Corner Office: Guy Kawasaki: I Want 5 Sentences, Not ‘War and Peace’
March 20, 2010 by admin
Filed under Career News and Advice
This interview of Guy Kawasaki, a co-founder of Alltop, a news aggregation site, and managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, was conducted, edited and condensed by Adam Bryant.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Guy Kawasaki is co-founder of the Alltop news aggregation site and a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures. If B-schools taught how to communicate more concisely, he says, âAmerican business would be much better off.â
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Q. At what point in your career did you first become somebody’s boss?
A. I was probably 28 or 29 years old and in the jewelry business. I started my career counting diamonds and schlepping gold jewelry around the world. The jewelry business is a very, very tough business — tougher than the computer business. You truly have to understand how to take care of your customers.
I learned a very valuable lesson: how to sell. Sales is everything. As long as you’re making sales, you’re still in the game. That lesson has stuck with me throughout my career.
Q. So how did the transition into management go?
A. When I was getting my education, I fell in love with the writings of Peter Drucker. He was my hero. I had a naïve belief that when I became a manager, it was going to be like Peter Drucker’s books. That is, I was going to be the effective executive. I was going to talk to people about their goals. I was going to help …
Read the original article at NYTimes