Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

Workplace morale has been sacrificed to the pressure cooker at most companies trying to bounce back from the recession. But at the helm of the iconoclastic company Zappos, CEO Tony Hsieh has sustained enormous growth and created one of today’s most admired corporate cultures by going against the grain of today’s cutthroat tactics. He sums up his more humane yet effective approach to business with one simple word: “happiness.”  By creating a radically different corporate culture committed to making employees and customers happier, Tony helped the company debut as the highest-ranking newcomer in Fortune magazine’s annual “Best Companies to Work For” list in 2009.

Listen to this podcast to hear how he did this and more.

About the Author: Tony Hsieh is one of today’s most successful and visionary business leaders. In 1996, he co-founded a Website development side business from his apartment; two and a half years later, he sold LinkExchange to Microsoft for $265 million. In November 1999, he joined a struggling online shoe store as an adviser and investor. Named CEO in 2000, he helped Zappos grow to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually, while continually strengthening its customer service and culture. In October 2009, Zappos was acquired by Amazon in a deal then valued at $1.2 billion. In January 2010, Zappos was ranked number 15 on Fortune magazine’s annual “Best Companies to Work For” list. A first-generation Taiwanese-American, Hsieh was born in Illinois, grew up in Marin County, California, and graduated from Harvard with a BA in Computer Science. He currently lives in Las Vegas and sort of has a cat.

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