Tony Hsieh

Tony Hsieh was born on December 12, 1973, in the San Francisco Bay Area to Taiwanese immigrant parents. He showed early entrepreneurial talent, starting businesses like a pizza delivery service from his Harvard University dorm while studying computer science, from which he graduated in 1995. After brief stints at Oracle, Hsieh co-founded the internet advertising network LinkExchange in 1996 with Sanjay Madan, selling it to Microsoft in 1998 for $265 million at age 24. Post-sale, Hsieh co-founded the investment firm Venture Frogs and invested in startups, including Zappos.com, founded by Nick Swinmurn in 1999. Initially skeptical of the online shoe retail idea, Hsieh invested and became CEO in 2000 when sales were just $1.6 million, personally funding the struggling company through the dot-com bust. Under his leadership, Zappos prioritized customer happiness with policies like free shipping, 365-day returns, and 24/7 service, growing revenues to $1 billion by 2009. Amazon acquired Zappos that year for $1.2 billion, but he stayed on as CEO, relocating headquarters to Las Vegas to revitalize downtown. Hsieh implemented radical innovations like holacracy in 2013—a managerless structure with self-organizing 'circles' and roles—which emphasized employee autonomy and fun culture, making Zappos a top-ranked workplace accepting only 1% of applicants. He authored 'Delivering Happiness' (2010), a bestseller linking happiness, culture, and profits, and pursued ventures like the Downtown Project in Las Vegas. Hsieh retired as CEO on August 24, 2020, after 21 years. He died on November 27, 2020, in a house fire in Bridgeport, Connecticut, at age 46.