I think maybe 50 years ago people and businesses felt like they had to choose between maximizing profits and making customers happy or making employees happy, and I think we're actually living in a special time where everyone's hyperconnected, whether through Twitter or blogs and so on. Information travels so quickly that it's actually possible to have it all, to make customers happy through customer service, to make employees happy through strong company cultures, and have that actually drive growth and profits.

Our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff, like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand or empowering passionate employees and customers, will happen on its own.

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

Don't be cocky. Don't be flashy. There's always someone better than you.

Every employee can affect your company's brand, not just the front-line employees that are paid to talk to your customers.

Sorry, investing was pretty boring and I really missed being part of building something. I felt like I was always standing on the sidelines, so Zappos... really liked the people there and got involved full-time and I've been full-time ever since.

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.