
Don't Waste Your Time With Guy Kawasaki - myoung8
http://mlyoung.wordpress.com/2007/07/07/dont-waste-your-time-with-guy-kawasaki/
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jmpeters
I totally agree that "Art of the Start" is a waste of time. It reads as if Guy
just collected a couple years worth of notes and Powerpoint slides from his
inane pep talks and grinded them up into book form. And yet, paradoxically, it
is difficult to criticize Guy. The very fact that he has managed to achieve
some measure of Internet renown from the warmed-over banalities in "Art of the
Start" represents a certain type of business success that I can't help but
begrudgingly admire.

In a strange way Guy reminds me of a fascinating series of articles about Noka
Chocolate that I read some time back
([http://www.dallasfood.org/modules.php?name=News&file=art...](http://www.dallasfood.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=78\).)
While the author of the series clearly demonstrates that Noka chocolate is
grossly overpriced and deceptively marketed, I ended up respecting Noka's
chutzpah for convincing so many people to pay an exponentially higher price
for repackaged Bonnat chocolate.

Such is Guy. He repackages the same slogans and epigrams that you can't throw
a rock in the business section of any bookstore without hitting, and yet he is
perceived as a creative business author. His entrepreneurial resume shows only
the Web 0.01 Nutsack that is Truemors, and yet he has convinced a respectable
cross-section of our industry that he knows something about building startups.
You have to respect that. Guy Kawasaki: the Noka Chocolate of Startup Gurus.

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Alex3917
I really liked Art of the Start. I read it cover to cover in a day, and then
read a couple of his previous books.

However, when reading his earlier books I noticed that a lot of the ideas had
been picked up by other bloggers, e.g. Seth Godin. Because of this, the book
didn't seem nearly as insightful as it would have if I read it when it was
published.

I suspect the same would be true today for AotS because of all the VC
bloggers. While many VCs did have blogs two years ago, most of them weren't
giving that kind of practical advice at the time. Paul Kedrosky and Fred
Wilson had yet to publish many of their best columns, and Venture Hacks and
Presentation Zen didn't even exist. Not to mention that PG had only published
the first two or three of his essays on startups, the ones in Hackers and
Painters (not counting the essays on lisp/coding).

~~~
myoung8
This is true and probably explains part of my frustration with the book. The
first pieces I ever read on startups were PG's, so I suppose by the time I
read AotS, all the points were sort of cliches.

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SwellJoe
This is silly. Guy Kawasaki is a good writer, and his books are good,
inspiring books. They are not full of secrets, nor are they going to guarantee
you success, but they do sum up a lot of things you need to know to be
successful. Maybe you already know them, and if so, that's great! You've got a
head start. Not everyone does.

I really enjoyed his Art Of The Start talk. I also found "Selling the Dream"
among the best marketing books available, along-side Ogilvy on Advertising,
"Focus"/"Marketing Warfare" (either one will do, as they are effectively the
same theme by the same authors), and "What's the Big Idea?" by George Lois. As
someone else mentioned, Seth Godin has successfully re-purposed quite a bit of
"Selling the Dream" into "Permission Marketing" (and it wasn't original when
Guy was pushing it over ten years ago). It doesn't mean "Permission Marketing"
sucks, it just means some things are worth repeating.

~~~
steve
That is the one thing that I can be sure benefited me greatly in pg and Guy
Kawasaki's writing - the inspiration they provided.

I'd read more writing like this for inspiration alone.

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nickb
Lots of Guy haters here... why? AoS is an excellent book. If you followed his
"obvious" advice, you'd do well. Fact is, there really are no big secrets to
being successful. All it takes a lot of effort, tenacity, ethics and
perseverance. Guy's AoS captures these perfectly. Look at successful people...
many of them have no formal education and no degrees from Ivy schools. WHat
they do have are those qualities I mentioned above... and they excel at them.
Because his book has a lot of common sense in it, that should tell you
something: just do it! Persevere, release that app... get the feedback and
iterate until it works and the feedback becomes positive. Never give up!

~~~
neilc
Personally I didn't get very much useful out of AoS. As others have mentioned,
most of the advice was simply common sense, at least if you've already read
PG's essays. I also found the writing style to be annoying and gimmicky -- one
"top 5 list" after another, and terms like "make mantra" and "rainmaker", for
example. In general, the book felt like it over-promised and under-delivered.
For example, the book is _not_ for "anyone starting anything", it is plainly
about how to start a startup company, and not a school, charity or non-profit
organization. Chapters on bootstrapping, raising venture capital, and pitching
investors aren't very relevant to a typical charity organization, to the best
of my knowledge. Although I bought the book with only an interest in learning
about startups, there's something to truth in advertising...

Then again, I put the book down after a few chapters, as I wasn't getting
anything out of it -- but in fairness, I should probably give it another try.

