17 ms·

Tony Hsieh has died

1598 points by MrMcDowall 6y ago

spoonalious 6y ago
Died from a house fire. Terrible way to go. Source: https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tony-hsieh-key-figure-in-downtown-las-vegas-revitalization-dies-at-age-46-2193165/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tony-hsieh-key-figure...
- xiphias2 6y ago
  ,,due to complications from injuries sustained in a house fire.” Wow, I don't want to think about how painful it must have been :(
- kozak 6y ago
  It's 2020, people talk a lot about self-driving cars and travelling to Mars, and yet such terrible preventable tragedies still happen even in successfull countries to successful people. So sad.
  - Ensorceled 6y ago
    In 2020, our firefighters here in Toronto are bored. They go to car accident scenes to simply block traffic, they show up at 911 calls to talk with people and see if they can offer aid while waiting for paramedics/ambulance, two or three trucks will show up for our small walkups occasional false alarms. My brother and nephew are cops, they end up shooing the fire trucks away from minor accidents because they clog up traffic with their trucks and multiple firefighters just hanging around. The reasons for this boredom are fantastic news: smoke detectors, safer vehicles, mandatory sprinklers even in small complexes, mandatory fire escapes, laws around flamability of furniture/clothing/bedding, reduced smoking, better awareness of fire hazards. Yes, these tragedies still happen, but don't make it sound like we're not doing anything because right now one of our biggest issues is too many fireman for the drastically reduced number of vehicle and house fires we have: we paid for all of these safety programs and we still pay for the fireman they should have replaced.
    - chrischattin 6y ago
      The reason firefighters are often the first on the scene of an accident or 911 call is because fire stations are spread throughout the community. They’re the closest first responders and can get there faster. Not because they’re bored and have nothing better to do.
      - mindslight 6y ago
        They probably do have nothing better to do, and that's a good thing. Basic queuing theory says that a system needs excess capacity in order to be able to respond to peak demand - you can't just tell a second fire to wait for an hour while fighting the first one. If three engines respond to a fender bender and a more pressing call comes in, they will leave and go there. I had an immediate family member in the hospital when that "nurses playing cards" ignorance was going around. I wish nurses did have some time to play cards, because it would mean they'd answer when they were needed, rather than being busy with other patients for an hour and then forgetting. We truly are optimizing ourselves to death.
        qzw 6y ago
        Another recent example was when the pandemic team of the National Security Council was disbanded, and the reason given was that the president doesn’t like to have people “just sitting around.”
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    A good reminder to have fire alarms installed in every part of your house. We have one in each bedroom, each common area, and the hallways too. They are ten year alarms, so if we still live here in ten years, when one of them starts going bad we will just replace them all at once. Very simple step you can take to reduce your risk without much effort.
- frays 6y ago
  Thank you for sharing. 5 hours ago all news reports were unable to share the cause behind his death. Very sad news. Downtown Las Vegas is the place it is today thanks to him. Rest in peace.
- tinyhouse 6y ago
  House fire while he was with family without any details. I must say it doesn't sound good. I'm sure the police will investigate. Big loss.
  - astura 6y ago
    The fire is “still an active investigation.” https://www.courant.com/breaking-news/hc-br-tony-hsieh-zappos-dies-connecticut-house-fire-20201128-ovfgme4hgbfzpnwx43frdvui4m-story.html https://www.courant.com/breaking-news/hc-br-tony-hsieh-zappo...
g42gregory 6y ago
I didn’t know him personally, but I always thought he was a great guy. What a loss for the community. RIP Tony, you will be dearly missed.
stevenj 6y ago
Las Vegas Review-Journal says he “died Friday after being injured in a house fire.” https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tony-hsieh-key-figure-in-downtown-las-vegas-revitalization-dies-at-age-46-2193165/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tony-hsieh-key-figure...
- sebmellen 6y ago
  > due to complications from injuries sustained in a house fire Sounds like a very painful way to go... I wonder if we'll get any more details in the coming days. EDIT: He passed away in Connecticut, see child comments.
  - gkoberger 6y ago
    It happened in Connecticut.
    - sebmellen 6y ago
      Do you have a source?
      - gkoberger 6y ago
        "The entrepreneur passed surrounded by his family in Connecticut, the organization said to the station in a separate statement." https://heavy.com/news/tony-hsieh-dead/ https://heavy.com/news/tony-hsieh-dead/
        sebmellen 6y ago
        Thanks. Sorry about that.
      - pvg 6y ago
        Could you give this a rest? It's ghoulish and unnecessary.
santiagobasulto 6y ago
Oh wow, this is so sad. An incredible entrepreneur. I met him once in Vegas and struck me as such a simple guy, yet, so bright. The family hasn’t reveal any details, he was surely very young.
anigbrowl 6y ago
What a shame. He was the rare combination of great businessman and great guy.
- deleted 6y ago
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dvt 6y ago
This is crazy, he's a veritable legend (and so young). RIP. My condolences go out to his friends and family. Maybe related to his stepping down 3 months ago[1]? My comment from that 3-month-old thread, regarding Hsieh: From 2015-2017, I worked at Edmunds.com which was (to put it lightly) a bit obsessed with "Delivering Happiness" and Zappos' culture. So much so, that the leadership team visited Vegas to get a tour of the Zappos HQ (this was before I joined). But Edmunds based their entire cultural approach, including hiring, interviewing, and onboarding on Zappos. The Edmunds onboarding experience has been by far the best out of any company I worked at. Sure, it was silly games and scavenger hunts that didn't really have anything to do with "work," but I look back at the entire experience with a lot of nostalgia. I loved the onboarding so much, I've been contemplating doing a startup that literally just focuses on improving cultural onborading at companies. It made my first few months at Edmunds not only incredibly productive, but also intellectually and socially stimulating. And they were doing something right. Over there, I had the honor of working with one of the best managers I ever had (he's now at Amazon), and with one of the best software architects I've ever worked with (he's now at Facebook). My team was made up of motivated, smart, folks from all walks of life (recent grads to data science PhD's in their 50s). I still keep in touch with my old team even though we're spread all over these days: doing our own startups, at Facebook, Uber, Amazon, and beyond. I have the utmost respect for the cultural revolution that entrepreneurs like Tony Hsieh brought to the fore. People that call it a "cult" are missing the point. It's no more a cult than cheering for your school mascot or being in a club. We seem to forget that people are inherently social and need a sense of belonging. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24268522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24268522
- dclusin 6y ago
  What sticks out to me in your comment is that in spite of all your nice words about their culture, the nicest/best people you worked with still left for other companies. I suspect it was probably a 20% pay raise that convinced them to.
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colmvp 6y ago
Wow that's a young age to pass away. Really shocking.
sneak 6y ago
Everything I read about this guy had positive things to say. I'm sad I didn't get the chance to meet him. :(
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
When a prominent person in their 40s dies and there's no information released as to the cause of death, it's always a challenge not to make assumptions.
- sneak 6y ago
  I've never understood or been able to relate to the seemingly common intense curiosity as to cause-of-death. Is it related to the desire to fit names we know into a narrative structure that lets us reason about them as entities? It seems like an irrelevant detail, to me personally.
  - MrMcDowall 6y ago
    The desire to know is usually in proportion to the unexpectedness. Perhaps its an evolutionary curiosity (Avoid how they died)?
  - jamesrcole 6y ago
    I think it's likely just part of human nature. When something bad or tragic happens, we want to know what happened and why. It seems plausible that there's an evolutionary explanation for it, to do with learning how to avoid such happenings.
  - onetimemanytime 6y ago
    Human nature. If your child is late from a party, say, the mind wonders and eventually thinks the worst.
  - praveenperera 6y ago
    I think it’s human nature. I have it intensely and not sure why. Maybe a desire to make it make sense in your head somehow?
  - stickfigure 6y ago
    Why is it hard to understand? Two days ago, a cousin (who I only barely know because we connected on facebook, genealogically) informed me that her father - my mother's brother - had passed. My mom's first question was "any particulars?" It's natural to want to know what happened, and it's not shameful to be curious.
Vekz 6y ago
Huge loss. His book Delivering Happiness is a must read for any entrepreneur.
- egfx 6y ago
  Very surprised and sad to hear this. I mentioned this here before but it's worth going for the self narrated audio version as his book is best told in his own voice. It's one of the only few business books and business stories Iv'e read that iv'e found truly inspiring.
hauget 6y ago
46. RIP. "Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” - Seneca
- whoisninja 6y ago
  amen
- rmk 6y ago
  How does one accomplish a semblance of this? Has someone tried and written down what worked (or did not work)? I'd love to read up more on this.
  - murat124 6y ago
    Montaigne did some writing on how to live life.
    - vitili 6y ago
      And Seneca wrote on how to die.
    - deleted 6y ago
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  - garren 6y ago
    Seneca’s Epistles no doubt touches on his views of death through the lens of his Stoic practices. I’ve found Ward Farnsworth’s ‘The Practicing Stoic’ to be an accessible, light, introduction to some of Seneca’s works among others. William Irving, in his book ‘Guide to the Good Life’, labels the technique hinted at in the quote: negative visualization.
  - DarthGhandi 6y ago
    Stoicism comes to mind.
  - 6y ago
desireco42 6y ago
I really loved his work, he was my personal hero. Great thought leader and entrepreneur, but also humble and caring human being. I would often ask myself, what would Tony do, when I have some business challenge or problem. Rest in peace Tony.
cantrevealname 6y ago
Cause of death should be standard information when someone has passed away. If we're not supposed to talk about cause of death, then why should the age be mentioned? Why should the location where the person passed away be said? Why include next of kin -- surely that's completely irrelevant unless you are part of the family? Every single Wikipedia entry for a person who isn't living gives cause of death. If it's so bad to talk about causes, then why isn't Wikipedia being criticized for this? We need to get over this taboo. It is not gossip. It is relevant and important information.
- spoonalious 6y ago
  House fire. https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tony-hsieh-key-figure-in-downtown-las-vegas-revitalization-dies-at-age-46-2193165/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tony-hsieh-key-figure...
- homero 6y ago
  Yeah every announcement keeps it a secret. I hate it. I find it disrespectful to us. We are fans and loved him but no we're not good enough to know why.
  - ponker 6y ago
    You being my “fan” is an asymmetric relationship, not one created by mutual consent. If I want you to have my medical information while I’m alive or after I’m dead I will execute the proper legal document with you to ensure that you have it.
  - rmk 6y ago
    Privacy in grieving is nothing disrespectful. It's having an expectation otherwise that is disrespectful.
  - zentiggr 6y ago
    It's that false sense of entitlement from the fan side that makes me glad I'm nowhere near a celebrity. Disrespectful my ass. Unless you have a close, actually personal connection to him, no, you don't have any right to personal details. Be happy he chose to make anything public, and memorialize as you see fit. Anything more is just selfish.
