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Guy Kawasaki
is a serial entrepreneur. What's that? It's a person who
has started several successful start-ups. What I love
most about Guy is that he isn't afraid of sharing his
secrets to success. He's honest and funny (when you read
his answers you'll see what I mean). While others might
want to keep their insights close to the vest, Guy
shares and gives daily to his followers via Twitter and
his blog, which is called, How to Change the World.
In fact, Guy
was one of the first people I ever followed on Twitter.
I learned about him through his latest venture,
Alltop.com, a site that lists the best blogs by
category. Alltop.com is like an online magazine rack and
I highly recommend it as a place to look for insightful
resources - especially, when it comes to your career.
Here's
what Guy had to say about his own career:
1) What
did you study in college, and then, knowing what you
know now, do you wish you had studied something
different? If so, what would it be and why?
I tried to
be a pre-med, but I fainted during a tour of the
Stanford Medical Center-I am not making this up. Plus, I
couldn't handle all the math and physics courses that
doctors need to take for God-knows-what reason. In my
quest for an easy major, I found psychology, and the
rest is history.
With
hindsight, maybe I should have majored in computer
science so that I could know when entrepreneurs are bull
shitake-ing me although it's not clear that I would need
a computer science background since entrepreneurs are
lying whenever their lips are moving.
2) Tell
us your career journey post-graduation through now in
less than 200 words. Then tell us: If there was one
thing you could do differently in that journey, what
would it be?
After
graduating with a psychology (not pre-med major) from
Stanford I "attended" the UC Davis School of Law for
only two weeks because I just couldn't stand it. I may
be one of its most famous almost-alumni! Maybe if I had
stuck to pre-med, House would be based on me. Or Denny
Craine if I had been a lawyer.
After
that, I went to UCLA to get an MBA. I got into UCLA and
Northwestern, but my mama didn't raise no fool and below
zero winters weren't in the cards for me. While at UCLA
I worked part-time counting diamonds-literally counting
diamonds. While my buddies went into investment banking
and consulting, I stayed with this jewelry manufacturing
firm and got the greatest lesson in selling that a
person could. Much of my success is because I learned
how to sell in the jewelry business-not to mention my
command of Yiddish.
From the
jewelry business I went to Apple after a short stint in
a software company. It was short because the company was
acquired, and it moved to Atlanta. Atlanta held as much
appeal to me as Evanston, Illinois, so I went to Apple
because of nepotism (that is, my college roommate hired
me), started a few software companies, went back to
Apple, started Garage Technology Ventures, and also
created an "online magazine rack" called Alltop.
Oh yeah,
in 1994 I turned down the opportunity to interview for
the CEO position of Yahoo. That was a $2 billion
mistake. Are you sure you want to interview me?
3) Name
1-2 things you've learned to date about career that you
think young professionals (ages 18-40) would want to
know.
1) Your
first few jobs after college don't really matter so
chill out. You're aren't going to stay at these jobs
very long unless you are a total suckup who wants to be
the youngest-albeit miserable-partner in some New York
firm. I didn't exactly plan to go from counting diamonds
to funding tech startups if you know what I mean.
2)
Ultimately, if you're living right, kids will bring you
the greatest joy in life. Certainly, your greatest joy
will not come from money, houses, cars, boats, whatever.
In fact, I could make the case that all of these are
barriers to true joy. At the end of the day, you really
should do what you love to do not what makes the most
money.
Guy
Kawasaki is a founding partner and
entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures.
He is also the co-founder of Alltop.com, an 'online
magazine rack' of popular topics on the web. Previously,
he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is
the author of nine books including Reality Check, The
Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to
Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The
Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and
an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from
Babson College.
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J.T. O'Donnell is a nationally syndicated advice
columnist, author and founder of CAREEREALISM. Her work
has been recognized by leading sources including,
CareerBuilder.com and BusinessWeek.com for it's timely,
cutting-edge job search and career strategy advice for
young professionals (ages 18-40). For more articles,
visit her at
www.CAREEREALISM.com. |