about 30 years later now you had ice factories and the ice man delivered ice to your house water was frozen centrally and delivered to you big technological breakthrough because now it did not have to be winter it did not have to be a cold city hallelujah Bubba and junior could live in Honolulu and own an ice factory 30 years ago got a bye again and now we have the refrigerator curved even better now you're not limited by freezing water centrally transporting frozen water in a truck with the ice man now everybody could have their own ice factory it's called a PC personal chiller a refrigerator the very interesting story about this is that none of the ice factories became excuse me none of the ice harvesters became refrigerator companies and none of the refrigerator companies became god I'm like I must be totally jet lag okay none of the ice harvesters became ice factories and none of the ice factories became refrigerator companies everybody started on the curve they were on and died on the curve they want if he started on the typewriter curve you died on the typewriter curve none of us use Remington ran or smith-corona today right none of us use Wang word processors because they define themselves as we're in the business of we're processing we're in the business of having keys that strike paper and come back right we're in the typewriter business but you have to look at what your organization actually provides as opposed to the process that it used provide that so in a sense the ice Harvester the ice factory in the refrigerator company all provided the same thing convenience and cleanliness if you were an ice Harvester you cut blocks of ice if you were an ice factory you froze blocks of ice if your refrigerator company you made a mechanical gizmo but everybody provided the same thing most companies define themselves in two of what they do as opposed to what services and benefits they provide the way to remain innovative is to keep jumping to the next curve theoretically Bubba and junior the ice harvester upon seeing the ice factory should have said hallelujah Bubba it doesn't have to be winter we don't have to live in a cold city we can freeze water essentially any time of year and Bubba and jr. the ice factory owner should have seen a refrigerators that hallelujah Bubba now now we don't have to freeze water essentially we can build a mechanical gizmo and sell it to anybody who wants to have their own personal ice factory I learned a very valuable lesson true innovation usually occurs on the next curve not on the curve you're already on the fourth thing is to define some of the qualities of great innovation I call it dicey the D and I C stands for deep great product great services are deep lots of features lots of functionality this is an example this is a sandal made by reef it's called a Fanning and in that circled area there is a metal clip this saddle has twice the functionality twice the depth of any other sandal because this sandal not only protects your feet it opens beer bottles twice the depth of any other sandal that's depth great products are also intelligent when you look at this you say AHA this company understood my pain this company understood my problem this is a gt500 Shelby Mustang it has approximately 650 horsepower this is a truly badass Mustang for those of you not into cars this is equivalent to 6.8 Priuses ok so I am I am just about to make 60 and I'm going through a midlife crisis feelings of inadequacy impotency it all the good stuff that men go through so I would love to be able to compensate and one way to compensate would be to buy a Mustang like this but I have four children and of the four children to have licenses an 18 year old boy and a 20 year old boy and so I know that you know no matter how carefully I plan it there will be times where they might have to drive dad's Mustang my dad's gonna Dallas for a night we should drop them off at the airport and I have to tell you the thought of either of those boys driving a car with 650 horsepower is just immoral to me I mean which is it's not right to unleash those boys upon society in a car like this but then I discovered for it is a very clever product called the Mikey and what the Mikey enables you to do is program the top speed of a car into the key so if I were going to go to Dallas overnight and I had a Mustang I would give them a key programmed to go no faster than 55 miles in now in case any of you embrace this idea and do this just understand that the key controls the top speed of the car not how long it takes to get to the top speed great products are also complete it's the totality Google is not just the search engine it's analytics its mail it's Google Plus the social media thing right it is online picture editing it is a lot of stuff it's Picasa it's a lot of stuff when you buy a car it's not just the leather and the steel and the rubber it's the totality of the car presale post sale Lexus excels it's something like this it's complete great products are also empowering this is the key to Apple success that Apple Macintosh makes you more creative and more productive whereas you have to fight Windows you have to wrestle windows to the ground you need to defeat Windows right with Macintosh Macintosh becomes one with you it makes you a better person it makes you more creative more productive how many of you use Mackintosh's in this room again some of you raise your hands twice you use Macintosh and windows key to Apple it empowers people it doesn't fight people great products empower people and finally great products are elegant somebody cared about the user interface and the Industrial Design so as you are trying to jump curves ask yourself are we creating something that's deep intelligent complete empowering and elegant next thing let 100 flowers blossom this I stole from Chairman Mao although I fail to see how he actually implemented this what this