Tony Hsieh

Hsieh sold his first company to Microsoft at twenty-four, then built Zappos into a shoe retailer famous for letting phone calls run as long as the customer wanted, and sold it to Amazon for more than a billion dollars. Delivering Happiness argues that culture and customer service are one investment rather than two. He put a hundred million dollars into downtown Las Vegas trying to build a city district by hand, with mixed results. Reporting after his death described heavy ketamine and nitrous oxide use and an entourage paid to stay close. He died in a shed fire in 2020, aged forty-six.