What is Guy Kawasaki's Net Worth?
Guy Kawasaki is an American venture capitalist, marketing specialist, and author who has a net worth of $30 million. One of the Apple employees who marketed the company's first line of Macintosh computers in 1984, Guy Kawasaki is credited with popularizing the concepts of evangelism marketing and technology evangelism. As an author, Kawasaki has written such books as "The Macintosh Way," "How to Drive Your Competition Crazy," "The Art of the Start," and "Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life."
Early Life and Education
Guy Kawasaki was born on August 30, 1954 in Honolulu, Hawaii to Aiko and Duke. The family lived in the neighborhood of Kalihi. As a youth, Kawasaki attended 'Iolani School, graduating in 1972. He went on to attend Stanford University, from which he graduated in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology. Kawasaki subsequently enrolled in law school at the University of California, Davis, but dropped out after about a week when he came to the conclusion law school wasn't for him. He then enrolled in UCLA's Anderson Graduate School of Management, from which he earned his MBA degree.
Apple
Through his former Stanford roommate Mike Boich, Kawasaki got a job at the technology company Apple in 1983. He was among the Apple employees responsible for marketing the inaugural line of Macintosh computers, and in the process he popularized the concept of evangelism marketing, whereby customers believe so strongly in a product that they generate word-of-mouth to convince others to use it. Kawasaki left Apple in 1987, although he later returned in 1995 as an Apple Fellow.
(Photo by Chris Saucedo/Getty Images for SXSW)
Further Career
In 1987, Kawasaki was hired to lead ACIUS, the United States subsidiary of the French-based technology company ACI. The company published a database software system for Apple called 4th Dimension. Kawasaki left ACIUS in 1989 to pursue his career in writing and speaking. In the early 1990s, he penned columns that were featured in the magazines MacUser and Forbes. Kawasaki also co-founded Fog City Software, which created the e-mail client Emailer for the Mac OS. Meanwhile, he created a collection of software utilities called Guy's Utilities for Macintosh, which was published by After Hours Software. In 1997, Kawasaki co-founded the angel investor matchmaking service Garage.com; it later became Garage Technology Ventures, a venture capital firm that has made investments in such companies as Pandora, Tripwire, and the Motley Fool.
In 2007, Kawasaki founded the rumor mill website Truemors, which ran on user-generated content. The site was sold to another user-generated news website, NowPublic, in 2008. Later, in 2013, Kawasaki joined Google as an advisor to Motorola, and was responsible for creating a Google+ mobile device community. The following year, he joined the free graphic design website Canva, becoming its chief evangelist. From 2015 until the end of 2016, Kawasaki sat on the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit operating entity of Wikipedia. Among his other ventures, he launched a podcast in late 2019 called "Remarkable People," which has featured interviews with such luminaries as Jane Goodall and Stephen Wolfram. Kawasaki also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Books
Kawasaki has written several books, with his first, "The Macintosh Way," published in 1990. He next published "Database 101" in 1991. Kawasaki followed that with "Selling the Dream" (1992) and "The Computer Curmudgeon" (1993). In 1995, he released two books: "Hindsights" and "How to Drive Your Competition Crazy." Kawasaki's next book, "Rules for Revolutionaries," came out in 2000. His other books in the 21st century have included "The Art of the Start" (2004), "Reality Check" (2008), and "Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life" (2019).
Personal Life
With his wife Beth, Kawasaki has four children: Nic, Noah, Nohemi, and Nate. The latter two are siblings the couple adopted from Guatemala.
Real Estate
In September 2010, Guy paid $1 million for a 6,500-square-foot home in Watsonville, California. He listed this home for sale in 2019 for $6.8 million. He sold it in September 2021 for $5.75 million.
