“One day Steve Jobs showed up in my cubicle with a man that I didn’t know,” Guy Kawasaki writes via Quora. “He didn’t bother to introduce him; instead, he asked, ‘What do you think of a company called Knoware?'”
“I told him that the company’s products were mediocre, boring, and simplistic — nothing that was strategic for Macintosh,” Kawasaki writes. “The company didn’t matter to us. After my diatribe, he said to me, ‘I want you to meet the CEO of Knoware, Archie McGill.'”
“Thank you, Steve,” Kawasaki writes. “This experience taught me that you should tell the truth and worry less about the consequences for three reasons…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. — Thomas Jefferson
The article brings in Mark Twain’s excellent observation- ‘If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.’
Guy Kawasaki is an arrogant baffoon.
That may be true. That said, he is probably right on this one.
nasty ignorant comment, get help poleeze
Says the guy who can’t spell the word buffoon.
The article focuses on one aspect of the truth: being honest about your own opinions. It underplays an equally important aspect: making sure that your opinions are factually grounded. A madman may be honestly convinced that he is Jesus Christ, but that does not make it true. Guy Kawasaki could back up his opinion of Knoware with facts.
I attended a major private research university where 75% of the students began with a STEM focus. Even the architects and academic majors had it drilled into us how the scientific method works. You base a hypothesis on the evidence and then test it with further evidence to refute or refine your theory.
Not just scientists, but everyone should follow the rule that any opinion requires evidence. (That is exactly how the legal system is supposed to work.) The most valid opinion is the one that explains the most evidence in the most elegant way. Theories that ignore significant parts of the data (without explaining why that data is unreliable), or that are unnecessarily complex, are unlikely to be valid.
Opinions are worthless without proof. Evidence is everything.
I always find myself nodding at your posts…
Science and the Law are two professions where ‘argiung’ is the normal course of business, with the Truth as the arbiter.
We can add mathematics and engineering to that list.
The key in all those areas is objective verification or testing (by reality or by third parties) of results.
Of course, and Allied Fields….
fair and honest are worthwhile mr spock
Well I think Guy Kawasaki has been living off the accomplishments of others for pretty much most of his career. The so called “evangelist” has made a profession of yapping about nothing for as long as there has been a Macintosh.
He comes close to admitting it in some little documentary he was in, where at the end he admits, “I’m living proof that you can surf forever off one good decision.”
and what have you been doing your whole life, denigrating others mostly?
Sounds like “sour grapes,” thetheloniousmac.
You weren’t, by some chance, bounced out of a “Job” due to lack of any shred of apparent humanity, were you?
Just asking . . .
Niffy
Guy for Apple CEO or at least head of Mac division!
This is an old story. I saw that about a month or two ago in Yahoo! News.
I speak my mind all the time in my job, sure it might ruffle a few feather of yes men but they can’t argue that what I am saying is true.
One of my partners, a litigator, once told me, “There is no such thing as truth, it’s only what you can prove.” As an engineer before I was a lawyer, I always thought his statement was too cynical. But I always think about it.