Guy Kawasaki Net Worth

Overview

Guy Kawasaki is an American marketing specialist, author, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1954, he attended Stanford University and UCLA, earning degrees in psychology and an MBA, respectively. He began his career in the jewelry business before transitioning to the tech industry. Kawasaki was one of the original Apple employees responsible for marketing the Macintosh computer line in 1984. He popularized the word ‘evangelist’ in marketing, becoming known as the ‘Apple evangelist’. He left Apple in 1987 but returned as an Apple Fellow in 1995. Kawasaki co-founded Garage Technology Ventures, a venture capital firm. He is also a founder of Alltop, an online magazine rack. In 2013, he joined Google as an advisor to Motorola, and in 2014, he became the chief evangelist of Canva, an online graphic design platform. He has written fifteen books, including ‘The Macintosh Way,’ ‘The Art of the Start,’ and ‘Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life.’ From March 2015 to December 2016, Kawasaki served on the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Canva

Chief Evangelist

What Is Guy Kawasaki’s Net Worth?

Guy Kawasaki, an American venture capitalist, marketing specialist, and author, has an estimated net worth of $30 million. This valuation reflects his diverse career spanning technology, entrepreneurship, and writing.

Career Milestones and Apple Influence

Kawasaki’s career began to take shape at Apple in 1983, where he played a key role in marketing the initial line of Macintosh computers. He is widely credited with popularizing “evangelism marketing,” a strategy focused on creating passionate customer advocates. He left Apple in 1987, then returned in 1995 as an Apple Fellow. Before Apple, after graduating from Stanford University in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology, Kawasaki briefly attended law school at the University of California, Davis, before earning an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management.

In 1987, Kawasaki became the head of ACIUS, the US division of the French tech firm ACI, which produced the 4th Dimension database software for Apple. He left ACIUS in 1989 to concentrate on his writing and public speaking. He contributed columns to MacUser and Forbes magazines in the early 1990s. Kawasaki also co-founded Fog City Software, which developed the Emailer e-mail client for Mac OS. In addition, he created Guy’s Utilities for Macintosh, a collection of software utilities published by After Hours Software.

Kawasaki co-founded Garage.com, an angel investor matchmaking service that later evolved into Garage Technology Ventures, a venture capital firm with investments in companies like Pandora, Tripwire, and The Motley Fool, in 1997. He founded Truemors, a rumor mill website that relied on user-generated content, in 2007. In 2008, NowPublic, another user-generated news website, purchased the site. Kawasaki joined Google as an advisor to Motorola in 2013, where he was in charge of establishing a Google+ mobile device community. The following year, he became Canva’s chief evangelist, joining the free graphic design website. Kawasaki served on the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit operating entity of Wikipedia, from 2015 to the end of 2016. He launched a podcast called “Remarkable People” in late 2019, which has featured interviews with figures such as Jane Goodall and Stephen Wolfram. Kawasaki is also an adjunct professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Authorship and Published Works

Kawasaki is also a prolific author, his first book, “The Macintosh Way,” was published in 1990. Other notable works include “Database 101” (1991), “Selling the Dream” (1992), “The Computer Curmudgeon” (1993), “Hindsights” (1995), “How to Drive Your Competition Crazy” (1995), “Rules for Revolutionaries” (2000), “The Art of the Start” (2004), “Reality Check” (2008), and “Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life” (2019). Revenue derived from book sales and related speaking engagements contributes to his overall net worth.

Real Estate Ventures

In September 2010, Kawasaki purchased a 6,500-square-foot home in Watsonville, California, for $1 million. He listed this property for sale in 2019 with an asking price of $6.8 million, and it eventually sold in September 2021 for $5.75 million. The profit from this real estate transaction significantly impacted his net worth.