Full transcript: Guy Kawasaki on London Real
9:39 This is London Real, I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Guy Kawasaki, who is the chief evangelist for Canva, an online graphic design tool. Formerly, you are an advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google and chief evangelist of Apple, reporting to Steve Jobs. You are the author of The Art of Social Media, which is this book here. We’ll be talking about this very soon, The Art of the Start, Ape, author, publisher, entrepreneur, enchantment, and nine other books.
10:06 This man is prolific. You have a BA from Stanford and an MBA from UCLA, as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College. Guy, welcome to London Real. Thank you. That’s me in a nutshell.
10:16 That’s you, right? It’s good to have a concise bio. Yeah. That’s concise. That’s pretty concise.
10:21 It could go more than that. What is, when you think of London when you’re back in San Francisco or traveling around, What’s the first thing that comes to mind? Wagamama. Wagamama, yeah, okay. I love Wagamama, good, fast, and cheap.
10:32 I wish software was like that. I think that was probably one of the earlier adopters of good, fast food here in London. Wagamama. Yeah, it’s probably the wrong way to call it fast food because it is quality food, right? And when you think of London, do you think of startups and do you think of tech or has that opinion changed over the years?
10:53 When I think of London, I go back. You can give it to a straight. you like to give it to people straight. But I think of London I lived here for about six weeks in the middle of the dot-com days. Okay so 99, 2000. Yeah around there and I loved it. You did. We had a flat in the Mayfair area and I love Grosvenor House. Oh yeah. I just love, I love Harrods, Because I love, was it suffragists?
11:23 Yeah, suffragists, yeah. I could move here. You could. I mean, they say it has a kind of a feel, San Francisco, or maybe a weather like San Francisco. Did we have a dot-com boom here?
11:34 There was a few big companies that were kind of happening, Boo.com, Boo.com, and that was a big, I remember they put a lot of money into that one, didn’t they? Was that Scandi? Scandi inspired, maybe? I think so. I think so, yes.
11:46 Okay. And what were you doing here for that? Theoretically, garage.com, which is the company I had back then, we were going to have an office here, and so we were recruiting and building a conference, and you know, all that kind of stuff. It was the worldwide domination plan. Okay.
12:04 Okay. And so that was six weeks ago. Didn’t we all have one of those worldwide domination plans? No, no, I know. We definitely did.
12:10 And what about… I mean, we’ve come a long way on the curve. You’re actually near the quote-unquote Silicon Roundabout here in London, and this is actually the heart of tech because it used to be kind of cheap office space and I have another show called Silicon Real and we talk about the tech startup scene here and London is finally getting a little bit of respect globally for a lot of things like fintech since the banking area is right next to this kind of tech area. But I mean in general, when you think of London and tech, do those go together or is that changing?
12:37 I think it’s changing. I can’t tell you it’s synonymous. That would be a lie. I think is changing and partially it’s a general change that I don’t think people think that Silicon Valley has a monopoly on brains and ideas anymore, maybe they never did, but I don’t think that’s, I don’t think it’s true that, it’s a double negative, I don’t think it’s true that all the brains and all the ideas come out of Silicon Valley because the world is flat and your Your team could be anywhere, you could be doing, the sun could never set on your five person start-up, you don’t have to have a 50,000 person start-up for that to be true anymore.
13:20 Right. And what about social media? Do you think we are at the same level as the U.S., do you think we’d lag a couple years over here? And I’m talking about Europe as well. I mean, you know, U.K. is one of the most connected countries, I think we have a higher speed, I think there’s more e-commerce per capital in this country, but I don’t know if we’re up the curve or if we need to read this book.
13:39 It’s hard to judge because, well, I’ll tell you, Cadbury does a very good job. So Cadbury’s here, right? I hope. And it’s hard to judge, well, there’s several reasons. One very practical reason is I’m not a big consumer of social media, I’m a producer of social media.
13:59 So I can’t tell you, I follow these thousand people or sites and companies and I see every tweet and every post, it’s just not true. I’m so busy pushing out my own stuff that I’m not there sitting, you know, looking for interesting stuff. And that’s true. Curation. Curation is a big deal.
14:21 I mean, it’s a lot of work. And that’s part of the book. I want to jump into that. And you have 125,000 tweets, and you mentioned this in the book about the average number to do. And it is funny because I was reading the book today, and you said, if you don’t get some blowback as in some complaints, something’s wrong.
14:33 Yes. And I try to tell my guys that, and they’re like, Brian, they’re complaining. I’m like, it’s three people. And for you to say, look at the big picture, and if you’re getting lots of shares and everything like that. At some level, it’s math, right?
14:44 So I typically send out my tweets three times, eight hours apart. Not all of them, but many of them. Right. So the same tweet, three times. Yeah.
14:55 And you know, we’ve used Bitly or Unique Links or whatever, and we looked, and basically, we get 3x the engagement, if you tweet out three times. What a concept, right? I mean, there’s a reason that CNN and ESPN and all those places that they keep running the same clip. It’s not because they’re stupid, and it’s not because they don’t have other things to run. Well, maybe it’s that.
15:15 But it’s because someone who’s watching the highlights of the 2015 NBA All-Star game at 8 a.m. is not going to, what, T-Void in case he doesn’t watch it at 8 a.m.? So you’ve got to keep running it, because people are up at different times, and even if they’re all up, even if they’re all on the West Coast, they all got up at 7am. Some people will check the internet at the end of the day, some in the middle of the day, some beginning of the day, so you’ve got to do that.
15:50 Then when you, let’s say, when you triplicate your tweets, some people are going to say, well, you’re a spammer, you know, you did this three times, and it’s like, I’ve got to tell you something, man, if somebody who follows you notices you did something three times in 24 hours, it says more about that person than you because that person doesn’t have a life. I mean, how is it possible that you could notice that I did something three times 24 hours apart? That’s insane.
16:17 This is refreshing to hear from me because also I always say you need to follow more people on Twitter because if I am one of the only feeds that’s coming up, then… Exactly. Or you need to do something else. I said that too. OK, so you go to Best Buy, or I don’t know, whatever.
16:32 You go to here. Yeah, Argos. OK, and you buy a TV, right? And you take it home. And you don’t put in cable or satellite.
16:40 So it’s only whatever’s over the air. And you can only get three stations over the air. And one of them is like 24-hour shopping network. So you turn the TV on, and one out of three times it’s the home shopping network thing, right? And then you’re like a little pissed off.
16:54 Because my god, every time I turn it on, somebody’s selling me a tourmaline necklace. or earrings, or a new kind of blender, or a new kind of knife. And I’m so sick of that. It’s just spamming me. It’s like, well, why don’t you get cable, asshole, and get in like 100 more channels?
17:08 Maybe it would be more interesting. Whose fault is that? That’s a good analogy. Because people, I think, they come from that reference of, I expect content to be created for me and customized. Well, that’s called the attitude that my time Time is valuable and you should do something that’s perfect for me because my time is so valuable.
17:35 Right? It’s like this sense of entitlement that, you know, how dare you? I did a thing yesterday where through a company, I offered PDFs of four of my books, right? So like basically 25% of my books I gave away for free and this guy says, but that company ask so much personal information. How dare you ask for personal information.
18:00 OK, so if you don’t want the four free books, they’ll frickin’ fill out the thing. What do you want from my life? I like that. There’s a limit. So you want to engage with social media, but you don’t want to take it too far.
18:10 Well, when you say take it too far, you mean bend over, right? Yeah, I guess that’s cool. I don’t bend over on social media. You mentioned your writing there. How do you write so much?
18:21 I mean, you’re very prolific. Do you have a routine? When you go to create a book, do you shut yourself down from everyone? Are you constantly creating? Because some people hate writing books.