means is that when you're an innovator you take your best shot in positioning and branding and you think you know exactly who should use your product and how they should use your product but what you'll find is that unexpected people use your product in unexpected ways and when this happens many companies freak out like oh my god the wrong people are using our products in large quantities my first recommendation for you if you ever experience this in your careers is take the money always take the money my second recommendation is that you find out from the people who are buying your product why are they buying it and give them more reasons to which is different than asking the people who are not buying your product why are they not buying it and try to fix it for them I think that is much less effective so letting 100 flowers blossom means that you know with Macintosh we tried to make it a spreadsheet database and word processing machine in the mid-80s if you're a Macintosh user from back then you know we're 0 for 3 there was a product however that blossomed this PageMaker Aldus PageMaker Aldus PageMaker created a field of flowers calls desktop publishing and desktop publishing saved Apple if it wasn't for desktop publishing there would be no Apple today if there was no Apple today the world would be different we'd all have phones with real keyboards right we'd have phones with a battery lasted for more than half a day we'd have phones where the GPS actually got you to where you want to go it would be a different world it would be a completely different world I think that frankly PageMaker was a gift from God to Apple because it saved Apple I believe in God and one of the reasons why I believe in God is that there is no other explanation for Apple's continued survival than the existence of God there are no atheists Apple customers trust me when I tell you the point here is to let a hundred flowers blossom a more analogue example let's suppose that you the VP of Marketing of Avon you come out with a new product called Skin So Soft look what the Skin So Soft do what's it supposed to do how's it position it's about beauty softness all this good stuff moisture right and then you find out that women are buying Skin So Soft not for their skin not to look beautiful and soft and luscious and all that good stuff they're buying it as an insect repellent for their kids now you know in all your branding and positioning statements it never occurred to you that you know we're replacing DDT that wasn't exactly that wasn't exactly the intended outcome right but what do you do my advice VP of Marketing of Avon you take the money right if women want to use Skin So Soft as a kids insect repellent hallelujah declare victory let a hundred flowers blossom the next thing is to niche thyself I think this is all the marketing anybody ever needs to know this is a two-by-two matrix uniqueness vertically value horizontally it's a two by two matrix if any of you work for McKinsey any of your organizations have hired McKinsey they would charge you a quarter million dollars just to tell you you should be in the upper right hand corner okay courtesy of the TI a you're getting this for free tonight all right so let's go through all four corners in the bottom right corner is the corner where you produce something of value it's good it does what it's supposed to do but it is not unique you can get a Windows machine from Dell HP Lenovo same operating system on the same hardware in that space you have to compete on price not the worst place you can make a lot of money there but you always have to compete on price in the opposite corner this is the corner where you have done something that's truly unique only you do it but it is of no use okay in that corner you are just playing stupid this corner is even worse this is the dot-com corner in the.com corner you have a product or service there's not only useless there's lots of companies doing the same useless thing great example of this is pets calm pets calm Silicon Valley let me explain the pitch for pets calm 300 million Americans one in four owns a dog seventy five million dogs each dog eats two cans of dog food per day this is a great business it's not b2b where you know Saturdays and Sundays are off this is well actually is b2d that dogs eat every day right so it's a hundred and fifty million cans of dog food total addressable market every day every day so how hard could it be to get just one percent of that that's one and a half million cans of dog food per day worst case with my Rockstar programmers that's the pitch for pets calm now as a business model it's very simple and supply chain management you have a cow you have a dog you need to kill the cow cutting in pieces putting the can get it to the dog sit we're not talking rocket science you know we're not talking JDS unifies we're not talking about optical nothing this is putting dead cows in cans so you look so you look at this and you say hmm where can we make an improvement in this supply chain management issue oh why do people have to drive to a dog food store they have to get in their car DRI fine Park and get out then they go into the dog food store and then at the point of purchase what do you really do are you tasting the dog food are you providing some kind of scientific objective analysis it's crying out loud it's dead cows in cans so let's eliminate the pet food store hallelujah we can discount pet food 20% so far so good the problem occurs is that now you may have discounted the top line 20% but at the bottom line you have to add back shipping and handling so the discount you gave at the top line because you disintermediate pet food store you have to add back because of shipping and handling and then it became arguably less convenient because someone had to be at home when UPS dropped off the dead cow in the care so it was not valuable and then it was not