tyng 6y ago
RIP, his book Delivering Happiness was such an inspiration early in my career
siwatanejo 6y ago
Was holacracy at Zappos his idea or it came from the original founder?
- deleted 6y ago
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- cutah 6y ago
  Holacracy was developed at a software company by Brian Robertson who then took it and started another company, HolacracyOne, to refine and spread it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holacracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holacracy. Tony Hsieh brought it into Zappos which was IMO incredibly influential in increasing the visibility of Holacracy. His passing is very sad.
  - siwatanejo 6y ago
    Thanks for replying instead of downvoting. HN seems to be so toxic these days.
tomhoward 6y ago
This is terribly sad news. I saw Tony speak at YC Startup School in 2009, and his talk stuck with me far more than any other that day. It was exciting and inspiring to hear that you could build a company that was sincere about being good to its employees and customers whilst also being large and commercially successful, and that’s influenced how I’ve gone about trying to build products and businesses ever since. I haven’t managed a big success that accomplishes this yet, but if I ever manage to do it, it will be in no small part thanks to Tony. Thanks and blessings to Tony, and love and strength to his family and friends.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  He spoke at my backwater state university. And then had lunch with a few of us misfits. It gave me a kick in the rear to persevere, despite my perceived station, and in no small way contributed to my later start-up, exit and success. Terrifically sad news.
- Alex3917 6y ago
  He talked to me for quite a while when I met him at one of his book launch events, around the same time. I asked him what he thought of my startup (at the time), and he said he didn’t like it because it relied on being able to keep certain information secret, but that the world was only going toward more and more transparency. He said it was essentially betting against the mega trend. A difficult lesson at the time, but definitely some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten, and something that’s been permanently added to my collection of mental models.
- tomhoward 6y ago
  Here’s the talk: https://youtu.be/n_qon5rAElg https://youtu.be/n_qon5rAElg
adi2907 6y ago
Really sad , I remember when I was setting up Myntra (Indian zappos) customer experience department, Tony and his book were a huge influence and everything that we did was measured up with the zappos way of customer experience. We were one of the few large companies having in house call centre with a five day week and training period of one month to all customer cate executives, plus a mandatory call listening session once a quarter for all senior leadership. There are still some question marks on the ROI of trying to ensure customer delight especially via call center since discounts are such a huge factor in buying shoes and clothes online that even an NPS of 60 will not help if you don’t price lower especially for the value conscious Indian buyer however he definitely brought a new dimension of thinking for a lot of customer care folks
- skrebbel 6y ago
  > There are still some question marks on the ROI How did you solve this in practice?
  - adi2907 6y ago
    Honestly haven't seen a clear answer till now. We had tried multiple ways to link high satisfaction scores with purchase behavior - correlation/regression of NPS with frequency/value of purchase. At least in myntra case, the detractors turned out to be much more valuable than the entire universe, we put it down to customers who love us enough to hate us!
- adi2907 6y ago
  Here's a post on how he influenced companies halfway across the globe https://helloworld-adi.medium.com/delivering-happiness-an-evangelist-of-customer-delight-has-died-cede047167b4 https://helloworld-adi.medium.com/delivering-happiness-an-ev...
- malshe 6y ago
  I don’t find it surprising given that NPS is a terrible metric. Check out this article: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1509/jmkg.71.3.039 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1509/jmkg.71.3.039
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piggybox 6y ago
RIP, can't believe 2020 is this hard
bilbopotter 6y ago
Life is short. Rest in peace.
yftsui 6y ago
This makes me really sad. 10 years ago around Thanksgiving, I got my first Kindle - the keyboard one with an AT&T 3G card, one of the first few books I read was his "Delivering Happiness". Amazon was not the juggernaut it is today, the book stayed in my mind for such a long period was unprecedented. My current Kindle Oasis is much better than my first Kindle, a lot of books have been read as well. However, I might never able to get same experience / inspiration again. RIP.
pal_ankit 6y ago
RIP Tony Hsieh, his philosophy of delighting the customer will live on. It has influenced the culture at my company. Thank you for the wisdom.
rdl 6y ago
The Zappos website now has a Steve Jobs-like tribute on the first page (as well as a banner), which seems appropriate given how amazing Hsieh has been (not merely founding Zappos, but the renewal of DT Las Vegas, plus cool stuff he did back in SF before Zappos -- the 1000 Van Ness place was quirky and awesome.) A really amazing person.
- turntothesky 6y ago
  I knew I remembered him at 1000 Van Ness! I never made it to any of those parties, sadly.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  I first learned about him (and Zappos) from a blog post about the In-N-Out 100x100 burger: http://whatupwilly.blogspot.com/2006/01/in-n-out-100x100.html http://whatupwilly.blogspot.com/2006/01/in-n-out-100x100.htm...
- vaxman 6y ago
  Sorry for your loss, but there were numerous avoidable deaths associated with his VC activity, which is unacceptable. We don’t need anymore developers ruining their lives and kidneys working shoulder to shoulder out of bars equipped with 300Mb WiFi making JS apps that create very little value for society beyond improving the real estate values around the bars themselves, even as they sink deeper into depression, bankruptcy and many times Hsiehicide. One would think after the first death, he would have formed a company that ran around hiring them all (even sending some that were too far gone upstairs back to their parents) to provide some sort of a safety net for his real estate activities, but that was never the priority. The old guard in Vegas that (once upon a time) gave Howard Hughes “the business” too was so thrilled to meet Tony Hsieh —-and his endless new supply of self-destructing laptop tourists. Just like Hughes, Hsieh started the ball rolling and I think last month Downtown Las Vegas opened the first of what will be many all-new resorts in that hell hole of lost souls in many decades.
- deleted 6y ago
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rpcwork 6y ago
I have been through this before. Losing my friends and multiple conflicting accounts about how they might have passed away. In the end, when the dust settles, it always seems ends up being the same two headed-demon that has i have lost many friends to: a silent fight with cancer or speedball. Here’s hoping it’s neither in this case. Another visionary lost. RIP Tony.
- throwbigdata 6y ago
  Ugh. What an inappropriate post.
faramarz 6y ago
He really was a visionary who was able to take action. I’m gutted to hear this news. His gentle demeanour and the awe and wonder I experienced reading his book in one sitting has left a lasting impression on me. Rest In Peace
Beldin 6y ago
> It's no more a cult than cheering for your school mascot To just react to this part: from the perspective of someone growing up in a country without school mascots or inter-school sports competitions, the whole US treatment of school sport teams and their mascots (or, at least, their depiction in media) is rather cultish behaviour.
- dvt 6y ago
  I think this is a bit unfair. I grew up in Europe -- which had no mascots or crazy "American" sports -- and during my childhood, Maradona (who also sadly passed away just last week) was absolutely idolized.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > the whole US treatment of school sport teams and their mascots (or, at least, their depiction in media) is rather cultish behaviour It’s tribal. Or team like. We don’t have a good word for it in English. Being strongly affiliated with a group isn’t a bad thing. It drives innovation in companies and research groups and campaigns. It’s easy to mock. Often, there is some totem Kool-Aid everyone rallies around. This cult-ish mode isn’t antithetical to individualism. We freely choose to associate this way. Unlike cult members, there is an out. And at a certain level we know it isn’t life and death. Though it’s fun to pretend it is, since so infrequently does the modern world let us fight with a team to life or death.
  - vkou 6y ago
    > This cult-ish mode isn’t antithetical to individualism. We freely choose to associate this way. Unlike cult members, there is an out. There is an incredible amount of social pressure to conform, whether it be to cheering for school mascots, or daily pledging your unconditional allegiance to a nation, years before you are old enough to understand what half of those concepts mean.
    - skrebbel 6y ago
      > or daily pledging your unconditional allegiance to a nation Wut, that's some serious 1984 shit, where is this common?
radicalbyte 6y ago
Horrible news. Like many others here his book Delivering Happiness reached me. He was one of the good ones. He won't be forgotten. My condolences to his friends and family.
marcbarbosa 6y ago
In 2008 I was consuming as much entrepenuriship content I could (while building my first company). For obvious reasons I ended up watching a Tony's presentation. He was sharing a lot of stories about Zappos and in the end he talked about their Culture Book (a book entirely written by Zappos employees, with no editing). Immediately after watch it I sent an email directly for him (at the time a CEO of a company that would be sold to Amazon for 1.2B 8 months after) asking if I could have a digital version of the book since I was living in Brazil. For my complete surprise I received a response in less than 1 hour just asking for my address. One day after I received a physical copy of the book, signed by the very own Tony Hsieh. He even invited me to visit Zappos offices if I ever were in Las Vegas! Today I woke up with this sad news. Definitely, a huge loss to the world. I'm sure you'll always be an inspiration to many. Rest in peace Tony Hsieh, A big fan
- marcusziade 6y ago
  Beautiful words. Thanks for sharing.
  - mongodbhater 6y ago
    +1
- jitbit 6y ago
  WHat a great story. Would you mind sharing a link (or just a title) of that video?
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Not GP, but it might have been this one of Tony presenting: at Startup School 2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlop3TwaMJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlop3TwaMJM (poor AV quality, unfortunately) but seems most likely to be this one (which includes the offer for the culture book) Web 2.0 Summit 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ2DmNk3YjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ2DmNk3YjQ (good AV)
  - marcbarbosa 6y ago
nodoodles 6y ago
Where could I learn more about the onboarding practices? Sounds super interesting!
- nodoodles 6y ago
  .. and this was supposed to be a comment on another thread..
aptechglobal 6y ago
Very sad to here the news.. Hope everthing goes fine with Zappos https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tony-hsieh-zappos-luminary-revolutionized-045239863.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tony-hsieh-zappos-luminary-r... https://www.aptechimmigration.com/ https://www.aptechimmigration.com/
estreeper 6y ago
What a tremendous loss to the startup community and to the world. Tony was an innovator not just in terms of product vision, as almost all successful founders have to be, but also in the very idea of what business should be. It is striking to me that this happened the same day as pg's essay on thinking differently from your peers came out, as I can imagine no greater example. As founders we spend time thinking about how our product can change the way things are done, but the way that companies themselves are structured and run is largely formulaic and taken for granted. This makes Tony truly special, as someone who decided to rethink what a company should be and how it should impact people's lives. Even before Zappos he was wildly successful: the first company he co-founded, LinkExchange, sold to Microsoft for $265MM in 1998. In spite of this, he lived in a trailer in Las Vegas. He just didn't think about things in the way most people do. He is, and will continue to be, an example and inspiration to look to for any founder, especially those who have a nagging feeling that the way companies are run should be better. May he rest in peace.