18:30 I know Tim Ferriss, people are like, when’s your next four hour book? And he’s like, I become a horrible hermit when I’m writing a book. I don’t talk to anybody. Is that the way you are? No, I don’t have that luxury because if I’m Chief Evangelist of Canvo or I make 50 to 75 speeches a year.
18:49 So it’s not like I can go into some Tibetan monastery and like, you know, just write all day and be a vegan or whatever. I don’t know. You know, like I have four kids. My kids don’t care if I’m writing a book or not. They just, you know, they got to go to school, they got to get picked up.
19:06 They’re not impressed with you and they don’t care. They got to go to soccer. Yeah, they don’t give a shit. And so that’s not my reality. You know, listen, I’ve written 13 books and every one of them is hard because first of all, like I tell myself, don’t try to answer every email but I just, you know, I just like so tempted to try to answer every email.
19:27 And so I’m trying to answer every email. And I’m one of these kind of people that I really can’t start writing until everything else is done. Have you ever read that? You get up in the morning and say, today, I’m going to put everything aside. I’m going to write all day.
19:40 I say, oh, but let me check my email. Let me check Twitter. Let me check Google+. Next thing you know, it’s Tughla. And I have actually used applications that you can tell it, lock me out of this domain for the next X hours.
19:59 So I can put Twitter on there, Facebook on there, Google Plus and now I cannot use those services. Does that work for you or do you find another way? So what it does is you cannot use those services, but obviously they have to have an override, right? So you have to reboot your computer. So the long and the short of it is thank God that I can write really fast because I am not writing efficiently.
20:33 I have to say, you know David Allen is GTD guy. If you looked at my habits, like I’m doing everything I ask backwards, so the stuff that I make the most money, I put the least effort, so I make probably the most money speaking. Do you think I spend five hours preparing every speech, rehearsing every speech, and all that? I get off the plane, in the car on the way to speech, I’m looking at it and like, boom. Let’s talk about your speaking.
21:02 You are a very good speaker. I watched your TEDx talk in Berkeley. It was very entertaining. And so you’re very good at speaking, but with the tech audience, that means you’re 10 times better than the tech guys, because, you know. How hard could that be?
21:14 Yes, I know. Because to quote you, you say most high-tech speakers suck. So when they see you, you’re just like a giant. How did that work? The valley of blind people or whatever, the one-eyed giant who’s king or whatever that’s saying.
21:29 You’re the one-eyed guy. Was that always a skill you had when you were evangelist at Apple, where you speak to men? No, quite the contrary. When I was an evangelist at Apple, it was very intimidating because you worked for, arguably, the greatest presenter in the history of mankind, right? Was he good back then, too?
21:43 Oh, yeah. Okay. So it was very intimidating. And you know what, my speaking ability came about sheerly because of volume. I just did it so often it became second nature.
21:58 I can’t tell you I had these special coaching sessions and I video taped everything and analyzed and all that. No, I just… You didn’t. It’s just tonnage. Okay.
22:08 It’s just tonnage. And now I’m perfectly comfortable. Yeah. You’re ultra comfortable up there. I really am.
22:15 And it doesn’t look like practice. It just looks like it looks like you don’t give a shit Which that’s not necessarily good, but it’s attractive though because it’s captivating. You’re like, all right Well, this guy doesn’t need to tell me this. So now I’m gonna listen The contents not too bad either. Well, thank you The big one that caught me was make meaning not money and I’m surprised I hadn’t heard that before but I was your first You know your first one at your Berkeley talk and I don’t know I’m sure it you hear that a lot But it really resonated with me as far as create the value and then you’ll make money and then you make money.
22:45 And then you furthered it and said, if you really try to go find money, you’re only not gonna find the money and you’re not gonna create value. Yeah, and you’re gonna fail and you’re gonna have a bunch of NBA’s, right? Right, right, and so that kind of, I guess, I guess that kind of rings through. And your writing, is that something that you’ve gotten better with as well? I mean, I think your English teacher told you when you were in high school.
23:05 Yeah, and I never make it right now. And the key to writing is editing, is that what he told you, or? I’ve come to that conclusion. Okay. Like the story you hear of Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team.
23:16 So I was cut from the high school English team. Is that bad? No, I don’t think my high school English teacher would think I wrote 13 books in my career. So writing for me, I have basically two stages. Stage one is you vomit it out as fast as you can.
23:40 Well, actually, it’s three stages. So I start with an outline. a very organized mind. So I start with an outline that is very detailed. And then I just vomit out the details into that thing. And then I just buff and edit. So it’s kind of removing the undigested food from the vomit. It’s left with nothing but nutrients. Interesting metaphor.
24:03 That is the first time I’ve heard that for writing. Yeah, well. It sounds about right. I’m trying to picture that. So it is, it’s, that’s how I work, I don’t know how the writers work.
24:15 There’s these theories of writers that you sit on this beach with your fountain pen and your parchment and your kids are all straight A students and your house is perfectly neat and the dish is all washed and now you’re going to write, I don’t know, what planet are those people? Nobody does that. I don’t, you know. I think it was Neil Strauss that said, there is no writer’s block, it’s just you putting too much importance on what you’re writing that day.
24:43 And so people get all, I’m writer’s block, and he’s like, just write, just write, write. Well, that’s one of my favorite books, it’s a book called If You Want to Write by Brenda Ulin. And her thing is, don’t believe the criticism that you’re not trained, you don’t have a PhD, you’re not educated, whatever. Also the self-criticism that I can’t write. And just if you want to write, write.
25:07 I completely agree with that. That book changed my life. But I would add something to that, which is maybe you have writer’s luck because you don’t have a damn thing to say. So then shut up. I mean, yeah.
25:17 There’s that old saying that everyone has at least one book in them. I don’t think that’s true. But for some people, it should stay there. Yeah. And it should stay there, although I’m a big advocate of self-publishing because you never know until you get it out.
25:34 But what I don’t like is there are many business people in particular who believe they’re going to write a book. And the reason why they want to write a book is they want to position themselves as a thought leader, as an expert, as a guru, so that they can get more speeches and whatever, right? And I had a meal with an author who did this and was expressing frustration with how hard it was and how few copies he sold. And I said, it’s because you have bad karma.
26:07 To me, a book is an end in itself. It’s not a means to an end. So when you write a book that the goal is to communicate knowledge, that’s when the book is going to do well. Right now, you’re writing books because you want to say, hey, I’m an expert. I wrote a book, hire me.
26:26 And that’s bullshit. Bad karma. And people can smell that energy, right? They know. They even know on social media posts.
26:32 I can tell if you’re pushing it or… Well, especially because those kind of people, right? So let’s say the guy’s name is Joe Schmoe. So he writes a book called The Schmoe Way and it’s published by Schmoe Press. You know, we’re seeing a trend here, right?
26:44 You know, it’s probably not focused on the reader, duh. Right, right. You said that in this book and we’re gonna jump into it now, but you said when you’re curating, publish the content that they wanna read, not what you want them to read. Which is very different usually. Yeah.
26:59 Usually 180 degrees apart. I just thought about it myself today And I was like, damn, have I been doing that? Because it’s hard sometimes to put yourself in the place of the customer when you’re an entrepreneur. You’re always thinking about the bottom line, and you’re thinking about your investors. Well, I think you can think of your investors and the bottom line and come to the conclusion I did, which is if you want to be successful with social media, the ultimate bottom line is positioning, branding, powerful marketing platform.
27:30 And you get that not by self-promotion. So in a sense, the bottom line can still be your guide. You just have to understand that pushing out product through your social media is not necessarily the ultimate bottom line. That if you take the long view and the big picture, you may decide that promoting less now is better because it allows you to create a platform that you can use later that is gonna be more powerful. So ultimately, the bottom line does benefit.