unique because people like me in Silicon Valley so well if kleiner perkins has a pets comm and Sequoia has a pet comm that we need our pets calm because total addressable market of a hundred and fifty million freaking cans of dog food per day so that's why there were iPads iPads last minute pets discount s there's 16 ways to spin as much money online for dog food and be less convenient and that's the dot-com corner so the corner you truly want to be in is in the upper right hand corner in this upper right hand corner you are valuable and you are unique some examples real world example I love to go to movies I go to a movie or two a week and when you take kids to a movie you really want to know before you go right you don't want to get there and it's sold out and for the theaters that we go to the only way you can buy a movie ticket for that theater is Fandango we pay a buck and a half more per ticket but that's worth it because you don't want to go to a movie theater and find out that the movie the opening of Superman 3 or Iron Man 4 or whatever Godzilla 2 you don't want to find out that it's sold out in fact you don't even want to go there and find out there's a line you just want to walk in and Fandango enables you to do that it's the only way I can do it another example brightening emergency watch this watch if you pull out the big knob at the five o'clock position it starts broadcasting an emergency signal that airplanes catch and so airplanes see that and they assume that it means is a downed airplane right so this is something you don't do this when you took the wrong exit on a freeway okay this is you do this when you're about to die because when airplanes see that basically they call up Kevin Costner he gets in his Coast Guard helicopter and he's starting to look for you well this is one of the few watches that if you're a helicopter skier or you're a sailor this watch literally could save your life there's not many watches that you can see you can do that and this is another example this is a smart car all of us have cars that can park parallel to the curb what if there's not a lot of parking how many of you have cars they can park perpendicular to the curb not too many another example of a unique and valuable service and finally I don't know about you guys but I love Ober a love over uber to me is unique and valuable that I just land you know I landed Kennedy and I see a 1-hour line for cabs and I go on uber and five minutes later I'm in a black town in countries today arguably it costs 20% more but at some level you know 20% more to skip an hour line a JFK is worth it I think uber is unique and valuable so I think that all of innovation comes down to if you're an engineer are you producing something that's unique and valuable if you're marketing are you telling the world and convincing the world that what you have is unique and valuable upper right-hand corner number seven number seven is something I stole from the Black Panthers they say burn baby burn I say turn baby turn which means that one of the hardest things for innovator and a revolutionary is to take version 1 and make it 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 2.0 and I'll tell you why it's so hard because to be an innovator you need to be in denial you need to be in denial because so many people are going to tell you you can't be done it shouldn't be done it isn't necessary and so you need to be able to ignore people but then once you ship you need to learn to listen to them as they tell you how to fix the Macintosh that they never knew they wanted before it's a very hard bit to flip turn baby turn you have to fix your revolution number eight also learn from Steve Jobs is if you want big accomplishments you have to issue big challenges not to simply do a slightly better ms-dos machine slightly better Macintosh you have to have big big channels not a slightly better phone but a much better phone so I'll show you some historical examples of big challenges from Apple when IBM entered the computer business we ran this ad it said welcome IBM seriously we're welcoming IBM to the fray and then in 1984 we ran this commercial where we said that we were going to prevent a George Orwellian 1984 totalitarian society by having this woman run down this hall and throw the sledgehammer at this iconic view of IBM right a big challenge with Steve was motivating us in the Macintosh division it wasn't about shipping a personal computer it was about saving democracy and then when Apple was in this difficult time when when wired was saying you know if your Apple you need to pray these are the kinds of challenges that Apple faced and I think these big challenges made Apple step up and create big innovations the ninth thing is that I learned that you want to be innovative you need to be able to change your mind many people think that changing your mind is a sign of stupidity or weakness I think the changing your mind is a sign of intelligence and strength let me show you an example our innovative approach using web 2.0 based standards lets developers create amazing new applications while keeping the iPhone secure and reliable Steve Jobs said this at the announcement of the iPhone let me translate what he's saying he's saying no apps he's saying if you want to create extra functionality for an iPhone you do it through a safari plugin okay at the time he claimed it was because then I phone a phone should be secure and reliable you might skeptically ask the question well Steve what about my computer then how come my computer doesn't have to be secure and reliable why does my phone have to be but not my computer but can I say but when he said this you know all the experts all the analysts said you know Steve we're not worthy we're not worthy you are so right Steve keep our phone secure and reliable fast forward 11 months Apple executives to showcase Mac OS 10 leopard and OS 10 