What is the main message of Wise Guy?

The main message of Wise Guy is the power of being genuine and building meaningful relationships.

Who is the author of Wise Guy?

Guy Kawasaki is the author of Wise Guy.

Biography & Memoir

Wise Guy Book Summary - Wise Guy Book explained in key points

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Wise Guy summary

Name: Wise Guy
Rating: 4 (41 reviews)
Author: Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki

Lessons from a Life

4 (41 ratings)

24 mins

Brief summary

Wise Guy by Guy Kawasaki is a memoir that details the author's journey from a mediocre student to a successful entrepreneur. He shares his experiences, both good and bad, and offers advice on how to succeed in the business world.

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Wise Guy
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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Life lessons from a Silicon Valley pioneer.

Fortune, as the Romans used to say, favors the bold. Few people know that better than Guy Kawasaki. A Silicon Valley legend who made his name spreading the gospel of Apple when the tech giant was still in its infancy, Guy’s life has been a succession of audacious leaps and bounds. Whether it was hawking diamonds in the jewelry business, convincing companies to take a gamble on Macintosh products or learning to surf at 62, he’s never been afraid of a challenge.

But as he’s the first to admit, that hasn’t always been his own doing. From the schoolteachers who pushed him to make the most of his talents to a university friend who staked his own career on Guy’s ability to do a job for which he wasn’t technically qualified, he’s had plenty of help along the way. In these blinks, he tells the story of his life so far and pays homage to the people who gave him an occasional leg up, beginning with his self-sacrificing and loving parents.

But this isn’t just a straight-up memoir chronicling Guy’s successes and setbacks – he also sets out to distill the lessons he’s learned on his journey and inspire readers to live their own best lives.

So read on to find out

why quitting law school was one of Guy’s best decisions;
what surfing can teach you about life; and
why having kids is such a rewarding experience.

Guy Kawasaki’s family left Japan for America in search of a better future.

Guy Kawasaki comes from a long line of dreamers – go-getters who moved halfway across the world in search of a better life for themselves and their children. Take his father’s side of the family. His great grandparents emigrated to Hawaii from Hiroshima, Japan, between 1890 and 1900.

This was a good time to get out of their native country. The Meiji period – an age of rapid industrialization and empire-building – was drawing to a close, and Japan was embroiled in wars with China and Russia. Since all men were expected to serve in the army, the chances of being sent to the front were high. Harvesting sugar for $1 a day for the Hakalau Plantation Company in Hawaii wasn’t exactly a dream job, but it sure beat military service!

Guy’s great-grandparents eventually settled in Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii recently annexed to the United States. They had three children – the first generation of American Kawasakis. When Guy’s grandmother Alma died during childbirth, his great aunt Katherine took over maternal duties. Katherine was a deeply moral woman who taught Guy to cherish and respect all life. To this day, Guy remembers his shame when she discovered that he’d killed a rare mejiro bird with a BB gun. Like the Kawasakis, the birds had come to Hawaii from Japan!

After Alma’s death, Guy’s father Duke became the family’s breadwinner at just 14. Duke’s education was brief, but it included a stint at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he learned to play the saxophone, piano, flute and clarinet. He led a band called Duke Kawa’s and struck up a friendship with the famous Canadian bandleader Guy Lombardo – the man after whom the author was named.

Guy’s grandparents on his mother’s side also came to Hawaii from Japan. One of their children was Lucy, Guy’s mom. This side of the family was wealthier, and Lucy was sent to Yokohama, Japan, for schooling in 1939. Almost three years later, she returned to Hawaii. Luckily enough, she was on one of the last ships to leave the country before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Lucy and Duke raised Guy and his sister Jean in their house in the Kalihi Valley, a multicultural working-class neighborhood in Honolulu. His early years were happy. His parents worked hard and invested in their kids’ futures. Most importantly, they taught him that anything was possible if he made the most of the opportunities he was given. As we’ll see in the following blinks, that’s a lesson he’s taken to heart.

The advice of two of Guy’s teachers put him on the path to Stanford.

Guy’s grandparents came to America because they saw it as a land of opportunity. Because they themselves had missed out on a good education, his parents understood that that was the surest path to social advancement.

They were more than happy to act on the advice of his sixth-grade teacher, Trudy Akau, when she called them and convinced them to apply Guy to two private college-prep schools in Honolulu: Punahou, the institution attended by former president Barack Obama, and ‘Iolani. The decision would change his life.

Dropping out of law school taught Guy that quitting isn’t necessarily the same as failing.

If you were an Asian- or Jewish-American kid back in the 1970s, your parents most likely had three career tracks laid out for you: a dentist, doctor or lawyer. Guy toyed with the idea of studying medicine at Stanford but soon realized he wasn’t cut out for such grisly work. A life spent sticking his hands in peoples’ mouths didn’t appeal either. That left law.

So after graduating from Stanford in 1976, Guy packed his bags and drove up to join Russell Kato, an old friend from ‘Iolani, to study law at University of California, Davis.

Guy was lucky to get a break at Apple, but he soon proved that he was the right man for the job.

Guy’s romance with computing first blossomed during his time in the jewelry trade after Mike Boich, another pal from Stanford, introduced him to the Apple II home computer. Compared to the IBM Selectric typewriter he’d been using, the AppleWorks word processor was an absolute godsend. When Boich later told him there was an opening at the company making these brilliant products, Guy jumped at the opportunity.