28:09 It’s just, are you thinking short term or long term? Right, and that’s what this book is all about, right? The art of social media, it’s here. We’re actually gonna be giving out five signed copies of this, and if you tweet us the best quote from the episode, we’re gonna pick the top five. You like that, I’m using social media, and I’m giving them what they want.
28:26 Can you talk a bit about this book? Because you do talk about some basic stuff like the ideal avatar and profiles. And I love your thing about mantra. I want to get into that as well. But can you tell me how you kind of start off the book and what those things are about?
28:39 Well, the book is organized by sort of functional areas, so how to set up your profile well. And it’s all tips. There is a very, very active and purposeful removal of what I call duh-isms, because I’ve seen many social media books and they say, well, you need to engage people. You need to be honest. You need to be open.
29:13 And like, duh. I mean, as opposed to what? Don’t engage people, lie to them. So there’s none of these, yeah, there’s none of these done-isms in there and a lot of social media books say, you need to have a good profile. So what the hell does that mean?
29:33 If you gave this book to your mom or you gave a social media book to your mom who wants to be better on social media, and then she opens up the book and it says, you need to have a good, effective profile, and she’s going to call you and say, well, okay, I I understand that, you know, as opposed to the piece of crap profile I have now, okay, I understand I need a good, effective one. What exactly does that mean? How do I achieve that? So she needs to know, okay, so part of a good, effective profile is a good avatar, duh.
30:02 So what’s a good avatar? Good avatar is primarily your face, lit from the front, in focus, a big picture, not, you know, you took a group shot and you cropped everybody else out, and now it’s just your face, so when people click on it, it pixelates out. You know, mom, okay, this is what it, and you want it asymmetrical, right? Why don’t you smack that in the middle? So no mug shots, that’s right, okay.
30:25 So that’s mom, that’s what makes a great avatar. These are, you know, look at your avatar. Is it front focus? Is it lit well? Is it, you know, in focus?
30:34 Is it a big picture? Is it asymmetrical? Are you smiling? You know, that’s it. So I can’t get any more tactical than that.
30:42 Right, right. So this book is tactical. Right. It’s very tactical and practical. And then you go on to your profile, which is kind of a slightly more information about you, kind of your big kind of like your vanity pick and your book. I mean, look at guys. That’s the best thing. If you look at his Twitter picture, there’s, you know, the back of Richard Branson and he’s talking and engaging with people. And he looks like the man, right? It’s that simple, right? That cover photo, or, you know, every I switch every once in a while, but maybe I’m just hallucinating and imagining it, but I’m trying to tell a story there.
31:17 And I’m not trying to tell a story that I own a Porsche, or I’m not trying to tell a story that I have four kids, or I’m a surfer, or whatever. That picture there, I hope people say, hmm, guy is credible, or at least guy knows Richard Branson. And even that, it’s very subtle because you see Richard Branson from the back, so you Kind of need to recognize the hair and all that. I’m not saying, you know… So it’s subtle, because if it was a picture of you and Richard like this, the message would be completely different, right?
31:50 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. You know, because you know he poses for 50 of those a day, right? He does a lot of pictures. He does a lot of pictures.
31:57 There’s even cardboard cutouts of him that I’ve seen people pose with, and they’re making a joke, but then when you look, it’s a cardboard cutout. Yeah. So that’s an element of a good profile. So your avatar should convince people that you’re likeable, trustworthy, and competent, your avatar. So focus on your face, because people don’t get that from your chest, and then that cover photo should tell a story.
32:20 But the avatar should not tell a story. That’s just about your face. The cover photo should tell a story. The story of, okay, so if you are family focused, then that’s where you put your family. Not in your avatar, in your cover photo.
32:36 And if you’re a public speaker, then like me or an evangelist, I show myself on my knees polishing Richard Branson’s shoes. That’s a story, right? That’s what’s going on there. Talk to me about Mantra. It’s something I was thinking about.
32:53 You mentioned this in your TEDx talk at Berkeley about company having a mantra that’s very different than a couple of things. It’s very different than their slogan and different from their mission statement. So what is it? So mantra is a two or three word explanation for why you exist, why your product or your service exists. It’s not a mission statement because mission statements are 40 or 50 words long and basically they’re all in a change of where everyone says to return adequate financial benefits to our shareholders while empowering employees to reach their self-actualization goals while exceeding the expectations of our customers and not killing any dolphins, right?
33:32 That’s like every mission statement McKinsey ever wrote so I think it should be only two or three words so some mantras I think FedEx is mantra should be peace of mind because when you absolutely positively want something someplace it’s FedEx but that isn’t their mantra that’s your version of that’s my that’s why I think it should be right Wendy’s has this long mission statement and you know Wendy’s mantra should be healthy fast food Nike has a great slogan, just do it. I think it stands for authentic athletic performance. So what’s Guy Kawasaki’s mantra?
34:08 Guy Kawasaki’s mantra is empower people. It’s what I do. My writing, my speaking, my investing, my advising. It’s what I do. I empower people.
34:16 It’s what I want on my gravestone. So two words I can sum up my life. Right, so people should be thinking now three words, four max, keep it really tight. And put it on. There’s a place on every social media profile where you have this little introductory sentence, right?
34:32 And that’s where people do stupid things, like they say, you know, master of the universe, or what other stupid ones are there? I mean, a lot of them are just bragging. Most of them are trying hard, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And it’s obvious to us humans.
34:48 So I think that’s where you put, you know, why do you exist? I exist, I, Guy Kawasaki exists to empower people. Right, now I’m thinking about mine, but I’ll get over that later. You know, we already covered the volume of posting on social media, and it’s nice to hear you say it, that you want to error on the big side. And in the book, you kind of give some rough ideas.
35:07 You know, I think it’s like 25 tweets a day and certain Facebook posts a day, and you’ve run the numbers. And so it’s interesting to see how you set that up, and you talk about Buffer and all those different ways. But you also say, you know, be valuable and be interesting. I mean, when it comes to curating, what’s your guideline for what people should do? Or a lot of people don’t even know they should curate.
35:25 Well, so first of all, you should curate because it is too damn hard to create. If one part of the book I’m telling you, you should post maybe 25 times a day, I don’t expect you to come up with 25 original articles a day, because I can’t do that. I can’t do 25 a year, much less a day. So you have to curate, and you have to understand that curation is a very valuable service, because there’s a lot of information out there, and helping people find it is almost as valuable as writing it itself.
35:51 So curation is very effective. It’s good for everybody. It’s good for you because people respect you for finding something they need. It’s good for people because you found something they need, and it’s good for the source because you’re sending them more readers. Everybody is a winner.
36:06 It’s a triple bottom line. So I love to curate. And I think the test for curation is, once I share it, will my followers share it to their followers? Right. That’s a good test.
36:21 That’s a test. Because to use a restaurant analogy, so if you go to a restaurant and you eat and you tip the person 10%, you know, that’s kind of like socially acceptable. In the US, it’s a socially acceptable expectation really. Now, so that’s one level. That means you didn’t suck, I didn’t hate the food.
36:41 That’s what that means, right? On the other hand, if you tell your friends, my God, I had the best ramen last night at Wagamama, and you tell them, you’ve got to go eat at Wagamama, you’ve got to eat at Nobu, or you’ve got to eat wherever, I don’t care, or whatever. You are risking your reputation, because now if I tell somebody you’ve got to go to Wagamama and they go there and they hate it, you know a guy looks like a, you know, jerk, right? So now I’m risking my reputation when I tell you to eat at Wagamama, I’m risking my reputation when I send a post out, that guy originally posted.
37:20 And so if you are willing, if I post a story and you’re willing to share with your followers, it means that you’re betting on my taste. And so my taste better be good. So that’s the metric to track, not the likes. It’s the re-shares. It’s the re-shares.