peter_retief 6y ago
This is sad and unexpected, condolences to his loved ones, he will be missed.
xwdv 6y ago
Sobering. If you died at his age, would you be satisfied with your life? I wonder if he was. Entrepreneurs can be hard on themselves.
Froggymano 6y ago
Are the circumstances suspicious or is there nothing to worry about here? So sad and sorry for your loss.
- siliconmountain 6y ago
  No. Better to let law enforcement & the family consider that then speculate on an internet forum without any substantial or additional information.
  - xoxoy 6y ago
    there’s information from this article at the time of the fire: https://www.theday.com/article/20201118/NWS04/201119437 https://www.theday.com/article/20201118/NWS04/201119437 the thing that stood out to me was that it happened at 3:30 in the morning. unless he was sleeping, which it doesn’t say he was, then the time of day is certainly unusual. it also says he was trapped in the home and they had to use force to get to him, which would imply he was locked somewhere in the home.
    - tyingq 6y ago
      What about that article ties it to Hsieh? Other than being a recent house fire in Connecticut? It's certainly not the only one.
      - xoxoy 6y ago
        Because it matches the timeline and confirmed by multiple sources as him? https://twitter.com/vitalvegas/status/1332560969747238912?s=21 https://twitter.com/vitalvegas/status/1332560969747238912?s=...
        tyingq 6y ago
        Multiple un-named sources according to "VitalVegas.com". The vitalvegas.com about page says "One of the most baffling things about us is we’re just one person, Scott Roeben". There's speculation elsewhere about a different house fire in Stratford. And I suspect many other house fires match the timeline.
2bitlobster 6y ago
Makes me so sad, he was as much (if not more) a humanitarian as an entrepreneur. Thankful for his impact.
paulsutter 6y ago
While Zappos was bought for $1.2B, that was in AMZN stock that’s now up 32x since November 2009
- capableweb 6y ago
  Can't get more HN and SV than commenting about AMZN stock price in a reply to a emotional personal story of a recent passing.
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  - Malp 6y ago
    I don't think this kind of behaviour is reflective of HN as a whole- there are very many thoughtful people sharing their thoughts here
    - Retric 6y ago
      HN as a group does things that aren’t representative of most users. So don’t take it the wrong way. A pedantic comment which is downvoted and flagged doesn’t represent you, but the fact someone said it is very much in the flow of HN’s community.
    - capableweb 6y ago
      No, I know for a fact that it's not reflective of HN as a whole. But I did find it funny if not tragic that it's fairly common place. The amount of upvotes my comment received (about 100) seems to confirm I'm not alone in thinking so too.
- cghendrix 6y ago
pknerd 6y ago
Shocking! His book, "Delivering Happiness" is one of the best book about establishing a business and giving awesome customer support. Hope HN management will set a black bar in his honor.
- elisaado 6y ago
  they have!
  - compsciphd 6y ago
    the black bar needs a link (say mouse over) to the story explaining why its there. I had to guess by going to the front page.
- enriquto 6y ago
  > Hope HN management will set a black bar in his honor. How is that "hacker" news?
  - pknerd 6y ago
    Hacker news is NOT about hacking systems.
    - enriquto 6y ago
      Alright, but most news here are about computers or technology. This guy apparently was a shoe commerce middleman. I don't understand why he's so famous around here, I've never heard about him.
nate 6y ago
In 2013, Tony invited me and other entrepreneurs to Vegas to give us his tour of what he and his team were doing to the Downtown area to revive it. It was amazing. But what really has always stuck with me is how fresh Tony’s ideas and thinking were. He looked past a ton of criticism and naysayers to see his new ideas come to life. Tony had the courage to try new thing after new thing. Often with great results. I’ve been back to the downtown area of Las Vegas, and the impact he’s had, whether it perfectly met his vision or not, has been remarkably improved. It’s 100 times safer. Employs a ton of people for non-gambling related things. And is a huge net improvement. I’m at a loss this morning. I didn’t know Tony very well, but the few convos I’ve had with him left me inspired to learn about something new or look at something differently. He was incredibly generous with his time and resources. I encourage all of you to go deep into the legacy Tony left behind. There’s important lessons and advice all over his work and life.
- xoxoy 6y ago
  I’m a little disheartened by how much e-commerce has changed for the worst since the Zappos heydays, and how the most successful cos now often employ anti-consumer dark patterns and tactics to squeeze more revenue and profits all while limiting investment in customer service. Wayfair at a $30B market cap comes to mind...dropships almost everything eg zero control of inventory and shipping times, dynamic pricing and fake discounts makes it difficult to know if you’re getting a good deal, customer service very inconsistent, returns not free, etc.
- bmmayer1 6y ago
  I was on this tour as well (Nate -- that's where we met!) and really enjoyed it. He was so busy with his company and his development project, but he still seemed to have infinite time for us scrappy entrepreneurs. We had a tour of downtown LV and his apartment, lunch and dinner with Tony and we got a deep dive into a lot of his visionary ideas, even ones that didn't really make sense to me (I fondly remember a brief argument I had with him about the merits of holacracy vs traditional company hierarchies). You have to admire someone who can think out of the box all of the time. Some of his ideas didn't work, but he was always willing to experiment, and the ideas that did work will have a lasting impact. I learned so much from Tony in that short time about urban development, real estate, customer happiness, the entrepreneurial spirit, and even the finer details of Nevada gaming licenses. Thank you, Tony. You are a real loss to the world. RIP.
bvivek77 6y ago
Very sad...A great loss for industry. :(
nradov 6y ago
Another article from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/28/us/tony-hsieh-zappos-dies/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/28/us/tony-hsieh-zappos-dies/ind...
wyldfire 6y ago
Seems short on details, so I was curious. These articles [1,2,3] may be referring to the fire in question. And this [4] seems to be the property. [1] https://www.theday.com/article/20201118/NWS04/201119437 https://www.theday.com/article/20201118/NWS04/201119437 [2] https://www.fox61.com/article/news/local/new-london-house-fire/520-f8e49b1c-9bb6-4311-9018-411701cf9ad2 https://www.fox61.com/article/news/local/new-london-house-fi... [3] https://www.wfsb.com/news/crews-rescue-person-from-burning-new-london-building/article_6fda9b26-2983-11eb-b582-1b3806b528ce.html?block_id=994091 https://www.wfsb.com/news/crews-rescue-person-from-burning-n... [4] https://www.compass.com/listing/500-pequot-avenue-new-london-ct-06320/372547644294953697/ https://www.compass.com/listing/500-pequot-avenue-new-london...
- xwdv 6y ago
  I've never been in a raging fire, but the property seems to be very open and spacious with no obvious choke points, how does one end up so trapped, and without realizing a fire is breaking out? My guess is he passed out from the smoke inhalation first while asleep and was burned.
  - wyldfire 6y ago
    Given that it seems to have occurred overnight, that seems pretty plausible.
  - crazydoggers 6y ago
    I can tell you from having been in a building that had a major fire, the speed with which smoke and fire spreads is hard to imagine. Within 30 seconds of the alarm, halls where filled with choking smoke. I managed to exit without too much difficulty, but even with covering my face with my shirt, I was still coughing and black gunk coming out my nose for the rest of the day. Others needed oxygen support even after being in the smoke for minutes at most. If you’re ever in a house or building when an alarm goes off, don’t think you have time to ponder the situation... just move outside to safety immediately. Edit: Found some photos from that day. http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/gallery/120806Fire1Broadway/ http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/gallery/1...
max_ 6y ago
One thing I admired about this guy where his stoic tendencies. He was worth $800 million bit he slept in an airstream[0]. [0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/llamapolis-las-vegas-trailer-park-2016-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/llamapolis-las-vegas-trailer...
- chrisin2d 6y ago
  I don't think that he was necessarily 'stoic' in the ascetic sense. He was down-to-earth and preferred creating and transforming things over simple conspicuous consumption. He did big stuff like founding companies and revitalizing downtown Las Vegas and smaller stuff like turning a parking lot into a vibrant, artsy micro-community and creating a co-living community with his friends in SF after his first company acquisition. (According to his book.) I have mad respect for Tony. He was creative and didn't let money or the desire for status get in the way of what he thought truly mattered. He focused on fostering interpersonal connection and creating new things. What a cool, one-of-a-kind dude.
ksmith123 6y ago
Something is fishy about his death.Was anyone else injured? Was the house destroyed? Are there photos of the burned property? If he was surrounded by family it seems he was the only one injured. Sometimes suspicious deaths are coveted up to avoid attention. I had a neighbor who was CEO of a large company. When he shot him self I heard the gun shot. I saw the clean up crew the next morning. The media reported his death as stroke as to not tarnish his reputation.
ksmith123 6y ago
This is all very suspicious. Funny that all but a few of you are too naive to see it.
aiisahik 6y ago
Reading "Delivering Happiness" inspired me to quit a legal career I hated, learn to code on nights and weekends. Today, I'm the CTO of a promising startup. Thank you, Tony.
- brookshalladay 6y ago
  He showed us a different path. Awesome story!
xoxoy 6y ago
The fire was not some out of control fire that burned down the entire home from photos of the firefighters at the home that night https://twitter.com/local1522/status/1328998506183397381?s=21 https://twitter.com/local1522/status/1328998506183397381?s=2...
- talentedcoin 6y ago
  I can't see anything from those pictures. I find your armchair detective-ing here deeply distasteful.
vaxman 6y ago
I was moderated for commenting about stuff like this in response to someone comparing him to Jobs. Not enough of us old guard spoke up when Jobs died, a book was released and kids started dropping acid and pulling Theranos scams on all different levels because of the distortions in it. Speaking up now with facts about Hsieh, whom I have first hand knowledge of, but since my own opinion cost me, here is history lesson... https://www.vox.com/2014/10/1/11631452/the-downtown-project-suicides-can-the-pursuit-of-happiness-kill-you https://www.vox.com/2014/10/1/11631452/the-downtown-project-...
- coliveira 6y ago
  The explanation is here: "if we negate the negative emotions in our lives, it takes us away from happiness and brings around shame. The whole idea of Downtown is grand and wonderful and purposeful, but sometimes the way we’re going about it isn’t psychologically healthy." This is a big weakness of the "feel good" culture, people don't know how to handle unavoidable negative emotions.
- vaxman 6y ago
  DownvotedByIdiots wrote, https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/report-jewel-warned-tony-hsieh-i-dont-think-you-are-well-2203929/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-co...
- vaxman 6y ago
  How do I get my -4 post about this 8 days ago "unflagged" now that MSM is stepping up to prevent the kids from following this self-absorbed a-hole? https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-death-of-zappos-tony-hsieh-a-spiral-of-alcohol-drugs-and-extreme-behavior-11607264719 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-death-of-zappos-tony-hsieh-...
olivermarks 6y ago
Hsieh's Downtown Project building a startup city in Downtown Las Vegas had some very dark aspects, as this 2014 article detailed. https://www.vox.com/2014/10/1/11631452/the-downtown-project-suicides-can-the-pursuit-of-happiness-kill-you https://www.vox.com/2014/10/1/11631452/the-downtown-project-...
- jonathanpeterwu 6y ago
  What’s the point of sharing this on an article about his passing?
  - olivermarks 6y ago
