The Life and Accomplishments of Tony Hsieh

1043 Words3 Pages

Introduction

Zappos is an online shoe and clothing store. The idea of an online shoe store originally came from Nick Swinmurn in the year 1999. He then pitched the idea to Alfred Lin and Zappos’ current CEO Tony Hsieh. Zappos quick rise to success is mostly attributed to their ten core values. These values vary from creating fun and weirdness to being humble. However, the root of this company’s success lies only on one important thing: their regard for customer service. They value the quality time spent with customers over the phone rather than the quantity of customers.

Currently, Zappos’ headquarters is located in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2009, the company was acquired by Amazon.

Biography

Tony Hsieh is a full-blooded Taiwanese but was born in the state of Illinois. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in computer science. During his years in Harvard as a Quincy House resident, he created the Quincy House Grille which sells pizza to the people in his dorm. He later on entered the corporate world but found no interest in it; thus, starting up his own venture. On 2007, Hsieh received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Projects

Aside from being CEO of Zappos.com, he is also the co-founder of Link Exchange and the general manager of Venture Frogs, LLC, which is an investment firm that invested in startups like Ask Jeeves, and of course, Zappos.com.

In 2010, he authored a book called Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, wherein he details the various business lessons he’s learned throughout his life starting from his lemonade stand and pizza business leading up to Link Exchange, Zappos, and the rest. He shows that using happiness as a framework can garner you p...

... middle of paper ...

...istic of a creative person, here comes the book that he himself wrote, Delivering Happiness. Mr. Hsieh wrote it as an adviser and an investor but his becoming an adviser really allowed me to see more of his creative side. The creativity in a trying to turn something very simple into something that will help the people around him sense. He didn’t exactly have artworks but this is the way that someone in the business area may exemplify one’s creativity.

Works Cited

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/fashion/10HSEIH.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1997/09/7265#ixzz14pIMv3cM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ondi-timoner/startup-city-tony-hsiehs-_b_4213283.html

http://downtownproject.com/

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh

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