37:38 I think the, you know, a like is like tipping the valet a buck. When I get favorites on Twitter, they drive me crazy. I’d rather just don’t do it. Yeah. Well, no, but favorites are like, but those are the people who are going to see more of your posts, right?
37:54 You mean a like or a favor? No, when they favorite your tweet or they, you know, they, or they, yeah, it’s just like they kind of put that little orange star on there. Yeah. No one knows they did it. They were just like saying, Oh, thanks.
38:05 Well, that’s, I think that’s like tipping the valet a buck. Tipping the valet above yeah, but when they take your posts or your curation and they reshare it. That’s when you You know, you know, they really liked it, right? Okay, so that’s why if you look at even the most popular articles It has like, you know, I don’t 200 comments 500 pluses and 50 reshares And the most valuable one is the reshare. Okay, because anybody can say yeah, I like that, right?
38:40 How many say hey, I’m gonna tell everybody I like that that’s a big difference So share first metric comment the next metric and then the like After share, you know, it’s two a tie. Okay second I don’t it goes down the tubes the for fortune 500 companies right now. What percentage of them are doing this, right? Zero really I don’t agree. I mean well, first of all, you know, who am I to judge right or wrong?
39:04 Right. I think you’re okay to judge but I mean Well, I don’t know if they’re doing it right or wrong, but I don’t think they’re using it optimally. They could do more. And one of the reasons that they don’t do more is because they are, with social media, you can either have an attitude of, I’m going to maximize my return or I’m going to minimize my loss. I think many large brands, they’re in the minimize my loss thing, right?
39:33 So they don’t ever want to piss anybody off. They don’t ever want to have a faux pas. They don’t ever want to do anything wrong. Because if five people say, you suck, and 5,000 people are silent but like what you do, then you’re more worried about the five people who publicly said you suck because you think, oh, five people said it. You know, really, maybe 5,000 people believed that, but they didn’t bother to say it.
40:04 And I got to tell you, I just don’t believe that. In this day and age of social media, if somebody thinks you suck, you’re going to know. Right. So they need to be less conservative and just be open to the fact that this is the new way of doing this. Yeah, and like, you know, even if you, let’s say you do make a terrible mistake.
40:23 Terrible mistake, you know? I can pretty much guarantee, because there’s so much action, in 30, 40 days, no one’s going to remember. Like, if you went to most people and said, OK, which airline is the airline that had a viral song about breaking guitars? OK? Obviously, it’s United.
40:49 How many people do you think remember it was United? I didn’t know. OK, and you know, I did. I knew it was United. I still fly United.
40:59 Right. So, you know, so that’s one example. Another example is, you know, Microsoft CEO makes this huge faux pas and, you know, somebody asked him a question about how women should get promoted and he said, you know, depend on karma, right? Like if you sat there and said, okay, what’s the most dumb ass thing you could say? That’d be right up there. Right?
41:18 Okay. So now that was 60 days ago. I love how you give it to a straight guy. So 60 days later, most people will remember, you know, who was it was CEO of you know was it Microsoft or Southwest he was brand new so that one will stick with him yeah yeah but I mean the point is I almost in the sense the minute you press send things are declaring right right so do you think a year from now if that guy in Microsoft is successful you think they’re gonna hold that again soon they’re not gonna remember man it’s like it doesn’t It doesn’t matter.
41:58 Right. It doesn’t matter. Right. And it’s definitely not going to affect the brand, right? No.
42:03 Right. It might affect his personal brand a little bit. A little bit. A little bit. But even that’ll take care of it.
42:08 Well, if he fails at Microsoft, it’s going to be one of the nails in the coffin, right? But even if he didn’t do that and he failed at Microsoft, he’s still dead. Right. So I don’t, I mean, I’m not saying you should be flippant and, you know, do all that, but I, listen, I do stuff. Okay.
42:25 Oslo this week, right? And so I go to this dinner with the people who are hosting the speech, this is their CEO executive team, and they know I love sushi. So they send out for sushi from the best sushi place in, I think, the world, Alex Sushi. And one of the courses is whale, okay? So I take a picture of whale sushi, okay?
42:49 People are freaking out, you know, guy is a whale killer, right? matter that this species of whale is not endangered. It doesn’t matter that they eat chicken and beef three meals a day, but there’s a picture of whale sushi. So how many people, I have 10 million followers, if you count everything. How many followers do you think I lost that day?
43:16 Like 100, well, I’ll tell you a very interesting thing. So roughly 75 people said, whale killer, how dare you, endangered species, you’re never going to follow you, you’ve lost credibility, you know, blah, blah, blah, 75% of the comments were that no, no, no, 75 people, people, okay, people. So of 10 million, 75 said that, of course, that’s kind of not fair, because you’re assuming that 10 million saw it, right? It’s not true at all. Right. But anyway, so that 2% of those, yeah. So anyway, so 75 angry people. But then I looked at the, the pluses, and the likes for that picture and it was like 220 or 250 so I translate this so you’re telling me that 75 people were really pissed off but it did 250 people plus one or liked the picture so does that mean 250 people like killing whales and eating them because if you hated that the concept that there was a whale sushi you would not plus one the picture, right? So somehow, like, what is the world telling you? There are 75 people telling you, you know, you’re a killer of whales, but 250 people like the picture. Maybe they liked it because, hmm, guy, interesting food, or, you know, guy, you’re showing me something I never would have seen before, whale sushi. I don’t know what they did. Somehow, three to one liked the picture. Wrap your mind around that. What does that mean?
44:45 Well, one of your rules is polarize people, so that’s exactly what you do with that. But I can’t tell you that I’m intentionally trying to piss people off. I mean, that’s kind of stupid, too. But before I posted it, I knew it would have that effect. I’m not afraid of that.
45:01 And I don’t know if you’re aware, but in the United States it’s like, let’s just say there’s an organization who believes that every American should have an automatic weapon with a 30-bullet clip, OK? And I just can’t wrap my mind around that. Like, you know what? And they say it’s because of the Second Amendment. All of a sudden, all these guys are like constitutional law experts.
45:23 Holy cow. When did that happen? Is this the NRA? Perhaps. Yeah.
45:28 Perhaps. Okay. Okay. So now, you know, everybody has them. And they’re thinking as well, the Second Amendment was put in place because every American needs a gun in case the government becomes like this evil thing and, you know, they have to defend themselves against the government, right?
45:40 So maybe in 1776, if you had a musket, you could defend yourself against, I don’t know, whoever was president back there. But 2015, okay, so now, let’s say Barack Obama goes crazy, right, Barack Obama goes crazy, he goes rogue, and you anti-Barack Obama, you’re anti-government, so you got your shotgun, you got your shot, you went to Walmart and you bought your shotgun, okay, but Barack Obama goes rogue and he sends SEAL Team 6 to get you, and you’re sitting there watching Monday Night Football and you got your shotgun with 30, you know, let’s say it’s not even a shotgun, Let’s say it’s an automatic weapon with 30, several clips of 30 bullets, and you’re gonna defend your freedom against SEAL Team Six because Barack Obama went crazy. This I gotta see, all right?
46:27 So what’s the point you’re making? The point I’m making is I post this kind of stuff where I just see lunacy that when there’s shootings in schools, the NRA says the solution is buy more guns for teachers. Like, how can you wrap your mind? You just had a shooting at a school and you’re saying, well, if those teachers had guns, when they saw that shooter come in, they would like put down their arithmetic one book and they would whip out their pistol and they would plug the guy, right?
46:58 I mean, can you imagine that? I mean, I don’t think I could shoot a person. So their solution is we got to give teachers guns. And so when I read a story like that, I cannot not post that because like, And then, trust me, when I tell you, man, if you think you’ve polarized people for saying, well, shoo, you should see what happens when you say, maybe not every American needs an automatic weapon with 30 bullets in it. Because it’s unlikely that this herd of deer are going to attack you, so you need an automatic weapon when you’re hunting.
