Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging and Outmarketing Your Competition.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Book review

Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging and Outmarketing Your Competition. By Guy Kawasaki. Portfolio, 475 pages. $29.95.

Venture capitalist, serial entrepreneur, author of numerous books and most recently a blogger, Guy Kawasaki is indeed irreverent. His book practically reeks of irreverence, with a little salty language here and there for good measure (toned down, to be sure).

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Kawasaki is probably a lot of fun to listen to, because he doesn't mince words and he's clear and passionate about his beliefs, many of which buck conventional wisdom. Case in point: He argues that "success takes crazy, passionate people who believe they can change the world. Success doesn't take 'professional' and 'proven' people." Citing the founders of Google Inc., he says they, essentially, were "guys under thirty who are building a product that they themselves want to use."

That's a Silicon Valley view of the world, certainly, but Kawasaki isn't so besotted by venture capital mavens and the entrepreneurs they back that he doesn't also believe in "intrapreneurship" (creation of enterprises within companies by employee innovators). In fact, he argues, this latter group "probably[has] it worse, because they are fighting against ingrained, inbred and inept management." That he takes this as a universal truth is highly debatable, given the successful...