My Big Decision: Guy Kawasaki on seeing a Mac for the first time

Friday, August 12, 2011 | Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories: My big decision | Tags: business, success, podcasts, My Big Decision, Apple, Guy Kawasaki, decision

The final interview in Grant Thornton’s My Big Decision series of life-changing business decisions is with tech entrepreneur and former Apple chief evangelist Guy Kawasaki, who talks about the moment he ‘wimped out’ of law college and went into the computer business instead.

Guy Kawasaki is one of the hardest-working entrepreneurs on the web. He is a speaker, presenter, blogger, author, social media consultant, entrepreneur, Silicon Valley venture capitalist and managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, and co-founder of Alltop.com, an ‘online magazine rack’ of popular topics on the web. His 10th book, Enchantment, came out this year and has drawn kudos from Sir Richard Branson, among others.

Before his career took off, however, Kawasaki was a struggling student at law school. He hated it so much that he dropped out – “It was the first thing I quit in my life” – and enrolled instead on an MBA course at UCLA, beginning his business studies while working in the jewellery trade.

But it was in 1983 that he experienced the ‘pivotal’ moment in his career when a classmate showed him an Apple Macintosh computer – and what it could do.

“It was a religious experience… That was the moment when I decided I gotta get into the computer business!”

The decision was to lead to a job with Apple and ultimately becoming the company’s ‘chief evangelist’ and marketer.

Guy Kawasaki talks more about his life-changing moment – as well as the secret of his success, his addiction to hockey and some fast advice on Twitter strategy – in his My Big Decision vodcast 

Grant Thornton’s My Big Decision series interviews prominent business leaders about critical moments in their lives. Catch up on previous interviewees via the links below.

Check out previous My Big Decision podcasts
Browse our index of My Big Decision posts  – or go directly to the individual podcasts on the links below:

• Fast Company founder, Alan Webber
• Pizza Express entrepreneur, Luke Johnson
• Marketing guru, Seth Godin
• Coffee Republic’s founder, Sahar Hashemi
• Dotcom entrepreneur turned investor, Julie Meyer
• King of the High Street, George Davies 
• Freakonomics author, Stephen Dubner
• Financial Times economist agony uncle, Tim Harford
• Online theorist, Chris Anderson   
• Cultural commentator, Fons Trompenaars