47:33 This brings a good question. I mean, is this all magnified by social media to a certain extent? I mean, this is culture in the States now where it’s like everybody wants to shame these people that post these bad things and then they have to they have to repent and then they are accepted and it happens at lightning speed. Things are taking out of context. I don’t see a lot of repentance. Okay, fair enough. But I mean like this is your business social media and and it kind of accelerates some of this behavior, right? It’s a complex guy, right? So some of it is I’m 60 years old now, you know, and I gotta tell you when you get to be 60, you’re not 60, right? No. You don’t I don’t know this yet, but when you get to be 60, you’ll understand that you just don’t give a shit.
48:12 Really, you just don’t give a shit. Just like Grandpa used to, he does not give a shit. I’m not saying you should be senile and not give a shit. I’m just saying like, what are they gonna do? What are they gonna do?
48:23 That’s a comfortable feeling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s not, I’m not saying it’s arrogant. I’m not saying, it’s just like, yeah, like, what are you gonna do? Right, this is a good point. I wanted to ask you about this.
48:36 I’m not 60 yet. I’m turning 44 this year, but thank you for thinking I was 60. Let’s talk about ageism in the Valley. I heard the other day that people in their 30s now are going for Botox so they can make sure they’re invited into these startups, and everyone’s super sensitive about your view. Really?
48:55 Not the 20s or 30s. Well, you hear these articles, probably posted on social media. Yeah. That is true. Yeah.
49:00 Exactly. You’re prolific. You’re speaking a lot, and you’re turning 60. in their 30s and 40s, do they have a harder time in Silicon Valley? I mean, especially if you’re talking to young kids that are doing startups, 23, 24, 25 years old.
49:13 When I was that age, I thought anyone over 30 had no idea what was going on with their lives. I know. I bet you did too when you were 21. You were like, I wouldn’t even talk to someone that was 30. Right.
49:24 So I understand that. I think that’s just a phenomenon everywhere. I don’t think it’s just a valley, right? It might be accelerated a bit in the valley. Yeah, it might be Acceleration Valley, but I can’t personally, I can’t tell you of a situation where I thought that I was being locked out, pushed out or whatever because of my age.
49:43 Okay. What about any of your peers? I mean, you know, you’re kind of an outlier. Yeah, I’m beginning to see some of my peers are, you know, they’re like 50, 60 and so they can’t get this, you know, when you’re 50 or 60 people expect you to be a vice president or something, right? you know, if you’re willing to start as a, not trainee, but, you know, like individual contributor, people wonder, you know, how many 50-year-olds are at WhatsApp, for example?
50:10 I bet it’s none. Yeah, well Dropbox, you know, it’s probably the same, right? Yeah. Well, but they had a hard time doing this Woodside, so that’s one. Probably, but at some point, think they realize that maybe a 50-year-old person or 60-year-old person can add value. Right, or if they haven’t done something by then they’re not gonna add new value. You said they should be a VP, why are you a VP? That’s you know what but I gotta tell you, I don’t believe that’s fair to people because that’s That’s making a judgment that winners are VPs, but I don’t think that’s true.
50:57 I think that if you decided when you were 30 to 50 to focus on your family at the sacrifice of your career, and now you’re 50 and an empty nester and you want to get back into your career, what’s wrong with that? Right. You’re saying that now, and maybe 20 years ago, you might not have felt that way. I don’t know. I guarantee I didn’t feel that way.
51:20 You didn’t feel that way, right? Yeah. Because when I asked you kind of what’s next for you and you were talking about, well, you got two young kids and you want to make sure they grow up and like that’s on your mind now, right? Yeah. More so than anything else.
51:30 Four young kids. Wow. I have two young ones and two old ones. Two in college, right? Yeah.
51:35 Right. Okay. So that’s on your mind more now. Yeah. Like I don’t want to be a CEO.
51:40 Right. I don’t want to start a company right now. Right. You’re over that. at 60. Well, I’m 60 with a nine-year-old kid. So my plan is he graduates and I die the next day.
51:54 Graduates high school or college? Either one. PhD will keep you alive. I’ll be happy either one. And do they keep you young? Like a young kid that young, do they keep you moving around, keep you thinking all the time?
52:05 Well, yeah, in a sense, I have a grandson. But it’s all good, though. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can’t even because you know the first two you’re kind of like you don’t know what you’re doing, right?
52:17 So now by the third and fourth, you know what you’re doing and you can enjoy it because you’re not right so worried about Michael Douglas said the same thing because he had kids when he was a Upcoming actor and one of his first kids is in jail, you know If you know for dealing drugs or something crazy and Michael was like I was concentrated on my career as a movie star And then he had kids with Catherine Zeta Jones and he’s like now I’m more like the grandpa and now everything’s about the kid and I can take time and I have time and you know It’s like two different days. I gotta see yeah Let me talk about some more of your mantras that you covered and I guess there are your mantras that you covered in your Ted talk VCs aren’t your friends. I love that line Is that something that goes over well when you say it or does everyone really know you’re telling the truth?
52:58 Well, I don’t say it in a VC meeting, but I you know, I think generally The VC business is a strange business because you convince people to give you their money, well not give, to invest their money in you. They’re gonna pay two, two and a half percent a year for you to manage it. So you’re sort of your your baseline just for showing up and not being a criminal is half a million dollars a year. And then if you really do it right you can make ten, 20, 50 million a year, well what a freaking great job, $500,000 base just for showing up, just for saying no 99% of the time.
53:49 And you used to be a VC, so you know this. I know, so now I know how bad I was. So you’re telling me it’s a racket. It is a racket. It is a racket.
53:57 And it’s rigged. I don’t know if it’s rigged. Is the 2 in 20 by definition a racket? Well it’s not a racket in the sense it’s rigged, it’s just that people People have to appreciate the role of luck in that. Now, Kleiner Perkins is the core.
54:13 They’re lucky all the time. So you have to give them something, right? But the longer I stayed in it, the more I thought, wow, you just gotta get lucky. You get lucky and you declare victory and you say you knew. Right, and then you put those lucky companies on your Twitter profile and everyone’s like, wow, you don’t miss the other 97.
54:32 Yeah, like the same company that created Google funded web van, hmm, let me think about that. wrap your mind around that, like, go look at who funded Boo. So I tell you, a lot of it is just luck. So I’m convinced now that it’s better to be lucky than smart. OK.
54:51 And there’s this point about VCs not being your friends. I think it was just advice to startups that, when they go, the thing is, I’ve had a lot of VCs in for my Silicon Real program. We just had the guy from Excel here in Europe running $2 billion. And I said to him, I mean, to you, people think these VCs are these, like, mythical creatures up on the hill and knowledge. Yeah, all these green startups are like, if you just call us back, we think it’s great and you wanna put money in whatever you want, you can have board seats, you can have all this stuff.
55:15 And ultimately, you know, that’s a little too much to be giving over to them. And then they’re not your friends. Like you said, they want you to hit your sales figures. That’s it. They don’t wanna hear your excuses.
55:25 And as a CEO, you get one warning, maybe one and a half. And then you’re out. And then you’re out. And then you don’t understand. They’re not your friend.
55:33 They’re not your friend, right. People should understand it. It’s not to say that they’re all evil and they’re not friendly, but just remember, I was going to use a prostitution analogy, but… That would be like whale sushi for me. Exactly, yeah.
55:53 Are you going to leave that or do you want to give it to me? Yeah, no, let’s just leave that. I need some followers. You used to sell jewelry and you said you learned a lot about sales in that business because you said it was hard. You said the jewelry business was harder than the hardware business, right?
