If you've been following Guy Kawasaki's career, you won't be surprised by the content of this book. Written in Guy's conversational style, complete with anecdotes and personal reflections, this book is more of a life-lessons book and a memoir. Having met Guy personally a couple of times - including doing a podcast interview with him in an ice rink - I can attest to the love of hockey. I've read most of his books, and what made this one a little different was the peek inside his life and his family, including some pretty solid parenting advice.

I was actually kind of surprised to see him weigh into politics a bit, but he explains his rationale well. I remember from one of his speeches about how you have to make the market feel strongly about your product because indifference is death. Either love it or hate it, just make the customer feel something. Further, I'm pretty sure Guy knows most of his audience - tech types - are left-leaning, so it's a safe bet. And, if you've been reading his LinkedIn feed, you know it's something he feels strongly about.

Did you read Guy’ Kawasaki’s The Macintosh Way? It’s his first memoir written just after he left Apple. It’s filled with confidence and arrogance that’s kind of amusing. In my review on Tap Dancing Spiders I even commented on the tech bro dating advice. This latest book, Wise Guy, has the same confident arrogance. I’ve realized it wasn’t the result of Guy’s time at Apple. It’s just Guy. Confident arrogance isn’t bad. Guy is an excellent marketer, and his confidence encourages and inspires me. We just define humble and humility differently.

If you’re a fan of Guy’s marketing and social media books, you should be warned that Wise Guy is his latest memoirs. By his own declaration is an odd bod collection of the wisdom he’s gained through his life and career. He drops lots of names from his experiences. It would be impossible not to when he’s worked in such high profile roles. While the book starts with him in school, it’s not a linear story. I read an early ARC and I assume it was tidied with editing to make it easier to understand and follow.

While I appreciate the anecdotes in Wise Guy, I do prefer his marketing books. If you’re a fan of Guy, I recommend you read Wise Guy.

I enjoyed this unique book from beginning to end - much like listening to Guy give a talk or his previous books. Wise Guy is equal parts autobiography and Lessons learned. It's enjoyable to learn about growing up in Hawaii to his early days at Apple. But he also writes about life lesson "takeaways" after each story in the book.

Of course, there are Steve Jobs stories - and they're all insightful and funny. But Guy also goes into life lessons as a father, entrepreneur and building business and brands. One poignant part is his opening up about a health challenge he faces, not life-threatening, but definitely something he will grapple with the rest of his life. I really appreciated his honesty and outlook. It hasn't slowed him down.

Great read and motivator. The biggest takeaway: aim to live for adventures - just like Guy

I still have to find myself in a group of people where nobody knows who Guy Kawasaki is. Like most people reading this review, I’m a fan of the man for many years. I’m also privileged to be a beta reader for the Wise Guy. And yes, it means exactly what you think: I read the book before you and I read a version that still had the editor comments on some pages.

I bought and read all his books and gave quite a few of them as gifts because there are few presents more suited for the people you care about than Guy Kawasaki’s books.

Enough with the intro. About the book now. It felt personal like none of his other books so far. This book is a genuine face to face with Guy, sitting on the beach, listening to the waves and his voice telling his life story as is. No filter, no excuses, no holding back.

It’s the story of a person that had been a witness or contributor to writing a part of the modern history of our culture. It’s also the story of a father raising wonderful kids and a man following his passions from cars to surfing.

Beyond the universal character of his advice, I think every reader resonates differently with the book because you can’t help but identify or find relatable situations to your own life experiences.

For me the most important piece of wisdom was in two words: “So what?”
To put things in perspective and approaching any situation with the right mindset is probably one of the most important life skills you need. Reading Wise Guy can help with this.

In Guy Kawasaki's new book "Wise Guy" you read a variety of stories from his life and hear the pieces of wisdom he gained from each. These lessons can then be applied to your life in the way that suits where you are in the journey.

This isn't simply a book focused on his professional accomplishments, or even a 'how to", but rather a guide and reflection on choices and outcomes garnered from various life decisions. Find out why he quit Apple, what he learned from working with Steve Jobs, how he benefited from going to college in California, and so much more.

Definitely worth your time. You won't be disappointed.

Wonderful stories from a master storyteller.

Such a lovely book to read, written in an open and honest style that is enchanting. It's a good-natured romp through some of Kawasaki's key learning moments, and its free-thinking positive approach makes it a pleasure to read. With highlighted sections of lessons learned, the book's focus on how to fulfil your potential, take responsibility for your own destiny and help others along the way reads at once as delightfully old-fashioned but also a modern and aspirational way to lead your life. I would really recommend this book as a heart-warming approach on how to live a good life from someone on his own account does this every day.

[Review submitted to Amazon UK on 26/02/2019]

With his normal wit and wisdom, Kawasaki has given us another good read. The easy reading title will be a quick read but filled with insight to walk away with when finished.

I’ve known of Guy for many years, but have never heard him speak nor read any of his books or blogs. I found Wise Guy to be a good way to get to know the person behind his voice and words. I’m Japanese too, though I grew up in the Bay Area, and I felt a many values, and a certain sensibility about the world in common with him. His personal and business experiences are interesting in themselves, but his informal and friendly descriptions of events and their context, along with simple summaries, lessons learned, and advice made what could have been a trite how-to book Into a surprisingly comfortable way to pick some great advice about life and business. Well done, Guy. And you’ve made me want to check out your other books and catch one of your speaking engagements!

