In Memory of Tony Hsieh

In Memory of Tony Hsieh

I was saddened to hear the recent news of Tony Hsieh’s untimely death at 46. Hsieh (pronounced ‘shay’) founded Zappos. I never met him, but I heard him give the keynote address at a Konica Minolta dealer meeting in Las Vegas in January of 2012. It would have been a great keynote no matter what. He was talking about his business philosophy, one that he had written about in his 2010 book, Delivering Happiness. What was remarkable about that particular keynote was that Hsieh showed up to deliver it at all. The news had just broken that Zappos had been the victim of a serious data breach. He could easily have made an excuse to Konica Minolta and backed out. But he didn’t. He did the keynote between damage-control sessions with his employees, a press conference, and presumably stern calls from Amazon, the company that purchased Zappos in 2009.

Hsieh was poised and composed during his keynote presentation and even answered a question about how Zappos would address the breach. He said that it was basically ‘all hands on deck’ at Zappos and that they would work through the massive effort of updating all members’ passwords (luckily, no credit card data had been stolen).

That simple act of showing up and doing what was expected of him at an extremely challenging time spoke volumes to me. His calm demeanor was a symbol of his leadership, and underscored that even in hard times, you can work through the difficult issues.

In light of his passing I am listing here his Top Ten list from that 2012 keynote. I think that they are a suitable way of honoring his memory. Rest in peace, Tony.

  1. Deliver WOW through service
  2. Embrace and drive change
  3. Create fun and a little weirdness
  4. Be adventurous, creative, and open minded
  5. Pursue growth and learning
  6. Build open and honest relationships with communication
  7. Build a positive team and family spirit
  8. Do more with less
  9. Be passionate and determined
  10. Be humble

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