Instead, he ignored financial technicalities to focus on company culture and customer service because, for Hsieh, Zappos is and has always been “a customer service company that just happens to sell shoes.” Delivering Happinessīut how did Hsieh and his cohorts manage to ignore financial responsibilities in favor for company culture and still succeed?

It was Zappos ability to master customer experience and ecommerce that led to their acquisition by Amazon for 1.2 billion in 2009.ĭespite the company’s giant price tag, money never really figured into the equation for Hsieh. The company boasts hundreds of exceptional customer service cases varying in degrees of intensity-from flowers sent to a customer who just received foot surgery to a customer service agent purchasing a plane ticket to personally return thousands of dollars worth of lost valuables to a customer. This will come as no surprise to any customer of Zappos.

Rather it was an affinity for making people happy-shoes just happened to be the product people wanted. Post-LinkExchange, Hsieh dived ‘feet first’ into a new venture-the role of CEO at online shoe retailer, Zappos.īut it wasn’t shoes that made either Zappos or Hsieh famous. It was at this point Tony Hsieh decided to stop pursuing money or success, and to instead start pursuing happiness instead. But as the company grew, company culture declined-ultimately the deciding factor behind Hsieh selling his first company to Microsoft for $265 million in 1999. In the beginning, Hsieh was hiring friends, or friends of friends, with like-minded interests and values. Initially starting as a small internet advertising company, LinkExchange was founded by Hsieh and fellow Oracle colleague, Sanjay Madan, based on their mutual rejection of working in a rigid and claustrophobic corporate environment.īut as their company grew from a makeshift two-man operation into a popular, full-fledged powerhouse of internet marketing, Hsieh was faced with the same roadblocks that stunted his climb up the corporate ladder at Oracle: a lack of emotional connection with his employees. Ultimately, within one year, Hsieh graduated from Harvard, secured one of the highest-paying jobs at multinational, mega-corporate tech company- Oracle Corporation-and co-founded LinkExchange-one of the biggest e-marketing firms to come out of the initial dot.com craze of the late 90s. He dabbled with becoming a professional rave-thrower, he even purchased a giant loft above a movie theatre in San Diego to throw totally raging birthday and New Year’s Eve parties. Tony Hsieh tried his hand at becoming a professional poker player.

Delivering happiness by tony hsieh