Tony Hsieh - Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

Tony Hsieh is a wise guy. Sincerely. Hes one of the wisest and most thoughtful business leaders of the modern age. This insightful book isnt just an enjoyable read. Its a wonderful instruction manual for how twenty-first-century companies create value and happiness at the same time.Chip Conley, founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre
Hospitality and author of Peak: How Great
Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow Tony Hsieh has done a huge amount of thinking about how to bring happiness to himself, to employees, and to customers, and in this fascinating (and often hilarious) account, he explains how he turns his beliefs into actions that really do deliver happiness.Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project When you focus on increasing the happiness of your employees, colleagues, vendors, and customers, you not only increase your own happiness but your chances for success. My friend Tonys book is filled with great stories, insights, and tips you can put to use in your business and in your life.Anthony Robbins, author of Unlimited Power
and Awaken the Giant Within This book could start a revolution! Tony Hsieh shows how you can dramatically increase your own happinessand successby increasing the happiness of those around you.Marshall Goldsmith, author of Mojo:
How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It
Back If You Lose It This book illustrates so many of Zappos core values: Its open and honest, passionate and humble, fun and a little weird. Even if you dont care about business, technology, or shoes, youll be drawn in by this American tale of how hard work, laziness, talent, and failure blend together to create an extraordinary life. Youll learn a lot about happiness along the way, too. I loved it.Jonathan Haidt, professor of psychology,
University of Virginia, and author of The Happiness
Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom Tony Hsieh is the shining star of a new way of working. DELIVERING HAPPINESS is a book that tells an extraordinary business storybuilding a $1 billion online business selling shoes in less than a decadebut also an extraordinary human story. Tony is one of those entrepreneurs who is both fearless and endlessly imaginative about pursuing his dreams. At Zappos, hes built a culture around truly taking care of the needs of his employees, so theyre inspired to take care of the needs of their customers.Tony Schwartz, author of The Way Were
Working Isnt Working and coauthor of
The Power of Full Engagement DELIVERING HAPPINESS is a glimpse into the mind of one of the most remarkable business leaders of our time. Like its author, the book is authentic, oddly original, doesnt take itself too seriouslyyet delivers a potent message. Weaving together history, personal philosophy, and insights from one of the most intriguing companies in the world, DELIVERING HAPPINESS works on the mind, the heart, and the soul. This book needs to be read by anyone who takes the happiness of other people seriously.Dave Logan, professor at the Marshall
School of Business/University of Southern California
and coauthor of Tribal Leadership and
The Three Laws of Performance

Copyright 2010 by Tony Hsieh

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Business Plus

Hachette Book Group

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First eBook Edition: June 2010

ISBN: 978-0-446-57631-4

This book is dedicated to Ava Zech and all of the other aspiring
entrepreneurs and business leaders of tomorrow .
Happy eleventh birthday, Ava!

Contents

Theres a difference between knowing the path
and walking the path.

MORPHEUS, THE MATRIX

Ive been an entrepreneur for most of my life. I think its because Ive always enjoyed being creative and experimenting, applying lessons that Ive learned along the way to both new ventures and my personal life.

In 1996, I co-founded LinkExchange, which was sold to Microsoft in 1998 for $265 million.

In 1999, I got involved with Zappos as an adviser and investor, and eventually became CEO. We grew the company from almost no sales in 1999 to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales, annually.

In 2009, Zappos was acquired by Amazon in a deal valued at over $1.2 billion on the day of closing.

From an outsiders perspective, both companies may have seemed like overnight successes, but there were a lot of mistakes made and a lot of lessons learned along the way. Many of my philosophies and approaches were actually shaped by my experiences growing up.

Ive also always been an avid book reader. At Zappos, we encourage our employees to read books from our library to help them grow, both personally and professionally. There are many books that have influenced our thinking at Zappos and helped us get to where we are today.

I decided to write this book to help people avoid making many of the same mistakes that Ive made. I also hope that this book will serve as encouragement to established businesses as well as entrepreneurs who want to defy conventional wisdom and create their own paths to success.

How This Book Is Structured

This book is divided into three sections.

The first section is titled Profits and consists mostly of stories of me growing up and eventually finding my way to Zappos. Some of the stories are about my early adventures as an entrepreneur, while others are about a younger version of me rebelling against what was expected.

The second section, Profits and Passion, is more business-oriented, covering many of the important philosophies that we believe in and live by at Zappos. I also share some of the internal e-mails and documents that we continue to use to this day.

The third section is titled Profits, Passion, and Purpose. It outlines our vision at Zappos for taking things to the next level, and will hopefully challenge you to do the same.

This book is not meant to be a comprehensive corporate history of Zappos or any of the previous businesses Ive been involved in. Its also not meant to be a complete autobiography. As such, I havent mentioned everyone who contributed or played a role in my life. (If I had, there would have been way too many names for readers to try to keep track of and remember.) The purpose of this book is to give some of the highlights of the path that I took in my journey toward discovering how to find happiness in business and in life.

Finally, as you read through this book, youll probably notice some sentences that arent the best examples of English grammar. Except where third-party contributions to the book are specifically noted, I wrote this book without the use of a ghostwriter. Im not a professional writer, and in many cases I purposely chose to do things that would probably make my high school English teachers cringe, such as ending a sentence with a preposition. I did this partly because I wanted the writing to reflect how I would normally talk, and partly just to annoy all my high school English teachers (who I appreciate dearly).

Although I did not use a ghostwriter, many people helped out behind the scenes with feedback, suggestions, and encouragement, and Im grateful for everyones involvement. There isnt enough room to list everyone who contributed, but I would like to specifically thank Jenn Lim, my long-time friend and backup brain. She acted as project manager and organizer of the entire book-writing process, and she was key to seeing this book from inception to finish. She also collected and helped edit many of the third-party contributions, some of which are in this book, and many more of which are available on the Web site at www.deliveringhappinessbook.com.

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