In September 1983, he joined Apple’s Macintosh Division as a “software evangelist,” a kind of brand ambassador. It was a lucky break. As Guy readily admits, on paper he didn’t look like the right man for the job. His résumé was littered with seemingly irrelevant qualifications – his psychology degree and MBA – and work experience in unrelated fields. Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind Apple, wasn’t convinced. He told Boich that he could hire Guy but that Boich was ultimately staking his career on the decision!

Guy had his ups and downs with Apple and eventually quit to set up his own business.

Apple has long been synonymous with perfectionism, and its bosses have always been hard taskmasters. During Guy’s time with the Macintosh Division, employees were expected to prove themselves every day.

Guy did exactly that. By 1986, he’d been with the company for three years and was up for promotion. That meant not only a seat on the directors’ board but a raise, stock options and a company car. There was just one problem: his superior, chief operating officer Del Yocam, was opposed to it. Apple was still reliant on the goodwill of competitors to get its own products off the ground, and while Guy enjoyed excellent relations with smaller companies, three big names in software hated him: Microsoft, Lotus and Ashton-Tate.

Guy rejoined Apple in the mid-nineties when the company looked like it might go under.

Apple is such a global powerhouse today that it’s hard to imagine there was a time when it looked like it might sink without a trace. But that’s exactly what industry insiders were predicting in 1995. Steve Jobs had left ten years earlier, Apple’s signature product – Macintosh – was struggling in the marketplace, and the company was being decimated by layoffs as it struggled to steady its finances. Desperate for all the help he could get, Apple’s vice president Dan Eilers reached out to Guy.

Guy had never lost his love for Apple and agreed to take up the position of chief evangelist. His task? To preserve Macintosh’s brand image and retain the customers of its thinning user base – hardy souls who defied computing common sense and continued buying a product experts believed was about to become extinct. It was a job with Guy’s name on it. During his first “tour of duty” at Apple, he’d spent endless hours supporting user groups and knew from personal experience just how fiercely loyal Mac users could be once you won their trust.

Parenting has taught Guy invaluable lessons about empathy and kindness.

Despite all his professional successes, Guy values his personal achievements most. Top of the list: the family he’s raised with his wife Beth, a former Apple colleague whom he first met and fell in love with in 1983. As anyone with kids of their own will know, parenting isn’t always straightforward, but it is incredibly rewarding. For Guy, that comes down to a simple fact: children teach you more about yourself and the world around you than any school, university or workplace ever could.

The most important lesson? Never judge anyone until you’ve walked in their shoes. That’s something Guy learned from his son Nate, who has dyslexia – a condition that makes concentrating on letters and numbers extremely difficult. Initially, Beth and Guy were frustrated by Nate’s poor progress in school. But then they went to an open evening during which Nate’s teachers invited them to take part in an exercise which simulated the experience of dyslexia by reversing texts in a mirror. After failing to complete a single task, Guy burst into tears – it was the first time he’d truly seen the world through his son’s eyes.

Taking up surfing in his sixties taught Guy that it’s never too late to learn new tricks.

Surfing wasn’t all about painful memories for Guy, however. In fact, it not only helped him bond with his initially critical daughter, but also taught him that contrary to perceived wisdom, old dogs can learn new tricks.

If you’ve never surfed before, you might not know that there are two different types of surfing – paddle and prone surfing. In the former, the rider remains standing and, as the name suggests, uses a paddle for balance. That’s a whole lot easier than the second, more traditional variant in which the rider lies on their board before springing into a standing position as they “catch” a wave.

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What is Wise Guy about?

Wise Guy (2019) tells the story of entrepreneur and best-selling author Guy Kawasaki’s life. Born into an ambitious Japanese family living in Hawaii, he went on to shine as one of Apple’s leading lights after dropping out of law school. Kawasaki has seen it all. In these blinks, he guides readers through his ups and downs and the lessons he’s picked up along the way as a student, tech guru, parent and sixty-something surfer.

Wise Guy Review

Wise Guy (2019) by Guy Kawasaki is a captivating exploration of his fascinating career in Silicon Valley and the lessons he's learned along the way. Here's why this book is a worthwhile read:

Packed with practical wisdom and valuable insights, it offers readers a unique perspective on entrepreneurship and business success.
Through engaging stories and personal anecdotes, Kawasaki provides a behind-the-scenes look into the tech industry, making the book both informative and entertaining.
With its down-to-earth tone and relatable experiences, this book is far from boring, offering an enjoyable and relatable reading experience.

Best quote from Wise Guy

Were it not for the opportunities, education and upward mobility that America afforded, the life of every subsequent generation of my family might have been different.

—Guy Kawasaki

Who should read Wise Guy?

Self-starters and the entrepreneurially minded
Digital pioneers
Anyone who loves inspiring true stories

About the Author

Best-selling author, revered Silicon Valley venture capitalist and marketing guru Guy Kawasaki first made a name for himself in the 1980s as a “software evangelist” for Apple. He later went on to found his own software company, serve as a brand ambassador to Mercedes Benz and advise Motorola. Guy’s previous books include The Macintosh Way (1990), The Art of the Start (2004) and Enchantment (2011).

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Biography & Memoir

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