    It's an excellent real world critique of Hsieh's ‘Delivering Happiness’ holacracy ethos. https://om.co/2020/11/28/tony-hseih-rip/ https://om.co/2020/11/28/tony-hseih-rip/
- Footkerchief 6y ago
  Thanks for this link. One of the entrepreneur suicides that resulted from the Downtown Project was a friend of a friend, but I hadn't made the connection to Hsieh until reading this. I strongly suspect that Hsieh's repressed emotions were a causal factor in recent events.
bdcravens 6y ago
I didn't know much of Tony TBH, but a simple customer service interaction with Zappos still ranks as the best experience I've had. It was pre-Amazon, so directly influenced by the culture he put into place.
dmalvarado 6y ago
<img src="s.gif" height="5" width="100%" title="Tony Hsieh has died."> Please.
tmsh 6y ago
I never met Tony but I saw him speak at an event in 2009 (Startup School 2009) in Berkeley. I just remember before his presentation he had TechCrunch up on his laptop and one could tell he didn’t have the pretense of any other speaker (and all the speakers that day were very successful like him). His talk on Delivering Happiness was good. It was memorable how unique and kind of a culture he had created throughout Zappos. That was unique in that it was the only talk about doing moral things, from the only startup that was successfully employing these practices. But before he started, the most memorable part — and to be honest the saddest thing now - was just seeing him browsing TechCrunch real quick on the screen in the auditorium in front of everyone. I remember thinking — whoa he is just one of us. Nor was he concerned about not being who he was in front of other people. You could tell he was very good at socializing but slightly introverted (moved quickly around the room but wasn’t much for small talk). And that behind a very successful entrepreneur was just a person trying to figure it out like everyone else and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the point (ie unconsciously or not if leaving TechCrunch up on the projector briefly wasn’t intentional). It meant a few things to the audience: (a) it doesn’t matter what people think (b) we’re all human (c) there’s nothing special about my success (d) other than I’m so focused on doing important things with it it doesn’t matter what you think. And that was way more of a leadership by example situation — for a few brief moments — than anything else (and there were a lot of great talks that day). Rest In Peace.
benzible 6y ago
He arguably played have played a tangential role in the establishment of Google's business model. Some really interesting history from Ali Partovi, cofounder of Tony's first startup, LinkExchange: https://techcrunch.com/2010/08/29/bubble-blinders-the-untold-story-of-the-search-business-model/ https://techcrunch.com/2010/08/29/bubble-blinders-the-untold... It's worth reading the whole thing but the summary is: Scott Banister, then founder of a startup called Submit-It, seems to have been the first person to have conceived of an AdWords-like business model... > In 1996, he brilliantly conceived an idea he called “Keywords”: to sell search listings based on pay-for-placement bidding – more or less the same as today’s AdWords. Banister began pitching the idea to anybody who would listen to him, including, among others, Bill Gross of IdeaLab, and the principals of LinkExchange: Tony Hsieh, Sanjay Madan, and me.[...] Tony, Sanjay, and I also loved the idea, because we had the benefit of the right context. [...] LinkExchange proceeded to acquire Submit-it; and I became obsessed with the idea of realizing Banister’s vision via deals with the world’s top search drivers [...] In late 1998, Microsoft bought LinkExchange for $265 million, telling us they liked the “Keywords” vision. As Microsoft employees, we continued pitching the Keywords deal not only to Yahoo, but also to the up-and-coming Google. I wasn’t surprised to find that these companies were wary of partnering with Microsoft.
- CitizenKane 6y ago
  Thanks for the story. I got to hear a lot about Tony through a colleague of his from the LinkExchange days and was able to meet him briefly once. Sounded like and seemed to be a very singular human being. Makes me think about how much he shaped the landscape of the internet and the world.
breck 6y ago
More details and a touching biography: https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh-dies-at-46-11606572300 https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh-di...
norabean 6y ago
Im feeling sad. I just want to start by saying that. I think one of the most special moments in my life was going to the Zappos holiday party many years ago, where it was me and a friend from SF and all Zappos employees, including Tony. He is still one of the most humble, inspiring, kind, and impactful leaders I have met, and I have been in a room with Elon Musk and his family. Why do I remember this party of so many parties globally that I have attended? It was because how he CHANGED LIVES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN / MEN IN VEGAS. I listened to stories of many people while riding the bus to this cowboy ranch Themed Xmas party. At the time I was a tech blogger. One story sticks out, a story of a woman who said she had no options than to work in a casino before Zappos, like many people in Vegas. She said, also many of her friends who wanted regular jobs were ostracized if they left adult industry to find jobs that were stable... Zappos was not just secure, but people mattered. Tony cared. His vision wasn’t some bullshit PR communication, he was a legit leader who cared. I left that holiday party inspired and hopeful for the downtown project... my takeaway from his death: recognize good leaders, highlight them, support them, and relèvera, when such people and companies succeed, it is not just success in funds, but more importantly communities get positive impact! Love to Tony’s family and condolences to them and all those feeling the sadness of his loss...
- brookshalladay 6y ago
  You are absolutely right. Thank you so much for sharing this!
- Arainach 6y ago
  >He is still one of the most humble, inspiring, kind, and impactful leaders I have met, and I have been in a room with Elon Musk and his family. Great story, but this anecdote confused me. Musk is one of the two least humble people I'm aware of, and I certainly wouldn't associate "kind" with him either.
  - norabean 6y ago
    It was comparison to people that are seen as major leaders today. Perhaps to you, kindness matters, but most get excited just by the execution and success. Thanks for asking clarity. N
brookshalladay 6y ago
Yesterday, God told me to pray for Tony Hsieh without any knowledge of his condition. I am ashamed to admit that I often forget to pray at all, so this was very striking. Tony has had a huge influence on me from working for startups downtown and at Zappos. The Lord told me he needed love and prayers sent his way. I sent him a message that I don't think he got. I'm praying he was well received in heaven. He was one of the good ones- full of light that radiated to everyone he met. He knew how to have fun, not take life or work too seriously and always treated people better than himself. He lived in a trailer with his friends downtown for years, even though he had unlimited resources. He understood servant leadership, supported the dreams and aspirations of thousands of employees, small business owners and entrepreneurs around the world. He helped the poor and unfortunate. He invited my kids to play at his airstream park for a community breakfast. He was generous, kind, welcoming, visionary, and had an incredibly contagious vibe about him. He will be remembered and honored by countless thousands for a long time to come. I cannot believe he is gone. It is too unreal and sad to contemplate. I want everyone who reads this to pray, have faith, and be inspired. Tell your friends and loved ones how much you care because we never know what will happen next. We are here only a short while. Rest in peace, Tony. We miss you.
- AbenezerMamo 6y ago
  What a wonderful comment. Thanks.
  - inostc 6y ago
    What a wonderful comment. Thanks.
    - inostc 6y ago
      What a wonderful comment. Thanks.
- audiometry 6y ago
  Don’t beat yourself up about it.
valusr 6y ago
He was a great, humble guy. When he said he'd email you back (when I was a perfect stranger), he meant it. RIP Tony Hsieh
AbenezerMamo 6y ago
Didn’t know much about the dude but reading about Holocracy was definitely a huge impact on my career and leadership / org principles. Damn. Rest In Peace. Wow. Wow. Wow. Didn’t think to connect it to the guy but it’s probably only Valve and Zapppos that actually cared enough to push it on the org design front. Legends.
quda 6y ago
Who the f..k is this ? Shoe seller...ok. What's the relevancy of this for HN ? The HN starting to become a place for obituaries.
fairity 6y ago
It's interesting to me that every thread about Tony Hsieh prior to this one was filled with criticism and skeptics. Why does it take someone's death to start appreciating his body of work? I think many skeptics believe they're speaking truth to power and therefore making the world a better place. There's certainly an element of truth to this, but I think if you take the ten thousand foot view, you'll find that we can be a more powerful agent of change by building good people up rather than tearing bad people down (or even worse, tearing net-good people down). My condolences go out to Tony's family and friends. As a fellow founder who's faced similar challenges as Tony, I remember tearing up in the airport reading Delivering Happiness. Rest in peace.
saluki 6y ago
I came across Tony in his Mixergy interview in 2008, he was always inspiring. Even though I didn't meet him it hit home when I saw the news. Rest In Peace, you inspired millions.
bahmboo 6y ago
What a terrible way to die. Seems like deep suffering. I hope not.
truthonlypleass 6y ago
Something is amiss here. How does a damn near Billionaire die alone trapped in a basement? The home was purchased August, 2020 by Rachael Brown a Zappos employee since 2004, Where was Rachael during this so-called fire? Where was his brother? Why was his name hidden November 18th when the so-called fire broke out? A week later we here him being in the ICU since November 18th and died November 27th I read it was a hit.
truthonlypleass 6y ago
Something isn't adding up about his death
markdown 6y ago
Did Tony used to have a Twitter account? I recall exchanging tweets with him, but can't seem to find his account anymore.
mandeepj 6y ago
Such a precious life; gone like a blow of wind
jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
Tony Hsieh has died at the age of 46. He died of injuries sustained during a house fire in Connecticut. Tony Hsieh is most well-known for his work as the former CEO of Zappos, a company that sells shoes on the web. His family, friends and co-workers mourn his loss.
foobaw 6y ago
I loved his How I Built this Episode - probably one of my favorite podcast. This is so sad and shocking.
foxhop 6y ago
Wow, the fire was about 5 minutes from me. The single family style house which caught fire was recently purchased by a former Zappos employee about 3 months prior. Tony was the only fatality, Fire fighters extracted him from the basement. https://www.theday.com/local-news/20201128/tony-hsieh-retired-zappos-ceo-dies-after-new-london-house-fire https://www.theday.com/local-news/20201128/tony-hsieh-retire... https://www.redfin.com/CT/New-London/500-Pequot-Ave-06320/home/53737217 https://www.redfin.com/CT/New-London/500-Pequot-Ave-06320/ho...
nobodyandproud 6y ago
RIP, Tony Hsieh. A person of color, he proved that a business doesn’t have to be souless in order to be successful.
- nobodyandproud 6y ago
  Not sure why this was downvoted?
wtmt 6y ago
I will always remember the Zappos culture and the way the company interacted with customers and supported them. It’s rare to see companies of that kind.
richajak 6y ago
spoken in 2017 they discussed the hypothetical question, "If your house was on fire and you could only save one thing, what would it be?" As Hsieh surveyed his possessions, he couldn't think of a single item he cared about enough to single out. www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/05/08/why-multi-millionaire-zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh-lives-in-a-trailer-park.html
uundaa 6y ago
humble leadership at its best. too early. RIP Tony.
hummel 6y ago
Will we remember tony in 100 years? What will be his legacy in society?
thewileyone 6y ago
I'm sad cause he's younger than me and I feel that I'm not done with my life yet. He probably other dreams he wanted to pursue and based on his history, he would have succeeded. We will never see what he wanted to do next. What a loss for us all.
wyldfire 6y ago
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9005781/Listen-firefighters-Tony-Hsieh-barricaded-inside-shed-house-fire.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9005781/Listen-fire...

