Guy Kawasaki - The Art of Innovation, Speech (ENG)

– Guy Kawasaki: The Art of Innovation – 1

The following is the transcript of the keynote by Guy Kawasakiat CA World 2007, on April 24, 2007, at Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.Good morning. My name is Guy Kawasaki and I am here to talk to you aboutinnovation. I will give you a little more detail about my background: I worked forApple from 1983 to 1987, I was Apple software Evangelist. So my job was toconvince people to write Macintosh versions of their software products, as wellas to create hardware peripherals for Macintosh. Back then the company wasdivided into various divisions; there was the Apple II division and the Macintoshdivision. The Macintosh division of course worked for Steve Jobs, the one andonly Steve Jobs. To use the word loosely, it was a very interesting experienceworking for Steve. Because we worked for the co-founder of the company wehad very special rules that are not part of Apple Computer; we had unlimitedsupplies of fresh orange juice at two dollars a bottle; we had massage therapistcoming to our cubicles on Thursdays and Fridays, so that we could havemassages while we sat at our desks; obviously this was before sexualharassment was a issue in the workplace, back then sexual harassment was agood thing as a matter of fact.And unlike any other part of Apple, we could fly first class for any flight over twohours. My interpretation of this rule was that the two hours begins from themoment you leave your apartment, so... I flew first class everywhere I had fliedfirst class from San Francisco to Monterrey.You know?, back then as I said we were divided into divisions; the Apple IIdivision was shipping just both loads of Apple IIs; the Macintosh was not yetshipping, so if you looked at a PML statement of Apple back then, they were the"P" and we were the "L". The interesting thing is that, I think the Macintoshdivision was arguevely the largest collection of ego-maniacs in the history SiliconValley, and if you know people from Silicon Valley that is really seem quite a lot. Iwill give you one example of the manifestation of that egotistical nature and

– Guy Kawasaki: The Art of Innovation – 2

arrogance: the Macintosh division would not let Apple II division people into ourbuilding. So you can imagine working for one part of the company not beingallowed to go into another part of the company? Of course the irony makes iteven worst, because the Apple II division was paying for the building they werenot being allowed into. Hence the Apple II division came out with a very good joke about the Mac division, which is: how many Mac division employees does ittake to screw in a light bulb? And the answer is: one, the Macintosh divisionemployee holds up the light bulb and expects the universe to revolve around him.So, I worked for the Mac division, I started several software companies, and thenI became a venture capitalist, that is what I do today, but that is my day job, myreal love in life is to speak like this, I love to give presentations, and I will tell youa little bit about the evolution of my speaking career: I first of course startedlistening to speeches when I began at Apple Computer, and I attended manymany hi-tech speeches, many many CEOs of hi-tech companies speaking, and Ihave to tell you, I learned two things watching them speak: most hi-tech speakerssuck, secondly, most hi-tech speakers have a very poor concept of time. Theystart late, they go long, they have really very little regard for the, sort of timelinessof the audience and the schedule. So basically the two things are that: hi-techspeakers suck, and you have no idea how much longer they will suck. And I findit reprehensible, so what I have done in my career is: I have adopted the top tenformat for all my speeches, this way you can track progress through my speech,and if you think I suck, well, when I am on number five, I am half way done, youwill know how much long. I hope you do not think I suck, but just in case you do.I am going to talk to you today about the art of innovation. You know, one of thetemptations of any key note speaker is to sort of forget the past, or at least colorit in the way that they choose, and the way it manifests itself is as if I am going togive you a speech that I did everything in my career correct, and right, andoptimally, and now I am going to tell you to follow my example, to do as I did. Iwill tell you quite honestly that I made many many mistakes in my career. So thisspeech reflects as much as what I did right as what I did wrong. I hope that thisenables you to understand innovation better, many of you come from veryinnovative companies, you may even understand it better than I do; but this is thetop ten of the art of innovation. What I have learned as an Evangelist for AppleComputer, as the CEO of several software companies, and now as a venturecapitalist.

– Guy Kawasaki: The Art of Innovation – 3

The first thing that I learned is that truly, truly, innovation is motivated by thedesire to make meaning. That is: to change the world, to make the world a betterplace. To perpetuate good things, to end the bad things, to enable people to dothings that they could never ever do before.As a venture capitalist in my current life, I can tell you that many entrepreneurscome to us and they say: “we want to make money; we want to quickly flip ourcompany and sell it to Google in twelve months; we want to take our companypublic”. They think they are saying exactly what a venture capitalist wants tohear. In fact they are making a big mistake, because what we want to hear ishow you are going to make meaning, how are you going to change the world.And in all of the companies that I have worked at, in all of the companies that Ifounded, in all of the companies that I funded, I have really noticed that thepeople who want to make meaning are the ones who are successful asinnovators. The people who want to make money usually fail. Especially instartups, if you start with the desire to make money I think you will attract thewrong kind of co-founders; you will attract people who are MBAs, investmentbankers, and, can I tell you? Those are the two worst kinds of people to attract toa startup.Now, meaning can be many things. For the Macintosh division it was to increasepeople creativity and productivity. For Computer Associates I would make thecase that is to Unify and Simplify IT. That is the kind of things. That is the kind ofstatements that we want. I want to read you from an ad, that I thing it is the mostmeaningful ad that I have ever seen:

“A woman is often measured by the things she cannot control. She is measured by the way her body curves or doesn't curve. By where she is flat or straight or round. She is measured by 36-24-36 and inches and ages and numbers. By all the outside things that don't ever add up to who she is on the inside. And so if a woman is to be measured, let her be measured by the things she can control, by who she is and who she is trying to become because as every woman knows,measurements are only statistics, and statistics lie.”

This is an ad for Nike women aerobic shoes. You are going to be my perspectivecustomer. Not you, you. OK? So I am the VP of marketing of Nike. Turn around,look at me; I am the VP of marketing of Nike. Do you want to stand up? So I amthe VP of marketing of Nike, and you are someone who I hope has a hundreddollars. All right? So I say to you: “listen, you give me the hundred dollars, I willgive you two pieces of cotton, leather, and rubber manufactured under somewhat