I want to also counter-balance the negativity towards Hsieh with my own experience. From 2015-2017, I worked at Edmunds.com which was (to put it lightly) a bit obsessed with "Delivering Happiness" and Zappos' culture. So much so, that the leadership team visited Vegas to get a tour of the Zappos HQ (this was before I joined). But Edmunds based their entire cultural approach, including hiring, interviewing, and onboarding on Zappos.
The Edmunds onboarding experience has been by far the best out of any company I worked at. Sure, it was silly games and scavenger hunts that didn't really have anything to do with "work," but I look back at the entire experience with a lot of nostalgia. I loved the onboarding so much, I've been contemplating doing a startup that literally just focuses on improving cultural onborading at companies. It made my first few months at Edmunds not only incredibly productive, but also intellectually and socially stimulating.
And they were doing something right. Over there, I had the honor of working with one of the best managers I ever had (he's now at Amazon), and with one of the best software architects I've ever worked with (he's now at Facebook). My team was made up of motivated, smart, folks from all walks of life (recent grads to data science PhD's in their 50s). I still keep in touch with my old team even though we're spread all over these days: doing our own startups, at Facebook, Uber, Amazon, and beyond.
I have the utmost respect for the cultural revolution that entrepreneurs like Tony Hsieh brought to the fore. People that call it a "cult" are missing the point. It's no more a cult than cheering for your school mascot or being in a club. We seem to forget that people are inherently social and need a sense of belonging.
A few years back, I went to their office tour in Vegas, and I've read Hsieh's book, which doesn't cover much of the post-Amazon years.
It seemed pretty clear to me that Zappos was in decline as an independent entity. Fulfillment was already gone. They were in the middle of removing their product photography team. A section of their office was being used as a community co-working space. There were fun quirky office areas but completely devoid of employees. It wasn't clear if Zappos did anything beyond customer service. I don't know if Tony Hsieh could really call himself a CEO anymore under Amazon's thumb.
Zappos was really proud of their long weird onboarding process. They stress over and over their core values. You write and perform a skit about those core values to the company when you "graduate". At the end, if you don't think Zappos is the place for you, they'll pay you a few thousand dollars to leave. I'd imagine that people who aren't completely in love with the company would never go through this process.
Worked with someone that had bought into the cult of Zappos as an HR/Head of People/Whatever the fuck you want to call it these days.
They were gross. The happiness culture is toxic and if you don't buy into it and aren't projecting rays of sunshine 24/7 from all your orifices you're expected to just fuck off.
One of my favorite (and definitely my Mom’s favorite) parts of Zappos is the hand written note that they send with each pair of shoes.
My mom is an avid walker and she loves comfortable shoes so most birthdays and Christmas’s I send her a pair from Zappos.
The hand written note is such a nice touch for such a big business (especially from a parent company like Amazon- the anti-personalizer) that it makes the gift of Zappos (or even the gift card) something fun to give and fun to receive.
Tony, keep on experimenting! It makes it more fun for the customer.
This sounds like a forced exit. For the founder and CEO and basic Messiah of the company to leave with 0 days notice, and for the incoming CEO to be sending the notice, sounds like someone got their email terminated and walked off the property. Even CEOs who are fired for company performance sometimes get to send their own farewell letter: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2013/mar/01/grou...
Does anyone know how his "The Downtown Project" (aka Vegas revitalization) is going?
I had no idea they were a 20 year old company.
I assumed they were a fresh startup around 2015 or so when they started getting a lot of media traction.
Maybe I was just out of the loop, but that's really surprising to me.
"In 2009, Zappos was acquired by online behemoth Amazon.com Inc. for 10 million shares of Amazon stock"
Stock went up 30 times since then. I wonder many shares he kept.
I had the chance to meet Tony in 2009, ~early July. Looking at Wikipedia now, I guess it was a month before they sold to Amazon. I was part of the first "Zappos Insights" class. I was able to find my application, and posted it on Twitter, sorry anyone who sees it who was involved: https://twitter.com/CameronBanga/status/1298465073430700033
No idea what people think of Zappos, their culture, and Tony in 2020. I was able to interact with him I guess via email and in person from ~2008-2010?
Every interaction I had with Tony, and every story I heard, he was just Tony. Personally happy for him, as 21 years at the head of any clothing/fashion/design company has to be tough.
I first heard (about) him on a Podcast called How I built this. It's a good listen. https://www.npr.org/2017/01/23/510576153/zappos-tony-hsieh
Zappos is an interesting experiment but I’m not sure what to make if it overall. It isn’t ubiquitous or commonly known to everyday consumers. The model of shopping online for something that requires personal fit just doesn’t make sense to most people.
Hsieh has also made some strange choices internally like to reorganize using “circles” (holocracy). I’ve heard secondhand that this experimental approach to management didn’t work out in practice, that a lot of talent left, and that the circles ended up having organically emergent managers anyways.
He was interviewed a few years ago on "How I built this".
So 'holocracy' is a failure, alongside with Hsieh's fever dream of revitalizing downtown Las Vegas. Holocray was always a creepy idea to me.
When he came out with his book, I read it cover-to-cover in a night and so enjoyed it for the engaging narrative. I wish him all the best.
Thanks for the shoes. They served me well.
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I've always heard mixed feelings about Tony. I wonder if there are any HNers who have a perspective they'd like to share.
Today I learned this existed.
I grew up in Brazil, where customer service was bad-to-terrible in 90% of the companies I had to deal with.
When I moved to Australia, I thought it would be a lot better. It wasn't much different.
When I joined a wine subscription startup in 2016 as the technical co-founder, I wasn't just building the recommendation engine. I was also helping to pack the boxes at the warehouse.
We all got fascinated with Tony's book "Delivering Happiness" [1]. As I packed boxes, I listened to the audiobook several times. Then I read it later on again.
I'm still surprised how bad customer service is in most companies. Don't talk to me like a robot. Just pretend you're messaging a co-worker in plain-friendly-English. And be genuinely interested in solving my issues knowing that you will have higher LTV in the long term if you invest the time and resources to make me happy now.
A few years later and our customers are obsessed not just about the wine we recommend. They also write love letters about how happy they are to deal with our customer service team. I'm still writing code on the other side, but it makes my day to see that part of the business working so well.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6828896-delivering-happi...