1598 points by MrMcDowall 6y ago

Died from a house fire. Terrible way to go. Source: https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tony-hsieh-key-figure-in-downtown-las-vegas-revitalization-dies-at-age-46-2193165/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tony-hsieh-key-figure...

xiphias2 6y ago
,,due to complications from injuries sustained in a house fire.” Wow, I don't want to think about how painful it must have been :(
kozak 6y ago
It's 2020, people talk a lot about self-driving cars and travelling to Mars, and yet such terrible preventable tragedies still happen even in successfull countries to successful people. So sad.
- Ensorceled 6y ago
  In 2020, our firefighters here in Toronto are bored. They go to car accident scenes to simply block traffic, they show up at 911 calls to talk with people and see if they can offer aid while waiting for paramedics/ambulance, two or three trucks will show up for our small walkups occasional false alarms. My brother and nephew are cops, they end up shooing the fire trucks away from minor accidents because they clog up traffic with their trucks and multiple firefighters just hanging around. The reasons for this boredom are fantastic news: smoke detectors, safer vehicles, mandatory sprinklers even in small complexes, mandatory fire escapes, laws around flamability of furniture/clothing/bedding, reduced smoking, better awareness of fire hazards. Yes, these tragedies still happen, but don't make it sound like we're not doing anything because right now one of our biggest issues is too many fireman for the drastically reduced number of vehicle and house fires we have: we paid for all of these safety programs and we still pay for the fireman they should have replaced.
  - chrischattin 6y ago
    The reason firefighters are often the first on the scene of an accident or 911 call is because fire stations are spread throughout the community. They’re the closest first responders and can get there faster. Not because they’re bored and have nothing better to do.
    - mindslight 6y ago
      They probably do have nothing better to do, and that's a good thing. Basic queuing theory says that a system needs excess capacity in order to be able to respond to peak demand - you can't just tell a second fire to wait for an hour while fighting the first one. If three engines respond to a fender bender and a more pressing call comes in, they will leave and go there. I had an immediate family member in the hospital when that "nurses playing cards" ignorance was going around. I wish nurses did have some time to play cards, because it would mean they'd answer when they were needed, rather than being busy with other patients for an hour and then forgetting. We truly are optimizing ourselves to death.
      - qzw 6y ago
        Another recent example was when the pandemic team of the National Security Council was disbanded, and the reason given was that the president doesn’t like to have people “just sitting around.”
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  A good reminder to have fire alarms installed in every part of your house. We have one in each bedroom, each common area, and the hallways too. They are ten year alarms, so if we still live here in ten years, when one of them starts going bad we will just replace them all at once. Very simple step you can take to reduce your risk without much effort.
frays 6y ago
Thank you for sharing. 5 hours ago all news reports were unable to share the cause behind his death. Very sad news. Downtown Las Vegas is the place it is today thanks to him. Rest in peace.
tinyhouse 6y ago
House fire while he was with family without any details. I must say it doesn't sound good. I'm sure the police will investigate. Big loss.
- astura 6y ago
  The fire is “still an active investigation.” https://www.courant.com/breaking-news/hc-br-tony-hsieh-zappos-dies-connecticut-house-fire-20201128-ovfgme4hgbfzpnwx43frdvui4m-story.html https://www.courant.com/breaking-news/hc-br-tony-hsieh-zappo...

g42gregory 6y ago

I didn’t know him personally, but I always thought he was a great guy. What a loss for the community. RIP Tony, you will be dearly missed.

stevenj 6y ago

Las Vegas Review-Journal says he “died Friday after being injured in a house fire.” https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tony-hsieh-key-figure-in-downtown-las-vegas-revitalization-dies-at-age-46-2193165/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tony-hsieh-key-figure...