56:05 Computer business. Computer business. Why is it harder and what did you learn? The jewelry business is hard because at some level everything is generic, I mean 18 karat gold was 18 karat gold and diamonds are cut in clarity and color and all that. But at some level if you have a half karat round VVS stone that’s G color, that’s what it is.
56:36 So then you have to sell on quality and design and service and all that, and trust. So it’s very personal selling, whereas computers, you go to Best Buy, you buy the computer, you walk out, right? I think it’s harder. So I really learned how to sell in the jewelry business. Fantastic training for the rest of my life.
57:01 Make connections, build rapport, all that. right and honor and all that kind of stuff because you can’t rely on you having a better product right so you have to differentiate well even if you had a better product you know somebody could see your ring and copy it it’s not that hard it’s much easier to copy a ring than you know to to copy the Macintosh interface right speaking of Macintosh when you talk about 83 to 87 you were you know it’s people people don’t remember what you know what Apple was like back then it’s nice when you weren’t alive yet but right well that too and you said you said Apple should have died ten times and it’s like a lot of the young kids don’t realize that they don’t know a lot of the history they don’t know that the Mac division you were in was the lost leader and the Apple two pluses were making the money right and so I was wondering if you could tell she said was well it was there was no it was not a higher concentration of egomaniacs in the country and what was it like back then It was what it were the hand-picked children of Steve Jobs and it was utterly fantastic because he hired like opera people and all these weird disciplines right he didn’t care what your background was either you know we’re good or not and it was fantastic and I did the best work there and he got the most out of people and we lived in fear of him and And everything you heard about HR, we did in reverse.
58:26 And we thought we were on a mission to change the world. And by golly, we did. Although we never got the 90% market share, right? And you were going for that? Obviously, yeah.
58:37 We thought we had total worldwide. Every computer in the world would be a Macintosh. Come to find out we were only 90 points off. And was Steve harder back then? Was he tougher?
58:47 Did he calm down over time? I don’t remember a calm time with Steve Jobs. He is or he was what he was. And I’ve come to the conclusion that people like Steve Jobs, they’re in a different operating system. It’s like you’re a fish and he’s a bird.
59:13 Try to explain water to a bird or flying to a fish. It’s a different operating system. I don’t think a mere mortal could understand Steve Jobs. Because I can’t. That’s for sure.
59:28 He just had a different operating system. And what qualities would that show up in? Design aesthetic, motivating people, dealing with people. I could never deal with people the way he dealt with people.
59:46 And he did it. And he got, many years after I left Apple, I have friends who are still there. And I said, why do you keep working at Apple? Because you can’t make the millions you could before. And you know that, let’s say you are in trade shows, OK?
1:00:08 And you know that Steve could just walk into Macworld Expo one day and look at that booth and say, This booth is a piece of shit. Why are you even working here? Who hired you? You piece of crap. Because that counter is two inches too low.
1:00:30 And that trash can under the counter, it’s not the right shade of black. And the scene between those two panels in our booth, I could see the scene. I don’t want to see the seam, nothing’s crap, OK? And like right there, you could get fired. You live in fear like that, right?
1:00:52 So why do you do that? Because at Apple, you can do the best work of your life. Because there are so few people who would see the seam. Because maybe Steve is right, or would say, you know, you’re right. That counter is two inches too low.
1:01:11 Or that trash can is ugly. It looks like we bought it at Target, and this is supposed to be the freaking Apple booth. It’s not supposed to have a Target looking thing, not a Target, people are gonna be pissed off with it. Target looking thing, right? So, that’s why.
1:01:28 Because people could do, you know, working for most people, they’re incapable of telling you that. So, imagine if you were working for HP. So HP used to make like the butt ugliest digital cameras. Like, if you sat down and said, OK, let’s make the worst-looking digital camera. Let’s tell people we were inspired by bricks.
1:01:53 And you have to ask yourself, why is that? HP had infinite money. Why did they hire a Jonathan Ive who made a beautiful, thin camera? Why did they make a big, thick, black, ugly, plastic camera? And I think at some level, it’s because you knew, or maybe you didn’t consciously think this way but nobody ever said this looks like crap because they didn’t have the ability to judge they just they didn’t know it looked like crap which is even more scary if you if you if it looked like crap and you didn’t tell people you know at least you knew right but you literally looked at is and looks like a fine camera they ship it that’s the scary part so that’s why people work All right, so he raises everyone’s game because they know every detail will be will be criticized Yes, and so it’s a stressful place to work because you have to be on your game 24-7, but you do your best work there Did you do your best work there? Yes Wow Yeah, and what do you think of them now is the I watch going to be everywhere?
1:03:00 Is it a completely different entity now or does it have traces of job? I’ve never seen the I watch Physically Shouldn’t it be out by now? I mean, it’s coming right supposed to be this year. Yeah. Yeah I have to say that Looks a little too big and thick to me I Okay, so this watch I love this store so this watch this is a smartwatch believe it or not is it really yes Yes, doesn’t look like a smartwatch. It looks like a you know, Patek Philippe or something, right?
1:03:35 And this watch is a withings activity And there’s only one hand over there that tracks, you know, what part of 10,000 steps are you at? You sync it up to your phone and it downloads the steps and, you know, it also tells you how many hours you slept because I guess, you know, when you sleep, you’re not moving your hand or I don’t know, however it does it. And it’s waterproof, right? And the battery, these phones, this watch’s battery lasts eight months, which is roughly 239 days longer than any other smartwatch battery, right?
1:04:15 And so I love this watch. And this is, if you looked at this watch and you look at Apple’s watches, okay, so Apple’s watch is thick, looks like a, you know, a smartwatch, and with Apple’s track record and batteries, you know, by noon you better be done with everything in your day. Look at this one, it says thin, last eight months. Doesn’t, you know, I’m not gonna get text messages over there, I’m not gonna be like looking at songs, I’m not gonna get notification, I need a lot of things.
1:04:50 Tells time, counts steps, tells me how I sleep, ah. Got it. It lasts eight months, how long do we have, man? I personally don’t need another device that’s gonna take away the attention of someone I’m having, trying to have a conversation with. Let alone a little kid, let alone any adult.
1:05:04 I mean, I ban phones from my conversations, and let alone someone’s gonna be doing this while I’m talking to them. I can’t imagine that guy. What if it’s beeping? Oh, Jesus. Yeah.
1:05:13 What if your wristwatch is beeping? I mean, it’s not like you have an introverted looking watch there, but I got to tell you. It’s an old school, you know, Swiss thing that knocks into people. Yeah. Yeah.
1:05:23 And there’s no, nothing smart about this. Well, I guess the technology is kind of smart. The Swiss watchmaking is pretty fascinating, but you know, you mentioned that when you were at Apple that, you know, Microsoft, you know, your kind of aha moment was when the windows out sold Macintosh, even though you had a better product. and that whole experience was strange for you, like you said, you thought that- Still trying to get over it. Still trying to get over it.
1:05:43 What it did, have you pieced that together? Did you ever come to a conclusion there? I read an intellectual explanation that said that if you’re MS-DOS user and you were comfortable with Microsoft and Microsoft, your suppliers said, now we’re going to graphical user interface, you’re comfortable with that, which is very different than saying, I’m gonna switch from Microsoft vendor to Apple vendor. that was uncomfortable that’s the best explanation i can find either that or people are stupid i just there’s only only two possibilities okay and something you mentioned in your ted x talk that you said i think churn baby churn was the the mantra as far as like keep changing and improving your product but you said the mac didn’t succeed for any of the reasons you hoped it would it wasn’t succeeding from your spreadsheets or anything else desktop publishing which you never saw coming but you guys went with that yeah thank god for desktop publishing right and and And so do you try to encourage people to think about that with their products?
