Top 180 Guy Kawasaki Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “If you think that leadership is deciding what you want and telling people to do it, I feel sorry for you. Reality is going kick your ass so far that not even Google will find you.”

— Guy Kawasaki

152. “Writing a book isn’t an easy process nor is it always enjoyable, but it is one of life’s most satisfying achievements.”

— Guy Kawasaki

153. “I have four kids in a private school who have not yet entered college. Their tuition is what keeps me motivated. Life is simple sometimes.”

— Guy Kawasaki

154. “Social media puts reciprocity on steroids because now you can reach more people in more ways to do more things for them faster and at lower expense. Positive word about your reciprocity can spread faster than ever.”

— Guy Kawasaki

155. “Customers can tell you how to evolve a product, but they can’t show you how to make a leap.”

— Guy Kawasaki

156. “Revolutionary leaders have to care more about what they think of themselves than what the world thinks of them.”

— Guy Kawasaki

157. “I learned how difficult it is to self-publish a book. It’s complex, it’s confusing, it’s idiosyncratic.”

— Guy Kawasaki

158. “You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do. – Henry Ford.”

— Guy Kawasaki

159. “The biggest daily challenge of social media is finding enough content to share. We call this “feeding the Content Monster.” There are two ways to do this: content creation and content curation.”

— Guy Kawasaki

160. “A successful self-publisher must fill three roles: Author, Publisher, and Entrepreneur – or APE.”

— Guy Kawasaki

161. “It doesn’t matter whether the Dow is 5000 or 50,000. If you’re an entrepreneur, there is no bad time to start a company.”

— Guy Kawasaki

162. “For me, while writing I am an engineer, so if I decide to change the format, I want to add a section, to move a section, reorganize the section, anything I want to do, I just boot words, and I do what I want to do. So, I feel completely empowered when I’m a writer.”

— Guy Kawasaki

163. “The first follower is what transforms the lone nut into a leader,” and in a startup, that first follower is usually a cofounder.”

— Guy Kawasaki

164. “You should always be selling – not strategizing about selling. Don’t test, test, test – that’s a game for big companies. Don’t worry about being embarrassed. Don’t wait to develop the perfect product or service. Good enough is good enough. There will be plenty of time for refinement later. It’s not how great you start – it’s how great you end up.”

— Guy Kawasaki

165. “If you think that leadership is deciding what you want and telling people to do it, I feel sorry for you. Reality is going kick your ass so far that not even Google will find you. The goal of this chapter is to help you become such a great leader that you’ll appear on the first page of a Google search for “leader.”

— Guy Kawasaki

166. “I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose. – Ludwig van Beethoven.”

— Guy Kawasaki

167. “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. – Reid Hoffman.”

— Guy Kawasaki

168. “There are very few people who don’t become more interesting when they stop talking. – Mary Lowry.”

— Guy Kawasaki

169. “If you can’t describe your business model in ten words or fewer, you don’t have a business model.”

— Guy Kawasaki

170. “Can we get a bank loan to start our business? Answer you’re looking for: “No,” assuming it’s a tech business. Tech businesses don’t have liquid assets to use as collateral.”

— Guy Kawasaki

171. “Hiring better than yourself means that you hire for strengths as opposed to hiring on the basis of the lack of weaknesses. A great leader hires people for their strengths and then assigns them tasks that take advantage of those strengths.”

— Guy Kawasaki

172. “It’s not what you know or who you know, but who knows you. – Susan RoAne.”

— Guy Kawasaki

173. “Life is too short to work with people you don’t like – especially.”

— Guy Kawasaki

174. “For example, how much do you think a senior vice president of Microsoft who came from McKinsey knows about starting a company?”

— Guy Kawasaki

175. “The genesis of great companies is answering simple questions that change the world, not the desire to become rich.”

— Guy Kawasaki

176. “Trying to minimize weakness doesn’t produce strength.”

— Guy Kawasaki

177. “Mission statements are long, dull, and forgettable.”

— Guy Kawasaki

178. “Entrepreneurship is about doing, not learning to do.”

— Guy Kawasaki

179. “It’s easy to imagine a young person asking his parents if he should go to work for a startup and being told, “Don’t. It’s too risky. Get a job in a nice, safe company that will be around a long time – like Lehman Brothers, Arthur Andersen, or Enron.”

— Guy Kawasaki

180. “Sometimes blissful ignorance is awfully empowering.”

— Guy Kawasaki