sebmellen 6y ago
> due to complications from injuries sustained in a house fire Sounds like a very painful way to go... I wonder if we'll get any more details in the coming days. EDIT: He passed away in Connecticut, see child comments.
- gkoberger 6y ago
  It happened in Connecticut.
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    Do you have a source?
    - gkoberger 6y ago
      "The entrepreneur passed surrounded by his family in Connecticut, the organization said to the station in a separate statement." https://heavy.com/news/tony-hsieh-dead/ https://heavy.com/news/tony-hsieh-dead/
      - sebmellen 6y ago
        Thanks. Sorry about that.
    - pvg 6y ago
      Could you give this a rest? It's ghoulish and unnecessary.

santiagobasulto 6y ago

Oh wow, this is so sad. An incredible entrepreneur. I met him once in Vegas and struck me as such a simple guy, yet, so bright. The family hasn’t reveal any details, he was surely very young.

anigbrowl 6y ago

What a shame. He was the rare combination of great businessman and great guy.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dvt 6y ago

This is crazy, he's a veritable legend (and so young). RIP. My condolences go out to his friends and family. Maybe related to his stepping down 3 months ago[1]? My comment from that 3-month-old thread, regarding Hsieh: From 2015-2017, I worked at Edmunds.com which was (to put it lightly) a bit obsessed with "Delivering Happiness" and Zappos' culture. So much so, that the leadership team visited Vegas to get a tour of the Zappos HQ (this was before I joined). But Edmunds based their entire cultural approach, including hiring, interviewing, and onboarding on Zappos. The Edmunds onboarding experience has been by far the best out of any company I worked at. Sure, it was silly games and scavenger hunts that didn't really have anything to do with "work," but I look back at the entire experience with a lot of nostalgia. I loved the onboarding so much, I've been contemplating doing a startup that literally just focuses on improving cultural onborading at companies. It made my first few months at Edmunds not only incredibly productive, but also intellectually and socially stimulating. And they were doing something right. Over there, I had the honor of working with one of the best managers I ever had (he's now at Amazon), and with one of the best software architects I've ever worked with (he's now at Facebook). My team was made up of motivated, smart, folks from all walks of life (recent grads to data science PhD's in their 50s). I still keep in touch with my old team even though we're spread all over these days: doing our own startups, at Facebook, Uber, Amazon, and beyond. I have the utmost respect for the cultural revolution that entrepreneurs like Tony Hsieh brought to the fore. People that call it a "cult" are missing the point. It's no more a cult than cheering for your school mascot or being in a club. We seem to forget that people are inherently social and need a sense of belonging. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24268522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24268522

dclusin 6y ago
What sticks out to me in your comment is that in spite of all your nice words about their culture, the nicest/best people you worked with still left for other companies. I suspect it was probably a 20% pay raise that convinced them to.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- 6y ago

colmvp 6y ago

Wow that's a young age to pass away. Really shocking.

sneak 6y ago

Everything I read about this guy had positive things to say. I'm sad I didn't get the chance to meet him. :(

ed25519FUUU 6y ago

When a prominent person in their 40s dies and there's no information released as to the cause of death, it's always a challenge not to make assumptions.

sneak 6y ago
I've never understood or been able to relate to the seemingly common intense curiosity as to cause-of-death. Is it related to the desire to fit names we know into a narrative structure that lets us reason about them as entities? It seems like an irrelevant detail, to me personally.
- MrMcDowall 6y ago
  The desire to know is usually in proportion to the unexpectedness. Perhaps its an evolutionary curiosity (Avoid how they died)?
- jamesrcole 6y ago
  I think it's likely just part of human nature. When something bad or tragic happens, we want to know what happened and why. It seems plausible that there's an evolutionary explanation for it, to do with learning how to avoid such happenings.
- onetimemanytime 6y ago
  Human nature. If your child is late from a party, say, the mind wonders and eventually thinks the worst.
- praveenperera 6y ago
  I think it’s human nature. I have it intensely and not sure why. Maybe a desire to make it make sense in your head somehow?
- stickfigure 6y ago
  Why is it hard to understand? Two days ago, a cousin (who I only barely know because we connected on facebook, genealogically) informed me that her father - my mother's brother - had passed. My mom's first question was "any particulars?" It's natural to want to know what happened, and it's not shameful to be curious.

Vekz 6y ago

Huge loss. His book Delivering Happiness is a must read for any entrepreneur.

egfx 6y ago
Very surprised and sad to hear this. I mentioned this here before but it's worth going for the self narrated audio version as his book is best told in his own voice. It's one of the only few business books and business stories Iv'e read that iv'e found truly inspiring.

hauget 6y ago

46. RIP. "Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” - Seneca

whoisninja 6y ago
amen
rmk 6y ago
How does one accomplish a semblance of this? Has someone tried and written down what worked (or did not work)? I'd love to read up more on this.
- murat124 6y ago
  Montaigne did some writing on how to live life.
  - vitili 6y ago
    And Seneca wrote on how to die.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- garren 6y ago
  Seneca’s Epistles no doubt touches on his views of death through the lens of his Stoic practices. I’ve found Ward Farnsworth’s ‘The Practicing Stoic’ to be an accessible, light, introduction to some of Seneca’s works among others. William Irving, in his book ‘Guide to the Good Life’, labels the technique hinted at in the quote: negative visualization.
- DarthGhandi 6y ago
  Stoicism comes to mind.
- 6y ago

desireco42 6y ago

I really loved his work, he was my personal hero. Great thought leader and entrepreneur, but also humble and caring human being. I would often ask myself, what would Tony do, when I have some business challenge or problem. Rest in peace Tony.

cantrevealname 6y ago

Cause of death should be standard information when someone has passed away. If we're not supposed to talk about cause of death, then why should the age be mentioned? Why should the location where the person passed away be said? Why include next of kin -- surely that's completely irrelevant unless you are part of the family? Every single Wikipedia entry for a person who isn't living gives cause of death. If it's so bad to talk about causes, then why isn't Wikipedia being criticized for this? We need to get over this taboo. It is not gossip. It is relevant and important information.

spoonalious 6y ago
House fire. https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tony-hsieh-key-figure-in-downtown-las-vegas-revitalization-dies-at-age-46-2193165/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tony-hsieh-key-figure...
homero 6y ago
Yeah every announcement keeps it a secret. I hate it. I find it disrespectful to us. We are fans and loved him but no we're not good enough to know why.
- ponker 6y ago
  You being my “fan” is an asymmetric relationship, not one created by mutual consent. If I want you to have my medical information while I’m alive or after I’m dead I will execute the proper legal document with you to ensure that you have it.
- rmk 6y ago
  Privacy in grieving is nothing disrespectful. It's having an expectation otherwise that is disrespectful.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  It's that false sense of entitlement from the fan side that makes me glad I'm nowhere near a celebrity. Disrespectful my ass. Unless you have a close, actually personal connection to him, no, you don't have any right to personal details. Be happy he chose to make anything public, and memorialize as you see fit. Anything more is just selfish.

tyng 6y ago

RIP, his book Delivering Happiness was such an inspiration early in my career

siwatanejo 6y ago

Was holacracy at Zappos his idea or it came from the original founder?

deleted 6y ago
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cutah 6y ago
Holacracy was developed at a software company by Brian Robertson who then took it and started another company, HolacracyOne, to refine and spread it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holacracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holacracy. Tony Hsieh brought it into Zappos which was IMO incredibly influential in increasing the visibility of Holacracy. His passing is very sad.
- siwatanejo 6y ago
  Thanks for replying instead of downvoting. HN seems to be so toxic these days.

tomhoward 6y ago

This is terribly sad news. I saw Tony speak at YC Startup School in 2009, and his talk stuck with me far more than any other that day. It was exciting and inspiring to hear that you could build a company that was sincere about being good to its employees and customers whilst also being large and commercially successful, and that’s influenced how I’ve gone about trying to build products and businesses ever since. I haven’t managed a big success that accomplishes this yet, but if I ever manage to do it, it will be in no small part thanks to Tony. Thanks and blessings to Tony, and love and strength to his family and friends.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
He spoke at my backwater state university. And then had lunch with a few of us misfits. It gave me a kick in the rear to persevere, despite my perceived station, and in no small way contributed to my later start-up, exit and success. Terrifically sad news.
Alex3917 6y ago
He talked to me for quite a while when I met him at one of his book launch events, around the same time. I asked him what he thought of my startup (at the time), and he said he didn’t like it because it relied on being able to keep certain information secret, but that the world was only going toward more and more transparency. He said it was essentially betting against the mega trend. A difficult lesson at the time, but definitely some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten, and something that’s been permanently added to my collection of mental models.
tomhoward 6y ago
Here’s the talk: https://youtu.be/n_qon5rAElg https://youtu.be/n_qon5rAElg

adi2907 6y ago

Really sad , I remember when I was setting up Myntra (Indian zappos) customer experience department, Tony and his book were a huge influence and everything that we did was measured up with the zappos way of customer experience. We were one of the few large companies having in house call centre with a five day week and training period of one month to all customer cate executives, plus a mandatory call listening session once a quarter for all senior leadership. There are still some question marks on the ROI of trying to ensure customer delight especially via call center since discounts are such a huge factor in buying shoes and clothes online that even an NPS of 60 will not help if you don’t price lower especially for the value conscious Indian buyer however he definitely brought a new dimension of thinking for a lot of customer care folks

skrebbel 6y ago
> There are still some question marks on the ROI How did you solve this in practice?
- adi2907 6y ago
  Honestly haven't seen a clear answer till now. We had tried multiple ways to link high satisfaction scores with purchase behavior - correlation/regression of NPS with frequency/value of purchase. At least in myntra case, the detractors turned out to be much more valuable than the entire universe, we put it down to customers who love us enough to hate us!
adi2907 6y ago
Here's a post on how he influenced companies halfway across the globe https://helloworld-adi.medium.com/delivering-happiness-an-evangelist-of-customer-delight-has-died-cede047167b4 https://helloworld-adi.medium.com/delivering-happiness-an-ev...
malshe 6y ago
I don’t find it surprising given that NPS is a terrible metric. Check out this article: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1509/jmkg.71.3.039 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1509/jmkg.71.3.039