1:06:41 Yes, I tell them to take your best shot at branding and positioning and all that, but then put it out there. And then if you see a group of people who embrace it and use it, frickin’ declare victory, man. Hallelujah, say, yeah, we designed it for you. Because it’s so hard. Most likely, you’re going to get totally rejected by everybody, right?
1:07:01 So if you find some small population of the world who love what you do, take it, man. Right. Take it. What’s the value like these days? I mean, do you see madness when you look around the value?
1:07:11 Do you see, you know, valuations getting crazy? Do you see- Yeah, you know, okay, so here’s my attitude on that. So yeah, at any given point, you know, you can always say it’s a bubble, right? I mean, and you’d be right, you know, 75% of the time. And you could say, you know, when I was an entrepreneur, we really had product.
1:07:28 We had, you know, we had software and we wrote manuals and we shrank rapid, you know, those were the, Those were the good old days when quality mattered, and we cared about that. But my observation is that basically every 50 or 60-year-old person ever says that about his career or her career. So someday Mark Zuckerberg is going to be 50 years old. He’s going to say, man, when I was an entrepreneur, we had value. We had real servers.
1:07:57 We had real security, we had policy, we had privacy, we had this, we had that, we had this. And you could go to one place, and you knew you could read Facebook’s term and all these kids these days, you know, like, you don’t know where their servers are, you don’t know who they are, you know, you don’t know what kind of currency they’re using, you don’t know what’s happening with your privacy, you know, like, what happened to the good old days of Facebook? It’s kind of like music, I think.
1:08:22 Because every 50 or 60 year old says, my teenagers listen to shit. Like, what kind of noise are those, like, the rap, right? And, but I guarantee you that Somebody, right now, we look at Michael Jackson who said, that was a classic, that guy had talent. And we look at Justin Bieber and say, that guy is a manufactured piece of crap, right? But you know, I’ve got to tell you, I guarantee you, 40 years from now, I’m going to say, what happened to the really talented people like Justin Bieber?
1:08:54 That guy could sing, right? That guy could dance. Do you think that if you were 60 years old when Elvis came out, do you think you said, wow, this is the future of music? You said, what kind of gyration, sexual depravity is this? What happened to Duke Ellington?
1:09:13 What happened to that? Now we’re Elvis Presley, and now Elvis Presley is a classic, right? So Michael Jackson became classic, Elvis Presley can last. I’m telling you, Justin Bieber will someday be viewed as classic, oldie and goldie. I’m going to hold you to that.
1:09:28 Yeah, I guarantee that’ll happen. So I think to change this metaphor back to what we’re discussing, because, you know, every 50 or 60 year old says we’re in a bubble. They don’t really have value. Like when I had, when I did it, it’s bullshit. I mean, it really is bullshit.
1:09:49 You see this with presidents all the time. I remember the Reagan era. And at the end of his presidency, I mean, he was in front of Congress saying, I don’t remember, I ran Contra, all this garbage. It was a horrible time. And then like 15 years later, they start, you know, the Republican convention, they’re like, the Reagan, we’re the Reagan types.
1:10:05 And you’ll see it with the reevaluating of the older Bush and we’ll see it in another 10 years, people will say that the younger Bush was doing some great stuff back then. I guess that’s us as humans. But like Jimmy Carter, the longer he was not president, the better he was, right? In that case, it really may be true that he blossomed post-presidency. But I think it’s a function of when you get old, like today, people say, well, what happened to the family values of the 50s?
1:10:44 The way they remember it, in the 50s, Everybody came, and they said grace holding hands. They ate dinner together. And then they went into the other room, and they played board games. OK. Not anymore.
1:10:57 Everybody’s on their freaking phone right now if they’re eating together. And as soon as the thing’s over, one’s at the Tivo, one’s at YouTube, one’s at the other. And there’s no family life. What happened to that quality family time, right? This is your house.
1:11:09 You’re described. Yeah, exactly right. So now, I bet you if you went back into the 50s, I don’t think it was that hunky door. I don’t think every family was eating family dinner. I don’t think they were playing board games after dinner.
1:11:22 Right. You know? That’s right. That’s just it. Most likely, your father came home drunk from his factory, right?
1:11:30 Like Mad Men. They were smoking. Right, right, right, right. And they were screwing each other and all that. But no, those are the good old days, right?
1:11:39 At any point. What’s a hobby or a habit about you that we wouldn’t know? Is there something you do in your spare time? I’m kind of an open book. I don’t have any fetishes or anything you don’t know about.
1:11:51 I happen to love hockey, not everybody knows that. I love hockey. You play on some hockey? I am at Honolulu when you went to school in California. I took up hockey because my two boys took up hockey.
1:12:04 Okay, older boys. Yeah, okay. It’s a contact sport. Not on purpose, and I just loved it. So I’ve been playing hockey about 11 or 12 years.
1:12:14 Started well 12 years because I started at 48 you got a slap shot yeah so let’s just say that 48 is a little late to start learning how to skate it’s not optimal okay but you can’t skate I can’t skate I’m not great but you know I could tell you that I probably have the best 60 year old person from Hawaii playing hockey in the Bay Area. How’s that? How’s that for a niche? That’s pretty good. That’s pretty good.
1:12:45 I could skate, but I couldn’t control a puck to save my life. Yeah, so that’s my passion. I love hockey. In a perfect world, I would just play hockey and build my kids. That’s all I want to do.
1:12:54 Okay, and your older kids are, what are they, what are you learning by watching them go through university? You got one at Berkeley, right? Yeah, one at Berkeley, one at UCLA. Is it just, does it remind you of when you were there, when you hear their stories, or is it a different, different kind of world. Well getting back to me we were pounding a dead horse here but now you know I look at them I say you know when I was in college man I was really working hard and I earned it and I met with my professors and I got to know them I got value out of it and I worked and I you know I got internships and I really you know like I’m remembering my college because that was the good old days right I’m looking at these punks how they’re doing college right Someday.
1:13:33 And I told both, I said, someday man, God works in funny ways, He’s going to give you the kids that you were. So everything you’re doing to me now, your kids are going to do to you. They laugh, they think it’s funny, they don’t know. It’s true. It’s going to happen, right?
1:13:51 Yeah. You should write a book on selective memory. Give me your next book. Give me your next one. What is next for you after this?
1:13:57 I know you’re constantly working on new books. Yeah, so 10 years ago I wrote a book called The Art of the Start. right right right and ten years ago there was no crowdfunding there was no crowdsourcing there was no social media there was you know you bought servers you had to write a business plan so all this stuff is different so I basically rewrote art of the start so art of the start 2.0 is coming out in March fantastic so I have two new books so March and December so you know three months apart not optimal let me tell you so I have two books in three months right you’re touring I was reading through this book and you’re constantly referencing you know LinkedIn and Google Plus and all that and I was thinking you know in two years you’re gonna need to rewrite of this I know as well because everything’s changing fast but in a good sense you’re giving super practical advice that matters today you’re like do this this and this like you know I There’s some stuff in there like, you know, like the elements of style and for writing right like I Can’t imagine that like right now. I’m saying, you know, for example a good avatar is, you know Focus front and all the stuff I said, right? I can’t imagine that in five years people gonna say well good avatar today is out of focus Poorly lit, you know, right some things are gonna stay the same right, right So what you read on video, I just want to finish up with that. I mean obviously video
1:15:23 Yeah, we see obviously that autoplay and Facebook and it’s just becoming everywhere in our lives and as humans We react to it much differently than well one, you know, one tip I learned is you should upload your video natively to Facebook Yeah, definitely. They don’t like we do that all the time to YouTube right in beds. We don’t do that Yeah, so it’s not everybody not everybody’s figured that out. Okay, that’s number one, right? But like the shining example that I hold up is a guy named Marquez Brown Lee since 19 or 20 year old you know I think he’s like senior in college and he started reviewing phones and now I know you think you’re hot shit with 80,000 followers his 20 year old kid out of his dorm has two million million dollars the guy that was sanding the iPhone front and checking the hardness of the covers I think I might know this guy says a lot there. You should look him up Marquez Brown Lee, right and You’re shaming me here publicly. Yeah, I am so so, you know, it seems to me that like There’s a generation of people who if you wanted to know how to roast the turkey You’d go to YouTube I’m telling you now or Or, excuse me, I said that wrong.
