WISE GUY

The tech and marketing guru offers stories from his life and
career.

Born in Hawaii in 1954 and noted as the evangelist for Apple’s
Macintosh in the 1980s, Kawasaki (The Art of the Start 2.0, 2015, etc.)
is now “chief evangelist” at Canva, the graphic design website. In this book of
inspiration and advice, he describes his working-class youth as the grandson of
Japanese immigrants, his education at Stanford, and highlights from his years
as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and marketer. Organized around nearly a
dozen themes (“Education,” “Apple,” “Values,” etc.), the book consists of short
anecdotes about life decisions followed by nuggets of wisdom drawn from each
story. Results vary: The anecdotes are entertaining, reflecting varied
experiences, from learning how to sell at a jewelry company to career-defining
work under Steve Jobs to the joy of raising his children to his love of sports.
The wisdom bits are often trite or cloying: “Seek opportunities.” “Respect
authority.” “Do the right thing.” “Help people and be generous.” And so on,
with tiresome predictability. Kawasaki’s candor, however, is refreshing: “Sometimes
it’s better to be lucky than smart,” he writes of a Stanford friendship that
led to his Apple job. And: “It’s very hard to evangelize crap.” There is also
payback for Hillary Clinton’s “hubris” in rejecting his offer of social media
help in her presidential campaign. Kawasaki is direct, funny, and sometimes
contradictory. “Be humble,” he writes in a book with more than 20 photos of
himself with others. His soft side is balanced by fearless practicality on the
key to success: “Life is sales.” There is a genuine desire to share lessons
learned and help readers get ahead. Do what’s right (he resisted Trump), find
challenging teachers, avoid paranoia, and set goals, even superficial ones, if
you want to succeed.

Kawasaki is a likable guy, but this one is best browsed to avoid
saccharine overload.