By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
He was the original disruptor, a man who disliked formal corporate culture so much that this visionary forged his own work model at Zappos, created unorthodox management approaches for employees to enjoy working there and grew his online retail shoe operation based in downtown Las Vegas to the extent it allowed him to financially fuel a $350 million redevelopment initiative called Downtown Project.
Las Vegas is reeling this Saturday morning from news that 46-year-old dot-com innovator Tony Hsieh died Friday from medical complications and injuries linked to a Nov. 18 house fire in New London, Connecticut. Much of downtown Las Vegas has Hsieh’s redevelopment fingerprints on it because not only did he buy old Las Vegas City Hall to convert it into his Zappos headquarters, his Downtown Project financed many new businesses with Container Park serving as Hsieh’s business incubator.
Tech entrepreneur Hsieh just retired from his Zappos shoe and apparel online retail operation in August after 20 years of overseeing the retail shoe and clothing call center. Zappos issued this statement:
“It is with very heavy hearts that we are sharing some very sad news with all of you, as we have learned that Tony passed away earlier today (11-27-20). Though Tony retired this past summer, we know what a tremendous impact he has had on both Zappos and on Zapponians, as he has dedicated the past 20 years focusing on the success of both the company and our employees.
“The world has lost a tremendous visionary and an incredible human being. We recognize that not only have we lost our inspiring former leader, but many of you have also lost a mentor and a friend. Tony played such an integral part in helping create the thriving Zappos business we have today, along with his passion for helping to support and drive our company culture.
“Tony’s kindness and generosity touched the lives of everyone around him, as his mantra was of ‘Delivering Happiness’ to others. His spirit will forever be a part of Zappos, and we will continue to honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he was so passionate about.”
Hsieh was not an obvious sports fan like fellow downtown business developer Derek Stevens, who just opened the new Circa hotel-casino a 15-minute walk from the Zappos headquarters on Las Vegas Boulevard. Hsieh loved the arts and was the pivotal funding source behind launching the Life Is Beautiful multi-day music, arts, food and culture festival in downtown Las Vegas. Hsieh stressed innovation, entrepreneurship and co-learning.
Supporting this City and the people within it, Tony Hsieh changed the landscape of Downtown Las Vegas. Our community will miss him greatly, rest in peace. I will miss him greatly. — Derek Stevens
With Hsieh at the helm, Zappos became a major sponsor of the Las Vegas Lights professional soccer team, with the company’s name on the front of the team’s colorful jerseys. Like Zappos, the Lights were based in downtown, playing at Cashman Field. Zappos and the Lights had a three-year sponsorship deal.
Lights founder/owner Brett Lashbrook said today was a sad day.
“Lights FC will always be thankful to Tony – and his wonderful vision for downtown Las Vegas and support of our club from day one. He repeatedly provided demonstrative actions to improve downtown Las Vegas which helped pave the way for the resurgence we see today. Today is a sad day for both the Zappos and Lights FC family,” Lashbrook told LVSportsBiz.com Saturday.
Hsieh’s Zappos even made a donation to the Vegas Golden Knights Foundation and became the presenting sponsor of the Golden Knights sled hockey team. Zappos paid for the equipment, travel and ice time for the VGK sled hockey team, which has disabled players who enjoy playing hockey against other NHL team sled hockey squads.
VGK president Kerry Bubolz found out about Zappos’ business culture when he showed up two years ago at a Zappos all-hands-on-deck quarterly employee gathering that is also a tie-free zone. If you show up at a Zappos meeting wearing a business tie, you’re going to learn the Zapponians are going to have some fun cutting that tie, Bubolz learned.
An Illinois native, Hsieh grew up in the San Francisco area and earned a computer science degree from Harvard in 1995 before working for Oracle. He worked there only five months before he co-founded an advertising network called LinkExchange. He grew the business and sold LinkExchange to Microsoft for $265 million in 1998. Two years later, he co-founded Zappos in 2000.
In 2009, Hsieh sold Zappos to Amazon for $1.2 billion and he stayed as CEO. Hsieh moved the Zappos retail call center from Henderson to downtown Las Vegas and in January 2012 founded Downtown Project, the umbrella downtown redevelopment initiative that financed everything from health, arts, food and education to clothing production, transportation and its signature Container Park.
Hsieh also bought up properties in the Fremont East section of downtown. Downtown Project had a robust PR staff that heralded new businesses seeded with Hsieh’s cash, but it was not free money. Entrepreneurs were expected to make payments in return for the financing.
While many company quarterly meetings can be boring sessions with a set script, Hsieh enjoyed infusing fun, humor and laughs into his all-hands-on-deck quarterly employee gatherings that were open to the public. Hsieh’s workers were not necessarily good fits in the stuffy corporate world, but they were suited for Zappos, where the employees’ work stations had a more creative, college feel to them and workers were given free snacks and refreshments.
I will remember him most for his quirkiness. No one loved a bizarre conversation more than Tony. He celebrated weirdness and insisted on treating everyone with kindness. He was constantly seeking the next adventure and he hosted countless people on those journeys with him. He fueled himself by connecting other people and many of my friendships and business partners today are the direct result of a Tony “collision”. The travels and bus trips and late night conversations were always part whirlwind and part learning experiments. He was generous to everyone he came in contact with and went out of his way to welcome you into his world. — Ryan Doherty on LinkedIn
Employees had to not only have the skills for the retail online business. Zappos workers also needed to buy in to the against-the-grain business style that Hsieh created, nurtured and even celebrated. His work philosophy didn’t win over every employee, as some did take buyouts when he instituted a new manager-free, self-management policy called “Holacracy” five years ago. But generally speaking, it was one of Hsieh’s most impressive skills — his ability to make working at a call center a fun experience for many employees while stressing customer service. When he started Zappos, originally shoesite.com, it generated $1.6 million in sales in 2000 before the retail shoe site exploded to more than $1 billion in sales by 2009 when Amazon bought the e-commerce operation for more than $1 billion and kept Hsieh as CEO.
“Your curiosity, vision, and relentless focus on customers leave an indelible mark,” Jeff Bezos wrote on social media. “The world lost you way too soon.”
At his quarterly business meetings sometimes held at the Cashman Center in downtown, Hsieh invited speakers who chatted about various business styles and ended the sessions with a happy hour-style party after the meetings.
Hsieh loved serendipitous collisions and lived in downtown Las Vegas in diverse homes from his unit in the Ogden to his wooden trailer near the Bunkhouse bar and live music business. If you look at the aerial outline of the Downtown Project property holdings, it has the shape of a llama — Hsieh’s favorite animal. The map was in Hsieh’s former Ogden unit.
Hsieh’s Zappos even supported bicycling in ways most businesses do not. For example, Zappos in 2014 signed a deal to be the title sponsor of the Zappos.com Viva Bike Vegas bicycle ride in September 2014 and hosted a bicycle memorial artwork in front of its downtown building to bring attention the bicyclists killed by motorists in metro Las Vegas.
Several Downtown Las Vegas properties and the Fremont Street Experience will honor Hsieh Saturday at 8 p.m. on the Viva Vision digital display at Fremont Street Experience. The show will include songs from Jewel, who was one of Hsieh’s favorite artists. Additionally, the marquees at Downtown Las Vegas properties owned by Stevens — Circa, The D Las Vegas and Golden Gate — will feature messages dedicated to Hsieh.
Hsieh’s death drew words of sympathy from elected leaders like Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak.