Goodbye Tony Hsieh
6th December, 2020
I was devastated when I heard about the death of Tony Hsieh. For those of you who don’t know Tony, I can briefly say that he was an American from Taiwanese origin, graduated from Harvard University, a pioneer in e-commerce, and the CEO of Zappos: a hugely successful company that sells over a thousand brands of shoes online with free shipping both ways. Tony was a successful entrepreneur who sold his first online ad company to Microsoft for $260 Million and Zappos to Amazon for more than $1 Billion. After selling Zappos to Amazon, he remained as the company’s CEO based on Amazon’s request. But Tony’s ingenuity wasn’t only in his obvious entrepreneurship; it was his leadership style that created a fun and happy environment at work. While Tony had a quiet personality, he was passionate about helping people find happiness and purpose in life. In brief, he wanted to deliver happiness and change the world for the better. Sadly, Tony Hsieh died at the age of 46 on the 18th of November 2020 not from COVID-19, but from injuries he sustained in a house fire in New London, USA. I read Tony’s book “Delivering Happiness” and I was greatly influenced by his passion and drive. The sad part is that Tony left too soon as I firmly believe he had bigger plans. But his legacy lives on as he showed us that kindness and happiness can exist in the ferocious business world we live in. Goodbye Tony. You showed the world that shifting towards a deeper purpose and following your passion can lead to both profits and happiness. I promise you that I will focus more on making people around me happy as this will increase my happiness too. Rest in peace.
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