~~~
hello_moto
Not trying to be a jerk here but all books are supposed to refresh our mind
and open our eyes wider. Some can be applied, some can't. It's up to the
readers to use the "mantras" (mix-match) to help them to be successful.

Take PG's essays (or books). Some of us love it because it has the sense of
defending and making geeks as a superstar. It goes down to whom the author is.
Is he voicing our mind? Is he in our field?

If you're a marketing guy, GK and Seth Godin are probably your top authors. If
you're from Software industry, Eric Sink and Joel are probably your guys. And
if you're in the euphoria of startups (specifically of Web 2.0), Paul is your
guy.

When people from Paul's world read Joel's, they probably boo him because he's
"too Microsoft" style-ish. But if you actually an ISV (micro or not) like Eric
Sink and the rest, Joel's essays made sense a lot.

It's just a different world.

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Tichy
Some people seem to feel that GK is mocking them with his mantras. Ie you are
spending lots of money on your startup, he spreads the word that you can do it
with 12000$ etc.

I think that is just the typical text communication issue. My impression is
that GK'S intention is not to mock other people, but to motivate them to do
something great. Also, to chill out in a way, I guess. At least in "Rules for
Revolutionaries" he is also mocking himself, when he lists famous blunders and
also mentions him dismissing the offer to work for Yahoo in it's early days,
for how could it possibly successful.

I like his books, and even if not everything is new (how could it be), some
things need to be repeated over and over again to finally sink in.

Also, I just looked at trueomors again: it seems the quality of submissions
has improved greatly compared to the early days.

------
willarson
I think Guy is being somewhat maligned here. I am not particularly fascinated
by his work, the same as others who have posted, but I think we are missing
something.

Read _The Mythical Man Month_ by Fred Brooks, one of the truly innovative
works on software development. And you know what? Its boring. Its saying the
same obvious stuff over and over, who gives a damn? The thing is that what he
wrote was brilliant, when he wrote it. Work derives much of its meaning from
context.

The same point can be made about Rachel Carson and _Silent Spring_. Its pretty
much torturous to read: we have already had these ideas drilled into us. But
when they were first written they sparked a global environmental revolution.

Is Guy in the same league as Brooks or Carson? No, I don't think its quite
fair to say he is, but I do think dismissing him off hand is unnecessarily
judgement... which happens to be a big trick for blog articles these days, and
seems to be a connecting thread in the articles you write. Perhaps I am now
being the one who is unnecessarily judgmental.

~~~
myoung8
Just curious, in which other blog posts does such unnecessary judgement show
up?

I am perfectly willing to admit that I wrote a completely subjective,
unbalanced post. If I wrote thousands of words in an attempt to keep things
balanced, would you have read it? Would it have sparked a discussion? Probably
not...

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staunch
The Bible is full of ridiculously common sense stuff. Some people still manage
to use it as a tool to keep them doing those common sense things. That one
doesn't strike my fancy, but I have some books that are similar for me.

It's so easy to understand a concept intellectually and yet fail to practice
it on a day-to-day basis. Books can be a tool to refresh your thinking and get
a (partially) objective point of view. A clear-thinking real person is almost
always best, but books can be used in total privacy and on-demand.

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mikesabat
I'm not a huge GK fan, but I don't agree with YC disliking him so much. I
think that he writes for a different audience.

I'd compare his books with Entrepreneur Magazine (does he write a column for
them?). Practical, yet oversimplified, advice for the average joe.

We are the Wired and Business 2.0 crowd. I bet that 90% of Kawasaki readers
have never even heard of del.icio.us, let alone YC.

~~~
pg
YC doesn't dislike him. Even News.YC doesn't dislike him. Since there's no
downvote link, all the article's (current) score of 13 means is that 13
News.YC users dislike him. We currently get 4500-5000 uniques per day, so
that's not a large proportion.

~~~
carefreeliving
Even the score is not necessarily reflective of the number of people that
might dislike him.

It simply indicates the number of people that found the associated article
interesting or valuable enough to give it an up vote.

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donna
I get what you're saying re Guy's common sense rhetoric, however his business
of selling books and hosting seminars appears really successful. What do you
make of that?

~~~
myoung8
So are Robert Kiyosaki's books and seminars, but if you actually have a clue
about finance and the industry, you know he's a total sham. I felt the same
way after reading Guy's book.

I do not deny that the book sells well, all I'm saying is that for the serious
(aspiring) entrepreneur, it's not worth the money or the time.

~~~
nickb
Kiyosaki is one of the worst scammers of all time. His books are not only
wrong but dangerous to your financial health. Absolutely irresponsible. He got
rich by writing books about how to get rich. This is a must read:

<http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html>

~~~
jamongkad
Read this some years back during the "Rich Dad Poor Dad" craze. It opened my
eyes I can tell you that.