1:16:47 So there’s a generation that if you wanted to learn how to roast a turkey, you’d go to Google, right? And then, I think now, maybe even as a first act, they go to YouTube and they search how to roast a turkey, which is very interesting, because you’d think that YouTube is a subset of Google. So you’d go to Google and find the articles as well as the video, but I think, you know, these kids, they go and they just go to YouTube to how to roast a turkey. And then there’s a whole other thing, like people go to Pinterest and search for how to roast a turkey, knock me over with a feather, it never occurred to me to go to Pinterest to learn something.
1:17:28 You might get some curation there. Yeah, like some nice dresses or something. So you’re even being surprised by different social media platforms every day. And so with YouTube, here’s an interesting thought. So let’s say you have a new camera, new gizmo, and you have a choice.
1:17:53 Either the Wall Street Journal can review it with, I don’t know, a million people read the paper version and I don’t know, 10 million subscribers, whatever it is, right? So Wall Street Journal could review it, or you could get Marquez Brownlee, 20-year-old kid in college to review it, to his two million YouTube subscribers, which would you prefer? That’s a real interesting question. I got to tell you, I would pick Marquez Brownlee today. That’s some David and Goliath shit right there.
1:18:30 I really would. Yeah, I really, I think if he said buy this camera, I think that is more powerful than in the Wall Street Journal saying, buy this camera. That’s an inflection point. And it’s going to continue that way probably. We’re right now being watched on YouTube.
1:18:47 People have talked about YouTube. It obviously owns the space that it’s in in a huge way. But as an entity, I don’t even know if anyone agrees that it’s a profitable entity. I know they’re trying to incorporate intelligent advertising. Most people say it hasn’t worked.
1:19:00 Where do you see that going as an entity in the future of video? Because they kind of own video right now. And all I can tell you is that obviously there’s the entertainment value, but there’s a real value value in when you want to learn how to do something, people are going to YouTube. I think if my college sons, eight sons, if they wanted to learn how to change a flat tire, which they might not know, okay, seriously, because what they do called triple A.
1:19:35 Yeah, I have a bad father. If they wanted to learn how to change a flat tire, I bet you they go to YouTube. That’s very interesting. Right. And 10 years ago, they wouldn’t have.
1:19:47 So now I’ll ask you, in 10 years from now, what are people going to be doing when it comes to something like that? Is it still going to be YouTube? It would be silly to think that it still would be. Maybe they have Google Glass, and they’ll just say to their glasses, show me how to change a tire, and boom, up in front of your eyes. I’ve never used Google Glass, but.
1:20:06 I used it once, one of the guys from Google came over here and I put them on and then I sent out a picture and I said, look, I’m a glass hole and then I don’t think he was very happy about that. It was an interesting tech with the noise, I mean with the feedback and the audio and the slide, but it’s not there yet, it’s missing some kind of app store I guess. The killer app for Google Glass for an old person like me is I want to have Google Glass that. I just spoke in Oslo and Zurich, so I met several hundred people. I can’t remember any of their names. But if I could just have…
1:20:46 Face recognition and boom. I could just… So six months from now, Google Glasses, you met this guy in Oslo, CTO of The coming down’s working there was Kongsberg, CTO of Kongsberg. You met with him January 2015 in Oslo, and after that you went and ate whale sushi with him. Okay?
1:21:12 If Google Glass could tell me, show that or put it in my ear, it’s like I say, hey, Jan, good to see you, man. Like, shall we go have sushi again? Can you believe that? Let’s go cut up some whale, right? He’d be so impressed.
1:21:23 Of course, if he knew how I did it, he wouldn’t be impressed. for a while. And that’s the killer app for me. I would love to have that. That would be perfect. Like an email trail, but visually in any brand.
1:21:33 Exactly. I always ask people a couple questions right at the end. I’m going to hit you with them. If you could make a phone call to the 20-year-old guy at Kawasaki and give that young man a bit of advice, what would you tell him? Stay at Apple.
1:21:49 Why’d you leave? Well, first time to start a company, second time to start a company, because I thought Apple was tapped out. So yeah, if I had stated Apple either time, I would not be in this room right now. Where would you be? Not here. I mean, I don’t know what’s wrong with this place. South of France. I don’t know why I would be retired, Richard. I don’t the San Jose sharks. I don’t know what. Okay.
1:22:14 All right. Okay. What’s the other question? Best advice you’ve ever received, business or personal? Maybe we go personal. Best advice Ever see any good Hawaiian advice don’t ask people to do something you wouldn’t do Of course, this assumes you’re not a psychopath But you know assuming you’re not a psychopath Like if if you wouldn’t fill out that reg form don’t ask people to fill out a reg form if you wouldn’t fly coach to Bangalore Don’t ask people to fly coach to Bangalore It’s a very good practice for dealing with customers vendors and employees Please yeah, okay. Good test last question, you know to the 20 year old that’s listening to us from somewhere around the world You know that wants to one day be an evangelist at some company. What do you tell them to do?
1:22:59 Okay, so this is Kyle called guys golden touch. Here we go Okay, so guys golden touch is not whatever I touch turns to gold man. I wish that was true Guys golden touch is whatever is gold guy touches So this is my advice if you want to be an evangelist find or create something that is truly great because it is really easy to evangelize something great. It is really hard to evangelize crap so the key to evangelism is align yourself with great stuff. That is good advice. To give you an analogy there’s a saying that the difference between a good photographer and a bad photographer is that the good photographer doesn’t show you his bad shots. You could apply that to evangelism. I’m not gonna tell you about the stuff that failed. I’m only gonna tell you, hey, I evangelized back about it.
1:23:56 Fantastic. Guy, thank you so much for the time. The book is The Art of Social Media. We’re actually gonna be sending out five signed copies to people sending out the the best quote of this episode. There’s a lot.
1:24:08 You know, can I just, you know, like seriously, people need to figure out that social media equals marketing for most entrepreneurs. You know, if you’re Nike, okay, you need advertising, you need sponsorship, you’re gonna sponsor the world game, you’re gonna, you know, whatever, right? But if you’re a small business or a new business, social media equals marketing. It’s not an experiment, it’s not something you do on the side when marketing is done and everything.
1:24:33 It is your marketing. So you need to man up and understand that and you need to master social media if you want to be successful because it’s the best thing that ever happened to marketing. It’s fast, it’s free and ubiquitous. You cannot say that about any other kind of marketing. It is marketing for entrepreneurs.
1:24:50 Yeah. And there’s no excuse. This thing will take you about an hour and a half to go through and if you have a stupid profile picture that looks like a mugshot in the next six months, then shame on you because I was reading through this and I’m sending this to all my guys because a A lot of you were you were conferring what I said and so I’m gonna have them all read it because it’s silly not to you know and well the shame is a lot of people aren’t gonna read your book until a year or two now and then say that’s gonna be ancient times so check that out and yeah your next book is coming up in March as well. March yeah. Art of the Star 2.0. Fantastic follow guy on Twitter and you can watch how to tweets guys a master 125,000 tweets it’s it’s a phenomenon it’s inspiring and Facebook etc if you are an ice hockey fan as You can hit him up and thanks so much for being here. We say on London Real. It’s about the journey I wish you well in your sky. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for being part of my journey, too No, all right. Take care.