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piggybox 6y ago

RIP, can't believe 2020 is this hard

bilbopotter 6y ago

Life is short. Rest in peace.

yftsui 6y ago

This makes me really sad. 10 years ago around Thanksgiving, I got my first Kindle - the keyboard one with an AT&T 3G card, one of the first few books I read was his "Delivering Happiness". Amazon was not the juggernaut it is today, the book stayed in my mind for such a long period was unprecedented. My current Kindle Oasis is much better than my first Kindle, a lot of books have been read as well. However, I might never able to get same experience / inspiration again. RIP.

pal_ankit 6y ago

RIP Tony Hsieh, his philosophy of delighting the customer will live on. It has influenced the culture at my company. Thank you for the wisdom.

rdl 6y ago

The Zappos website now has a Steve Jobs-like tribute on the first page (as well as a banner), which seems appropriate given how amazing Hsieh has been (not merely founding Zappos, but the renewal of DT Las Vegas, plus cool stuff he did back in SF before Zappos -- the 1000 Van Ness place was quirky and awesome.) A really amazing person.

turntothesky 6y ago
I knew I remembered him at 1000 Van Ness! I never made it to any of those parties, sadly.
Rebelgecko 6y ago
I first learned about him (and Zappos) from a blog post about the In-N-Out 100x100 burger: http://whatupwilly.blogspot.com/2006/01/in-n-out-100x100.html http://whatupwilly.blogspot.com/2006/01/in-n-out-100x100.htm...
vaxman 6y ago
Sorry for your loss, but there were numerous avoidable deaths associated with his VC activity, which is unacceptable. We don’t need anymore developers ruining their lives and kidneys working shoulder to shoulder out of bars equipped with 300Mb WiFi making JS apps that create very little value for society beyond improving the real estate values around the bars themselves, even as they sink deeper into depression, bankruptcy and many times Hsiehicide. One would think after the first death, he would have formed a company that ran around hiring them all (even sending some that were too far gone upstairs back to their parents) to provide some sort of a safety net for his real estate activities, but that was never the priority. The old guard in Vegas that (once upon a time) gave Howard Hughes “the business” too was so thrilled to meet Tony Hsieh —-and his endless new supply of self-destructing laptop tourists. Just like Hughes, Hsieh started the ball rolling and I think last month Downtown Las Vegas opened the first of what will be many all-new resorts in that hell hole of lost souls in many decades.
deleted 6y ago
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rpcwork 6y ago

I have been through this before. Losing my friends and multiple conflicting accounts about how they might have passed away. In the end, when the dust settles, it always seems ends up being the same two headed-demon that has i have lost many friends to: a silent fight with cancer or speedball. Here’s hoping it’s neither in this case. Another visionary lost. RIP Tony.

throwbigdata 6y ago
Ugh. What an inappropriate post.

faramarz 6y ago

He really was a visionary who was able to take action. I’m gutted to hear this news. His gentle demeanour and the awe and wonder I experienced reading his book in one sitting has left a lasting impression on me. Rest In Peace

Beldin 6y ago

> It's no more a cult than cheering for your school mascot To just react to this part: from the perspective of someone growing up in a country without school mascots or inter-school sports competitions, the whole US treatment of school sport teams and their mascots (or, at least, their depiction in media) is rather cultish behaviour.

dvt 6y ago
I think this is a bit unfair. I grew up in Europe -- which had no mascots or crazy "American" sports -- and during my childhood, Maradona (who also sadly passed away just last week) was absolutely idolized.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> the whole US treatment of school sport teams and their mascots (or, at least, their depiction in media) is rather cultish behaviour It’s tribal. Or team like. We don’t have a good word for it in English. Being strongly affiliated with a group isn’t a bad thing. It drives innovation in companies and research groups and campaigns. It’s easy to mock. Often, there is some totem Kool-Aid everyone rallies around. This cult-ish mode isn’t antithetical to individualism. We freely choose to associate this way. Unlike cult members, there is an out. And at a certain level we know it isn’t life and death. Though it’s fun to pretend it is, since so infrequently does the modern world let us fight with a team to life or death.
- vkou 6y ago
  > This cult-ish mode isn’t antithetical to individualism. We freely choose to associate this way. Unlike cult members, there is an out. There is an incredible amount of social pressure to conform, whether it be to cheering for school mascots, or daily pledging your unconditional allegiance to a nation, years before you are old enough to understand what half of those concepts mean.
  - skrebbel 6y ago
    > or daily pledging your unconditional allegiance to a nation Wut, that's some serious 1984 shit, where is this common?

radicalbyte 6y ago

Horrible news. Like many others here his book Delivering Happiness reached me. He was one of the good ones. He won't be forgotten. My condolences to his friends and family.

marcbarbosa 6y ago

In 2008 I was consuming as much entrepenuriship content I could (while building my first company). For obvious reasons I ended up watching a Tony's presentation. He was sharing a lot of stories about Zappos and in the end he talked about their Culture Book (a book entirely written by Zappos employees, with no editing). Immediately after watch it I sent an email directly for him (at the time a CEO of a company that would be sold to Amazon for 1.2B 8 months after) asking if I could have a digital version of the book since I was living in Brazil. For my complete surprise I received a response in less than 1 hour just asking for my address. One day after I received a physical copy of the book, signed by the very own Tony Hsieh. He even invited me to visit Zappos offices if I ever were in Las Vegas! Today I woke up with this sad news. Definitely, a huge loss to the world. I'm sure you'll always be an inspiration to many. Rest in peace Tony Hsieh, A big fan

marcusziade 6y ago
Beautiful words. Thanks for sharing.
- mongodbhater 6y ago
  +1
jitbit 6y ago
WHat a great story. Would you mind sharing a link (or just a title) of that video?
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Not GP, but it might have been this one of Tony presenting: at Startup School 2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlop3TwaMJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlop3TwaMJM (poor AV quality, unfortunately) but seems most likely to be this one (which includes the offer for the culture book) Web 2.0 Summit 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ2DmNk3YjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ2DmNk3YjQ (good AV)
- marcbarbosa 6y ago

nodoodles 6y ago

Where could I learn more about the onboarding practices? Sounds super interesting!

nodoodles 6y ago
.. and this was supposed to be a comment on another thread..

aptechglobal 6y ago

Very sad to here the news.. Hope everthing goes fine with Zappos https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tony-hsieh-zappos-luminary-revolutionized-045239863.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tony-hsieh-zappos-luminary-r... https://www.aptechimmigration.com/ https://www.aptechimmigration.com/

estreeper 6y ago

What a tremendous loss to the startup community and to the world. Tony was an innovator not just in terms of product vision, as almost all successful founders have to be, but also in the very idea of what business should be. It is striking to me that this happened the same day as pg's essay on thinking differently from your peers came out, as I can imagine no greater example. As founders we spend time thinking about how our product can change the way things are done, but the way that companies themselves are structured and run is largely formulaic and taken for granted. This makes Tony truly special, as someone who decided to rethink what a company should be and how it should impact people's lives. Even before Zappos he was wildly successful: the first company he co-founded, LinkExchange, sold to Microsoft for $265MM in 1998. In spite of this, he lived in a trailer in Las Vegas. He just didn't think about things in the way most people do. He is, and will continue to be, an example and inspiration to look to for any founder, especially those who have a nagging feeling that the way companies are run should be better. May he rest in peace.

peter_retief 6y ago

This is sad and unexpected, condolences to his loved ones, he will be missed.

xwdv 6y ago

Sobering. If you died at his age, would you be satisfied with your life? I wonder if he was. Entrepreneurs can be hard on themselves.

Froggymano 6y ago

Are the circumstances suspicious or is there nothing to worry about here? So sad and sorry for your loss.

siliconmountain 6y ago
No. Better to let law enforcement & the family consider that then speculate on an internet forum without any substantial or additional information.
- xoxoy 6y ago
  there’s information from this article at the time of the fire: https://www.theday.com/article/20201118/NWS04/201119437 https://www.theday.com/article/20201118/NWS04/201119437 the thing that stood out to me was that it happened at 3:30 in the morning. unless he was sleeping, which it doesn’t say he was, then the time of day is certainly unusual. it also says he was trapped in the home and they had to use force to get to him, which would imply he was locked somewhere in the home.
  - tyingq 6y ago
    What about that article ties it to Hsieh? Other than being a recent house fire in Connecticut? It's certainly not the only one.
    - xoxoy 6y ago
      Because it matches the timeline and confirmed by multiple sources as him? https://twitter.com/vitalvegas/status/1332560969747238912?s=21 https://twitter.com/vitalvegas/status/1332560969747238912?s=...
      - tyingq 6y ago
        Multiple un-named sources according to "VitalVegas.com". The vitalvegas.com about page says "One of the most baffling things about us is we’re just one person, Scott Roeben". There's speculation elsewhere about a different house fire in Stratford. And I suspect many other house fires match the timeline.