iPhone development platforms at the WWDC 2008 keynote let me translate this for you this is saying we're opening up the iPhone now you can write native apps iOS apps let there be I fart let there be I everything right this is a 180-degree reversal when Apple did this the same experts who 11 months earlier said Steve you are so right keep our phone closed and secure and reliable now they're saying Steve you are so right open it up so there's innovation and so you have to ask yourself question well how can he be right twice when he reversed himself you know by definition that's part of the genius of Steve Jobs but truly they were absolutely right to reverse this decision to open up the system and it's a very valuable lesson that if you want to be innovative you have to be willing to change your mind change your mind 180 degrees change your mind number 10 number 10 is don't let the bozos grind you down arguably the most important recommendation I can leave you with I think that there are two kinds of bozos in the world there's the sloughing Li disgusting body order pocket protector rusty car Japanese watch loser bozo that bozo is not dangerous because that bozo is so obviously a loser that you would not listen to him because only a loser would listen to a loser that bozo is not dangerous the bozo who is dangerous dresses in all black the bozo who is dangerous is rich powerful successful visible the dangerous bozo owns lots of things that end in I like Lamborghini Maserati Armani Ferrari OD is okay already is an exception to this rule this bozo is dangerous because you look at this bozo you say hmm rich powerful famous loans owns lots of things an ending I this person must be smart I think that there is a big leap of faith there that rich famous powerful does not always parse too smart I would say 50 percent of the time it parses too lucky not smart and so this bozo is dangerous because this bozo might tell you don't do this can't be done shouldn't be done isn't necessary and you might be tempted to listen to this winner bozo whereas you would never be tempted to listen to the loser bozo so I believe that velocity is like the influenza how do you prevent the flu you get inoculated what does inoculation mean you get a little bit of flu so that when you encounter big flu you're already prepared right so I'm going to give you some examples of Balasa T so when you encounter bilasa t you've already built up the antigens all right so I think there's a world market for maybe five computers Thomas Watson chairman of IBM allegedly said this in 1943 a world market for five computers I have five computers in my house I have all the computers he anticipated in the world in my house today this telephone you're going to love this one this telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication the device is inherently of no value to us Western Union internal memo 1876 oops Western Union writes off telephony how many views Western Union lately like one of you none of you I got was scratching his face none of you how many of yous PayPal lately ah lots of you right why isn't Western Union PayPal ask yourself that why isn't Western Union PayPal it's because Western Union wrote off telephony it's hard to go from Telegraph to internet if you write off telephone in the middle you know what I'm saying like as Jeffrey Moore would explain it's just too big a chasm too maybe the strategic direction for Western Union in 1876 was let's teach Americans the Morse code how hard could that be that we could put a telephone telegraph in every house this is Bo's a city this is Bo's aa city one more example there's no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home Ken Olsen founder of Dex at this Ken Olson he was a stud of an innovator and an entrepreneur he created Dec oh my god he changed the world from mainframe to mini but he was so successful in a mini computer curve he could not embrace the personal computer curve and imagine his Steve and woz and met him at Comdex or CES and said mr. Olson we have a different vision for computing computer should be small and cheap and easy to use so small so cheap so easy to use you could have one in your home mr. Olson and mr. Olsen said son there is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home because if they want to balance their checkbook they'll drive back to their office and use a deck mini computer running quicken and then there might not have been a personal computer business this is dangerous dangerous philosophy you need to be able to ignore the bozos I'm gonna give you one more bozo start so about this is kind of an aha moment myself fear so aha I'm so stupid moment about 15 years ago I get a call from Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital great VC firm and he says God you want to interview for CEO position of a company I just funded I said what's the company he told me the company I looked up their website I taught I talked later to him and I said you know Mike my wife and I we have one child she's in beta with our second child I don't really want to drive an hour each way Mike man it is too freakin far to drive every day I'd have to drive from downtown San Francisco to Menlo Park every day that's like an hour each way you know that's too far to drive and I looked at their website - like you know what's the patent-pending curve jumping enterprise class scalable carrier quality product that they have is nothing it's like collection of favorite websites what's the business model or 15 years ago an Internet there was no business model right what we're gonna do sell classified ads you know singles adds the arpanet scientist so there was no business model and so where's the world-class t-mike is like to PhD students from Stanford they worked at the bookstore last summer like where's the proven management team so I turned down the opportunity to interview to be the first CEO of Yahoo