We talked briefly about the founder of Zappos briefly in class today, and this is a really interesting interview with him. He doesn’t really see himself fitting into the typical entrepreneur mold. At the end of the interview, they mention that he lives in an Airstream mobile home and has a mohawk, but he also talks a bit more extensively about his vision of Zappos as a top quality service provider.
Wow! Fantastic interview. It is shocking to learn that Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh only owns 3 pairs of shoes! It’s fascinating to hear that he’s not passionate about the product they sell — shoes — but that he is instead passionate about customer service. The narrator explains that Zappos believes it operates not as a shoe company, but rather as a customer service company. It is also interesting that Hsieh decided to invest in Zappos only after learning more information about the footwear industry. He was originally not interested in investing, but after hearing more figures about the growth of the footwear industry, he decided to get involved. I think that data has a big impact on whether entrepreneurs decide that a particular risk is worth it.
It’s also interesting to hear that Hsieh’s prior company that he founded, LinkExchange, went from being a company run by only five people to a company where he did not know everyone. With the changing culture, he became less and less excited to go to his own company, which prompted him to sell and “move on to the next thing” — Zappos.
Additionally, the discussion of him being introverted is interesting in light of class discussions. Because he is introverted, he says that he tries to surround himself with more extroverted people at work. Hsieh also appreciates uniqueness, which explains why Zappos asks potential employees to rate how weird they are on their applications.