This is one for those who are Guy Kawasaki fans. It is any easy read and provides insight into this popular business self-help author. In this book he provides his life story from a slightly different viewpoint from other books where he has also relied heavily on his own story. In this one he shares what he has learned about life and people rather than business using the same deprecating style that has made his previous books so popular.

While the nuggets of wisdom he provides are sound, they are not particularly novel or thought-provoking - though there are some good reminders such as , "When you encounter weakness, flexibility. or the willingness to compromise. don't underestimate your competition and don't overestimate yourself."

It is one of those books that you can pick up and start with any chapter without losing your way, so a good one for a train or plane trip. You are sure to find it at all the airport bookstores.

Guy Kawasaki lived through an amazing period of technological growth. Since the timeline of his journey was close to mine, I found ‘Wise Guy’ very interesting. It is a series of vignettes peppered with mostly useful advice.

A collection of stories from Guy’s life and work, and the lessons he’s learned from his journey so far. Some stories are familiar, like those when he worked at Apple. What I like best is how he gives importance to his family. You can sense his pride when he talks about his parents and his children. What also struck me was how he seized the opportunities that came his way, and how grateful he was for those opportunities.

A good, quick read, to be inspired by someone who continue to do well in life.

I have read all of Guy's books and for me this was the best. Great stories, well told and readily accessible. His "wisdom's" running throughout the book are a great reminder of what's important in life and are easily applied to family and business life. Not a traditional self help book and not preachy, it gives real world examples of how Guy, like all of us, makes mistakes and how to learn from. Love it! Highly Recommended.

I've read lots of Guy Kawasaki's books, and I've interviewed him for my Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast. I'm fairly familiar with his philosophy of life and much of his career. But reading this book was like sitting down with the man over a leisurely beer in the sun. It's not so much an autobiography as collection of anecdotes and reflections. They're not tightly organised, and occasionally the link between them escaped me, but he's walking his own talk:

'Always tell stories. Use them to illustrate your key points. Stories are ten times more powerful than bullshit adjectives such as “revolutionary”, “innovative” and “cool”. I believe in stories so much that this book is a collection of stories.’

From each story, he extrapolates nuggets of ‘wisdom’ – the lessons he’s learned along the way, many of which are familiar from earlier books, but gain emotional weight from this personal context. They’re a mix of the profound and the practical, like Guy himself.

So many business books are instructional or fist-pumpingly upbeat and inspirational. This leisurely anecdotal approach is a welcome change, though I’m not sure many writers could get away with it. What’s interesting too is that some of the most impactful lessons come not from the stories of his years with Apple or Canva, or even his experience as a social media god, but from his attitude to his family. At the age of 62 he took up surfing to spend more time with his daughter, a passionate surfer, and stuck it out despite a lack of natural aptitude to become passably good. As he says, ‘there are plenty of people who are more talented than me and plenty of people who work harder than me, but very few who are both.’

It’s not a tightly structured book, and many of the lessons are motherhood and apple pie (‘Don’t mistreat others, because you’ll be mistreated, too. As the saying goes, “What goes around, comes around.”’) – but they take on a resonance that rescues them from triteness because they’re grounded in personal stories. After all, clichés only get to be clichés because they’re true.

As a publisher who believes that reading and writing good books are among the most important things any business person can do, Kawasaki is an inspiration. This is his 15th book, and here’s his advice to anyone who wants to emulate his success:

‘Read to write. Great writers are great readers. The writing of others can inspire, motivate and challenge you.’

And here’s the proof.

I've been following Guy Kawasaki on the social media for ages and was happy to get this ARC.
This book is amazing, full of food for thought and reflections.
It's an engaging and entertaining read, well written and full of hindsights.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to PENGUIN GROUP Portfolio and Netgalley for this ARC

Always good to read Guy Kawasaki, as he is so positive about family, business and life. That said, he could do with taking some of his own advice about using an editor as this book is overly repetitious at times and reads like an overlong graduation address. His 10/11 point two page summaries are the best part of this book, and the structuring of it seemed hard to follow without constantly referreing back to the initial outline. I feel that there is a much shorter and ithier version of this book struggling to get out and be more useful. Sorry to be down on the Mac Evangelist (I write this on a Mac, as I have written since 1985) who has often inspired me.

This delightful book takes us "behind the scenes" of Kawasaki to see how his life & the lessons it has taught him have shaped him.

Not really a biography, each chapter reflects on an aspect of his life, the affects it had on him, and the wisdom he's gained from it.

I loved that he's up front about his struggles and failures and writes with such good humor as he reflects on his life so far.

I also loved that he breaks up the chapters with bits of wisdom -- the things he's learned. I also loved that he gave the last chapter to his friends and family (all four of his kids) to tell us about him from their own points of view.

To be perfectly honest, this is a book nobody really needs, especially if you have read some of Guy Kawasaki's previous books and are familiar with his basic repurposed stories, business prescriptives, and platitudes.

It is a light-hearted look at some of Kawasaki's seminal events and life lessons.

So why would I enthusiastically recommend the book? First, it is an easy read. Second, Guy Kawasaki is unafraid to tell you about his mistakes and wrong turns which reveal his humanity and sense of humor. But third and foremost, you learn sound business principles and ethical behavior almost by osmosis. Any one of his prescriptives might make that big difference or lead to a breakthrough in your own life.

A few things you need to remember: all of this takes place over a number of decades. There is much to be said for the luck of being in the right place at the right time with the right connections. It helps to be personable, smart, well-educated, but the great differentiator is that Guy Kawasaki is a mensch -- a gentleman of the first order who is willing to share his life, experiences, and knowledge with the reader, honestly and openly.