now I know like I said it's an aha moment so so I've been thinking about this for about 15 years 7 weeks 6 days and 8 hours and 15 minutes and I've been thinking and I've been thinking and you know what ah this is how I would have gone down I should have taken the interview I would have gotten the job because when the principal investor in your company calls up somebody and says would you like your nerve or the CEO position he's already made up his mind yeah he's not this is not hijacking struggle they're trying to cast a big net looking for a lot of people to justify their quarter-million dollar fee he's already made up his mind right so I would have gotten the job well what percentage of Yahoo would I have gotten probably 10% I would have been the first adult there right 10% so how would it have worked get 10% of Yahoo vesting over four years right 148th per month now let's be conservative because you know CEOs don't always work out let's say I lasted two of the four years investing okay so two years into four year vesting schedule they call me up and they say guy you know we had an emergency board meeting last night we decided that you're not the person to take Yahoo to the next level we need someone who can go to New York and stand toe-to-toe with the media moguls go to LA stand toe-to-toe with the media moguls Stan Taylor to it Rupert Murdoch Barry Diller Steve Jobs Steve Ballmer Steve Case you know so we're replacing you and I would have been very calm I'm a calm guy so you know something okay I understand you're replacing me but you have to understand something you may not have noticed but I'm Asian American as an amazing American I am considered an oppressed minority in employment law so as an oppressed minority I will tell you that you know I view this as wrongful termination so if you pursue this there's going to be a wrongful termination lawsuit and frankly I think public sentiment will be on my side because this let's just look at history here let's start with World War two so two old war two who was America fighting Italy Germany and Japan okay you know the the axis of terror so okay so like did you ever hear of German Americans being taken out of their homes and stuck in camps no how about Italian Americans did you know that the u.s. government go to Little Italy in New York and wiped them out put them in a camp in the middle of desert in Colorado no but the Japanese yeah you took all of us and stuck us in camps okay data point number one data point number two at the end of World War two what country dropped not one but two nuclear weapons on another country huh America against Japan now you're firing me we're seeing a trend here okay so I said you know don't be a lawful wrongful termination lawsuit on your desktop and frankly turn your TV to CNN at noon because live from in front of the Yahoo corporate headquarters there will be 60 old crippled Japanese women protesting the wrongful termination of one of theirs and it was a timeout guy remain calm okay so what would it take you to go away quietly because you know at that level you always believe you can buy off any problem so I said okay so you clearly don't want me so I don't want to be here and I've vested half of my stock so why don't you just give me the other half because you know accelerate the vesting what do you care you already budgeted it so give me the other half and they probably would have said okay so by my calculation this response of you know it's too far to drive and I don't see the business model cost me two billion dollars now you guys in telecommunications 2 billion is nothing for you right I mean like Tim you have that in your ashtray in your Lexus right yeah so that's like that doesn't even require two signatures at AT&T right okay but for most people you know two billion here to be in there it adds up to real money pretty quickly so as I said I've been thinking about this for 15 years seven weeks six days from now you know 50 minutes and I've come to the conclusion that for the love of my wife to be there as my four children were growing up I made the right decision I picked my family over making money that's what I did I pick meaning or if I take it here's where this breaks down I believe that that explains and justifies 1 billion okay from the bottom of my heart I tell you it's the second billion that pisses me off because the second billion shows that I too was a bottle I can Olson disease I was successful in the personal computer curve I looked at the internet and thought it was just a modem cable right wasn't a new curve it was the same curve I was just as dumb as anybody who was on the ice harvesting curve seeing an ice factory or an ice factory seeing a refrigerator or a daisy wheel printer company seeing a laser printer I too was a bozo and that was a very valuable aha moment not as powerful as pepperoni and eggs but it was a very very powerful moment and so I leave you with this thought that you know all the things that I can communicate to you I hope that you remember that the first and the last things I mention are the most important which is innovation is derived it's just anchored it's it's caused by a desire to make meaning to change the world to make the world a better place and in that path you will encounter bilasa t be where the dangerous bosal I wish I could tell you every time a dangerous bozo tells you you'll fail it means you'll succeed it's not that simple but if you listen to a dangerous bozo would never try you will never know so don't let the bozos grind you down thank you very much

Channel: The TIA Channel

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Keywords: google, tia, events, tia now, telecommunications industry association, apple, innovation, nof channel, tia 2014, tia 2014 keynote, guy kawasaki, canva

Id: EHLy6WwqUhQ

Length: 42min 8sec (2528 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 12 2014