Guy Kawasaki’s Reality Check Review: A Great Buy
My first impression of Guy Kawasaki was that he was a genius writing brilliant blog posts. My second impression of Guy Kawasaki was that he was arrogant and gratuitously mean. Turns out I was right on both counts, as Guy’s new book, Reality Check, proves.
The first time I came across Guy Kawasaki’s blog, I did what I’ve done with several other intensely awesome writers’ material: I stuffed my face. I spent several hours reading through his blog archives.
Not too long after that, I wrote Guy about some business idea I had, asking for some feedback on the brand positioning, which he initially agreed to do, provided I’d be Ok with him not liking it. Somehow my notes didn’t fit his understanding of a brand positioning brainstorm bit and he wrote me this:
“Gab,
I really don’t want to review your notes. You’re using up time with me
trying to figure out what you’re saying.Guy.”
At the time I was very insulted, but in hindsight, the language isn’t that harsh and I likely overreacted. In either case, it seems particularly ironic in light of his chapter on “sucking down,” which is basically about being nice to people even if they can’t help you. I learned this in grade school when secretaries and janitors repeatedly helped me with scraped knees and books forgotten in my desk, which I needed for homework. And despite the book, I wonder if Guy really gets this.
When Michael Gray launched Viral Conversations and announced that the first product they were looking for bloggers to review (no links required) was Guy Kawasaki’s Reality Check – which was announced as an augmented collage of his blog posts – I had mixed feelings. Would the brilliant Guy Kawasaki show up? The arrogant Guy Kawasaki? Would my anger taint the review? (I hadn’t yet re-read the old email and still thought he’d flamed me severely.)
Well, you already know the answer as to who showed up. The byline is Guy Kawasaki – not Guy “Awesome Advice Columnist” Kawasaki and not Guy “Arrogance” Kawasaki – meaning, they’re both there. And as you can tell, my feelings towards Guy are going to come through. But the arrogance comments are the extent of it, because you as my readers deserve a review you can count on to judge the merits of the book, rather than be swayed by my thoughts on Guy. And besides – he acknowledges himself in the book that he’s been – in his own words – an “asshole.”
Since I’ve already spent a few hundred words on the intro, let me cut to the chase for you A-types: Guy Kawasaki’s Reality Check is a great read and you should buy it.
For the rest of you, let’s get to the meat of the book. First of all, while the book does use a lot of material from Guy’s blog, at 461 pages Reality Check has plenty of original content. Note: I still haven’t read his full archives (I might now) so the extreme hard-core fans who’ve tended to his every word from day will find a larger percentage of “known” material. I’d venture a guess that even for these folks, 50% of the book will be original.
Second, the book dishes a boatload of awesome advice. Here are just a few of the chapters I really, really loved:
- Financial Models for Underachievers – Features data from a real company’s experience
- After the Honeymoon – How to solve problems, stay solvent and thus avoid teeing off the VCs
- The Art of Bootstrapping – Basic principles to live by when starting up; I can recognize the truth in several, though a couple were new. FYI: I read The Art of The Start, another of Kawasaki’s books, so that’s probably part of where I knew them from (besides personal experience).
- As Good As Steve Jobs – He breaks down what Majora Carter did well in her speech at TED, with time annotations so you can follow along by watching online
- The Sticking Point – Interview with some big idea thinkers
- Speaking As A Performing Art – Doug Lawrence, pro singing coach guest-writes on techniques to perform better such as how to thin your vocal cords and make them more supple.
- How To Kick Butt On A Panel – Great tips which I’m taking to heart as someone who hopes to get more speaking gigs
- How To Be A Great Moderator – This is a topic hardly anyone addresses and made me realize what a great job Stephan Spencer did at SMX Advanced on our panel.
- The whole section called the Reality of Beguiling was really awesome, and likewise his management-oriented sections on hiring, firing and developing enjoyable, productive workplaces.
By contrast, the book’s beginning is pretty slow and generic. Then the first substantive section, on getting cash from VCs and the lies everyone tells in the process is at turns amusing, rehashed from his blog, and lame. It shows Guy’s cynical side looking for cheap controversy-induced links, imho, and altogether was not very valuable.
This is particularly true of his semi-facetious “VCAptitude Test (VCAT).” To wit: In
addressing young grads who want to get into the venture capital world, he writes: “When you’re young, you should work eighty hours a week… You should not sit in board meetings listening to an entrepreneur explain why he missed his numbers while you read email on a Blackberry and spew intermittently spew forth such gems like, ‘You should partner with Myspace; I can also introduce you to a few of the losers in our portfolio.’”
First of all, working eighty hours a week is a terrible idea. I’ve seen my cousin’s go in to the office after dinner, leaving for work around 10:30 PM and working till 1AM – on a Friday night. Others I know have had nervous breakdowns and broken marriages.
Second, it’s arrogant to think that young folks – and especially of the MBA type he rags on repeatedly – can’t give intelligent advice. An acquaintance at school – who’s getting their MBA – taught me more by being a mensch for two hours than Guy’s entire book did. And with Kawasaki’s experience at Nova Stylings, you’d think he’d know about being a mensch.
Finally, the book has an enjoyable dose of humour. Some terrible things you shouldn’t do in life include drugs, violence and buying an IBM PC. Another at the expense of MBAs was quite funny – but that’s gentle mockery as opposed to the serious scorn found elsewhere in Reality Check.
Guy’s text’s greatest value is to those people who are ambitious and have yet to do much reading or gain much experience doing business. However, most entrepreneurs with under, say, 15 years experience, can learn a variety of things from the book and will likely find it a valuable reference. While some of Guy’s book rehashes his blog or material you can find online and in other books – the tips on selling come to mind – it’s also got numerous valuable original sections plus generous interviews with brilliant minds in various fields, including branding, psychology, influence, management, social entrepreneurship (doing business primarily for good, rather than primarily for dollars) etc. Reality Check is a great book, well worth buying and reading.
