A recent Inc Magazine article describes Tony Hseih (pronounced Shay) as “prone to wild thought experiments” and “especially susceptible to huge and unreasonable ideas.” In other words, a visionary.
After selling Zappos to 
Amazon for $1.2 billion a couple of years back, Hseih is now turning that visionary thinking and funneling huge portions of his profit from the sale of Zappos toward revitalization efforts in downtown Las Vegas. The Vegas metropolitan area has sky-high unemployment and one of the most depressed housing markets in the country.
Why is he doing it? Here's a quote from the Inc. article that I love:
"I care more about making sure that we have the right community than I care about return on investment. I'd rather have something that I can help curate and that people will actually care about."
Later in the article by Max Chafkin, while gazing at his wall of Post-it notes, Hsieh says this:
"I guess what I'm most excited about is integrating it and bringing people together and making it easy for people who are passionate about it to make it happen. I'd rather just help arrange the different pieces together."
THAT excites me! It's the way I like to work with my clients, helping them to arrange the pieces and bring their passions together for a whole new business.
And it's also aligned with how I look at my own life and business. I care far more about putting the ideas out there and creating community and opportunity than I do about pure profit. Most importantly, I believe this approach is the only way we will make true progress on the large-scale issues we will need to address together as we move forward.
Learn more about modern-day visionary Tony Hseih:
- About Zappos founder Tony Hseih
- Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
- Read Dawn's review of Delivering Happiness published in Blissness Splash (an Artella publication)
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Great Post Dawn!
This is refreshing to see, especially coming from someone who in all likely hood will never have to struggle financially the rest of his life. I wish the 1% would care as much about community, want to help and curate for the good of the community instead of only thinking about their physical returns and investments.
Keep up the great blog posts, and thank you for sharing!!!