Tony Hsieh Quotes

A great brand is a story that never stops unfolding.

Stop chasing the money and start chasing the passion.

Inspire other communities and cities to reinvent themselves.

If you're focused on the friendship as its own reward, serendipitous stuff just happens. I know that sounds weird, but I can tell you for our 12 years of existence, it's actually how a lot of stuff happens.

I view my role more as trying to set up an environment where the personalities, creativity and individuality of all the different employees come out and can shine.

I think the most important thing is just if you hire people whose personal values match the corporate core values - and not just the stated ones.

Success is getting to a point where you'd be truly OK with losing everything you have and starting over.

I made a list of the happiest periods of my life & I realized that none of them involve money.

Things are never as bad or as good as they seem.

SEO expertise is a core need for today's online businesses.

Hopefully 10 years from now people won't even realize we started out selling shoes. They will just think about Zappos as a place to get the best customer service.

Twitter is like hugging. Just because it's hard to measure the return on investment doesn't mean there isn't value there.

The best businesses are really ones that can combine passion, profits, and purpose.

Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you.

...the best leaders are servant leaders - they serve those they lead.

The ultimate definition of success is: you could lose everything that you have and truly be okay with it. Your happiness isn't based on external factors.

Our customers call and e-mail us to say that's how it feels when a Zappos box arrives. And that's how we view this company.

I think everyone should get a little exposure to computer science because it really forces you to think in a slightly different way, and it's a skill that you can apply in life in general, whether you end up in computer science or not.

Zappos is a customer service company that just happens to sell shoes.

For me, my role is about unleashing what people already have inside them that is maybe suppressed in most work environments.

Instead of getting an iPad, I now use my iPhone with a giant magnifying glass attached to my face.

If there are too many competitors, even if you're the best it's a lot harder to win.

What’s the best way to build a brand for the long term? In a word: culture.

Help inspire people to realize they are capable of changing the world.

Help shape the stories that people are telling about you.

The problem when someone feels burned out, bored, unchallenged, or stifled by their work is not the job itself but rather the environment and playground rules given to them to do the job at hand.

Money alone isn't enough to bring happiness... happiness is when you're actually truly ok with losing everything you have.

Zappos uses call center technology to track average call time per agent. But the goal isn't to reduce this average - it's more important that we make an emotional connection with the customer, rather than just quickly getting them off the phone.

I believe that there's something interesting about anyone and everyone - you just have to figure out what that something is.

Usually my 'a-ha' moments are when I'm not trying to think of how to solve a particular problem.

Business is all about learning to balance the short-term, medium-term and long-term and I think it's when things are going well it covers up a lot of mistakes and bad decisions because you're growing so quickly.

I think a much better use of time and resources is to really focus on your existing users or customers and figure out what changes can you make in the Web site, the service, the product, whatever, to get them to come back more often to generate that repeat business and once you kind of figure out that formula, then when you get new customers the whole thing just kind of grows exponentially.

The biggest (and hardest) lesson I've learned in life is that the external world is just a reflection of the world within.

Your personal core values define who you are, and a company's core values ultimately define the company's character and brand. For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.

Never accept or be too comfortable with the status quo, because the companies that get into trouble are historically the ones that aren't able to adapt to change and respond quickly enough.

If you're worried about putting food on the table or putting a roof over your head, that stress is definitely will contribute to unhappiness, but once you have your basic needs met then incremental money.

We asked ourselves what we wanted this company to stand for. We didn't want to just sell shoes. I wasn't even into shoes - but I was passionate about customer service.

The brand is just a lagging indicator of a company's culture.

Have fun. The game is a lot more enjoyable when you're trying to do more than just make money.

If someone is self-aware, then they can always continue to grow. If they're not self-aware, I think it's harder for them to evolve or adapt beyond who they already are.

To WOW, you must differentiate yourself, which means do something a little unconventional and innovative. You must do something that’s above and beyond what’s expected. And whatever you do must have an emotional impact on the receiver.

Whatever you're thinking, think bigger.

Most innovation comes from outside your industry applied to your own

I'd rather spend money on things that improve the customer experience than on marketing.

Without conscious and deliberate effort, inertia always wins

Customer service shouldn't just be A department, it should be the entire company.

Our society in general has is more money equals more happiness and all the research has shown that that's true up to a point, up until you can get your basic needs met, but then really there is other stuff that has a much bigger impact on your happiness besides just money.

At Zappos, one of our core values is to Pursue Growth and Learning. In the lobby of our headquarters, we have a giving library where we give away books to employees and visitors that we think will help with their growth, both personally and professionally. I can't wait to add The Compound Effect to our library.