I had lunch with Guy Kawasaki
I had lunch with Guy Kawasaki on Friday and it was great catching up with one of Silicon Valley’s leading entrepreneurs. Go ahead and “Google” Guy Kawasaki before you go an inch further and you’ll see what I mean. The man is everywhere. He’s ubiquitous! (Use that word during a job interview and you’ll get the job!) It’s always interesting for me to “Google” somebody just to see how many references you’ll get. A recent Guy Kawasaki search yielded 2,275,000 results! You know the dude is heavy just based on that! I mean, John Madden only got 1,080,000. If you “Google” Greg Kihn, I clock in at a puny 138,000 results, hardly worth leaving the house for.
By the way, since when did the word “Google” become a verb? It’s a well known fact that the world had been going downhill since the word “Party” became a verb back in the 70’s. I’ll leave it to the good folks at Strunk and White’s Elements of Style determine if “Google” will now join “Party” on the list of the damned; words that used to be nouns, but have now been forced (sometimes at gunpoint) to become verbs.
Anyway, getting back to Guy, here’s how his own website characterizes him in the official bio; “Guy Kawasaki is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. 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.”
He wears a lot of hats, for a guy with a normal size head. But, the more we spoke, the more down to earth I realized he was. In fact, it was a pleasure hanging with him at lunch. I hadn’t spoken much to Guy since we last had him as a guest on the morning show way back in 1998. A lot has happened since then. It was time to get back.
I must confess, I had ulterior motives. Knowing that Guy is the Guru for Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, and considering myself a bit of an entrepreneur as well, I planned to pump him dry on the latest marketing techniques, the newest technologies, and the freshest philosophies the big boys were using. After all, just like everybody else, I want to build my little empire on the side of the road too. In my case, it’s my syndicated radio show, now heard 7-midnight in 90 different markets around the United States, and supported by a host of websites.
We sat down to lunch at one of those ultra-cool private rooms at McCormick and Schmick’s in downtown San Jose. The appetizers hit the table a few minutes later and we dug in. Everybody was hungry and the food was fabulous. I had the sautéed wild English sole (which I joked was like the Dave Clark 5 of fish), Guy had the Salmon, My manager Joel had the Scallops, and his son Skyler had the Chilean Sea Bass. Wow! We ate seafood like kings. Best lunch I’ve had in ages!
The conversation was interesting. Guy gave his thoughts on various Internet topics, and filled us in on what he’s been doing lately with Alltop.com, a news gathering website that could make everything else obsolete. Alltop.com acts as an “on-line magazine rack” on the Internet. You can custom-make your own page according to your interests and Alltop.com will update it every hour. He had already created an Alltop.com page of rock and roll news that I will use everyday on the radio show. It’s a lot more convenient than going fishing with a bunch of search engines and wasting time. Guy has done it again! He has found a niche and filled it, and isn’t that the very essence of successful entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley?
Guy is scheduled to appear on my KFOX morning show this week. Listen to him. You won’t regret it. I really like the way he cuts through the crap and goes right to the truth. By the end of lunch he had described how to best streamline my websites, be more effective online, and boost my Internet presence. It was stuff I probably wouldn’t have thought of for years. Guy showed me the right way to think.
No doubt about it, Guy is a champ. Read his books, attend his lectures, the man knows what he’s talking about. And be sure not to miss Guy Kawasaki on The Greg Kihn Show this week.
