If you’ve visited Las Vegas in the past 15 years, you may have come across Tony Hsieh. His influence was everywhere in the city – nowhere more evident than in his beloved inner city.
The former Zappos CEO was as calm and humble as he was brilliant. A regular at many local establishments – many that he has personally invested in – if you passed him by, you might not have known that he is the billionaire, philanthropist, and inspirational man who single-handedly changes the face of customer service forever Has.
However, if you had lingered a bit, you would have gotten a sense of the indescribable presence he carried. Behind his eccentricities – the ubiquitous Fernet-Branca, the pet alpakas, his notoriously low annual salary in Zappos, his home in his own tiny trailer park – that sense of something “bigger” has pulled his tribe together.
My first encounter with Tony was a story similar to many others, with an email direct from him inviting me to come to Vegas. He was a fan of Evernote and used it religiously, he said. He admired my work as head of global support and had seen me grow the company. He asked if I’d like to see how they did at Zappos at some point. I accepted his offer and was overwhelmed.
There he explained how they treated every customer equally – no matter how much they spent on the website – and spoke with pride of a multi-hour support call to make sure someone got the right shoes for an important event. He also told me how they were moving from Henderson to a new location in downtown Las Vegas. He loved the view.
Years later, when I was ready to leave Evernote, he funded my ROCeteer company to coach and mentor his burgeoning corporate portfolio. Many of them were first-time entrepreneurs and needed people they could trust to provide help when needed. Since startups don’t usually have the money to hire consultants and coaches, he essentially created an incubator through us. Working with his Downtown project allowed us to gain a foothold in the city when it needed a boost.
He never really belonged in a boardroom and was an inspirational figure to the outsiders, the outcasts, the dreamers – a spiritual successor to Steve Jobs. He created tension at Zappos by converting the company to a flat organizational structure called “Holacracy” and offering employees a buyout if they did not want to go on board.
Over the years I’ve come to know many of the entrepreneurs Tony has invested in. Often times, Tony only provided seed capital through a chance meeting based on his gut instinct. This is a story you would hear over and over again – he invested in people, not companies.
And what excited him most was innovative experiences – he invested in music festivals, bands, bars and restaurants, artists and new technology – all with the aim of creating a better world in which to live.
This calm man really wanted us all to be happy.
And perhaps this is most evident in his bestseller and the company that started under his name Delivering Happiness. The general message is that if you live a life of passion and determination, and make sure you also define and adhere to the core values for your business, you will have a full life and a successful business.
While many of the companies he invested in have long since closed, he always knew it would. It wasn’t the point – he was building a tribe.
All over the world people write about their encounters with Tony, be it by email, a night over the fire in his trailer park or just by listening to his self-told audio book.
His legacy is assured. He changed the world for the better forever.
And isn’t that the point of being an entrepreneur?
The opinions expressed by Inc.com columnists here are their own, not those of Inc.com.
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