2bitlobster 6y ago

Makes me so sad, he was as much (if not more) a humanitarian as an entrepreneur. Thankful for his impact.

paulsutter 6y ago

While Zappos was bought for $1.2B, that was in AMZN stock that’s now up 32x since November 2009

capableweb 6y ago
Can't get more HN and SV than commenting about AMZN stock price in a reply to a emotional personal story of a recent passing.
- deleted 6y ago
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- Malp 6y ago
  I don't think this kind of behaviour is reflective of HN as a whole- there are very many thoughtful people sharing their thoughts here
  - Retric 6y ago
    HN as a group does things that aren’t representative of most users. So don’t take it the wrong way. A pedantic comment which is downvoted and flagged doesn’t represent you, but the fact someone said it is very much in the flow of HN’s community.
  - capableweb 6y ago
    No, I know for a fact that it's not reflective of HN as a whole. But I did find it funny if not tragic that it's fairly common place. The amount of upvotes my comment received (about 100) seems to confirm I'm not alone in thinking so too.
cghendrix 6y ago

pknerd 6y ago

Shocking! His book, "Delivering Happiness" is one of the best book about establishing a business and giving awesome customer support. Hope HN management will set a black bar in his honor.

elisaado 6y ago
they have!
- compsciphd 6y ago
  the black bar needs a link (say mouse over) to the story explaining why its there. I had to guess by going to the front page.
enriquto 6y ago
> Hope HN management will set a black bar in his honor. How is that "hacker" news?
- pknerd 6y ago
  Hacker news is NOT about hacking systems.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    Alright, but most news here are about computers or technology. This guy apparently was a shoe commerce middleman. I don't understand why he's so famous around here, I've never heard about him.

nate 6y ago

In 2013, Tony invited me and other entrepreneurs to Vegas to give us his tour of what he and his team were doing to the Downtown area to revive it. It was amazing. But what really has always stuck with me is how fresh Tony’s ideas and thinking were. He looked past a ton of criticism and naysayers to see his new ideas come to life. Tony had the courage to try new thing after new thing. Often with great results. I’ve been back to the downtown area of Las Vegas, and the impact he’s had, whether it perfectly met his vision or not, has been remarkably improved. It’s 100 times safer. Employs a ton of people for non-gambling related things. And is a huge net improvement. I’m at a loss this morning. I didn’t know Tony very well, but the few convos I’ve had with him left me inspired to learn about something new or look at something differently. He was incredibly generous with his time and resources. I encourage all of you to go deep into the legacy Tony left behind. There’s important lessons and advice all over his work and life.

xoxoy 6y ago
I’m a little disheartened by how much e-commerce has changed for the worst since the Zappos heydays, and how the most successful cos now often employ anti-consumer dark patterns and tactics to squeeze more revenue and profits all while limiting investment in customer service. Wayfair at a $30B market cap comes to mind...dropships almost everything eg zero control of inventory and shipping times, dynamic pricing and fake discounts makes it difficult to know if you’re getting a good deal, customer service very inconsistent, returns not free, etc.
bmmayer1 6y ago
I was on this tour as well (Nate -- that's where we met!) and really enjoyed it. He was so busy with his company and his development project, but he still seemed to have infinite time for us scrappy entrepreneurs. We had a tour of downtown LV and his apartment, lunch and dinner with Tony and we got a deep dive into a lot of his visionary ideas, even ones that didn't really make sense to me (I fondly remember a brief argument I had with him about the merits of holacracy vs traditional company hierarchies). You have to admire someone who can think out of the box all of the time. Some of his ideas didn't work, but he was always willing to experiment, and the ideas that did work will have a lasting impact. I learned so much from Tony in that short time about urban development, real estate, customer happiness, the entrepreneurial spirit, and even the finer details of Nevada gaming licenses. Thank you, Tony. You are a real loss to the world. RIP.

bvivek77 6y ago

Very sad...A great loss for industry. :(

nradov 6y ago

Another article from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/28/us/tony-hsieh-zappos-dies/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/28/us/tony-hsieh-zappos-dies/ind...

wyldfire 6y ago

Seems short on details, so I was curious. These articles [1,2,3] may be referring to the fire in question. And this [4] seems to be the property. [1] https://www.theday.com/article/20201118/NWS04/201119437 https://www.theday.com/article/20201118/NWS04/201119437 [2] https://www.fox61.com/article/news/local/new-london-house-fire/520-f8e49b1c-9bb6-4311-9018-411701cf9ad2 https://www.fox61.com/article/news/local/new-london-house-fi... [3] https://www.wfsb.com/news/crews-rescue-person-from-burning-new-london-building/article_6fda9b26-2983-11eb-b582-1b3806b528ce.html?block_id=994091 https://www.wfsb.com/news/crews-rescue-person-from-burning-n... [4] https://www.compass.com/listing/500-pequot-avenue-new-london-ct-06320/372547644294953697/ https://www.compass.com/listing/500-pequot-avenue-new-london...

xwdv 6y ago
I've never been in a raging fire, but the property seems to be very open and spacious with no obvious choke points, how does one end up so trapped, and without realizing a fire is breaking out? My guess is he passed out from the smoke inhalation first while asleep and was burned.
- wyldfire 6y ago
  Given that it seems to have occurred overnight, that seems pretty plausible.
- crazydoggers 6y ago
  I can tell you from having been in a building that had a major fire, the speed with which smoke and fire spreads is hard to imagine. Within 30 seconds of the alarm, halls where filled with choking smoke. I managed to exit without too much difficulty, but even with covering my face with my shirt, I was still coughing and black gunk coming out my nose for the rest of the day. Others needed oxygen support even after being in the smoke for minutes at most. If you’re ever in a house or building when an alarm goes off, don’t think you have time to ponder the situation... just move outside to safety immediately. Edit: Found some photos from that day. http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/gallery/120806Fire1Broadway/ http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/gallery/1...

max_ 6y ago

One thing I admired about this guy where his stoic tendencies. He was worth $800 million bit he slept in an airstream[0]. [0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/llamapolis-las-vegas-trailer-park-2016-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/llamapolis-las-vegas-trailer...

chrisin2d 6y ago
I don't think that he was necessarily 'stoic' in the ascetic sense. He was down-to-earth and preferred creating and transforming things over simple conspicuous consumption. He did big stuff like founding companies and revitalizing downtown Las Vegas and smaller stuff like turning a parking lot into a vibrant, artsy micro-community and creating a co-living community with his friends in SF after his first company acquisition. (According to his book.) I have mad respect for Tony. He was creative and didn't let money or the desire for status get in the way of what he thought truly mattered. He focused on fostering interpersonal connection and creating new things. What a cool, one-of-a-kind dude.

ksmith123 6y ago

Something is fishy about his death.Was anyone else injured? Was the house destroyed? Are there photos of the burned property? If he was surrounded by family it seems he was the only one injured. Sometimes suspicious deaths are coveted up to avoid attention. I had a neighbor who was CEO of a large company. When he shot him self I heard the gun shot. I saw the clean up crew the next morning. The media reported his death as stroke as to not tarnish his reputation.

ksmith123 6y ago

This is all very suspicious. Funny that all but a few of you are too naive to see it.

aiisahik 6y ago

Reading "Delivering Happiness" inspired me to quit a legal career I hated, learn to code on nights and weekends. Today, I'm the CTO of a promising startup. Thank you, Tony.

brookshalladay 6y ago
He showed us a different path. Awesome story!

xoxoy 6y ago

The fire was not some out of control fire that burned down the entire home from photos of the firefighters at the home that night https://twitter.com/local1522/status/1328998506183397381?s=21 https://twitter.com/local1522/status/1328998506183397381?s=2...

talentedcoin 6y ago
I can't see anything from those pictures. I find your armchair detective-ing here deeply distasteful.

vaxman 6y ago

I was moderated for commenting about stuff like this in response to someone comparing him to Jobs. Not enough of us old guard spoke up when Jobs died, a book was released and kids started dropping acid and pulling Theranos scams on all different levels because of the distortions in it. Speaking up now with facts about Hsieh, whom I have first hand knowledge of, but since my own opinion cost me, here is history lesson... https://www.vox.com/2014/10/1/11631452/the-downtown-project-suicides-can-the-pursuit-of-happiness-kill-you https://www.vox.com/2014/10/1/11631452/the-downtown-project-...

coliveira 6y ago
The explanation is here: "if we negate the negative emotions in our lives, it takes us away from happiness and brings around shame. The whole idea of Downtown is grand and wonderful and purposeful, but sometimes the way we’re going about it isn’t psychologically healthy." This is a big weakness of the "feel good" culture, people don't know how to handle unavoidable negative emotions.
vaxman 6y ago
DownvotedByIdiots wrote, https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/report-jewel-warned-tony-hsieh-i-dont-think-you-are-well-2203929/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-co...
vaxman 6y ago
How do I get my -4 post about this 8 days ago "unflagged" now that MSM is stepping up to prevent the kids from following this self-absorbed a-hole? https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-death-of-zappos-tony-hsieh-a-spiral-of-alcohol-drugs-and-extreme-behavior-11607264719 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-death-of-zappos-tony-hsieh-...

olivermarks 6y ago

Hsieh's Downtown Project building a startup city in Downtown Las Vegas had some very dark aspects, as this 2014 article detailed. https://www.vox.com/2014/10/1/11631452/the-downtown-project-suicides-can-the-pursuit-of-happiness-kill-you https://www.vox.com/2014/10/1/11631452/the-downtown-project-...

jonathanpeterwu 6y ago
What’s the point of sharing this on an article about his passing?
- olivermarks 6y ago
  It's an excellent real world critique of Hsieh's ‘Delivering Happiness’ holacracy ethos. https://om.co/2020/11/28/tony-hseih-rip/ https://om.co/2020/11/28/tony-hseih-rip/
Footkerchief 6y ago
Thanks for this link. One of the entrepreneur suicides that resulted from the Downtown Project was a friend of a friend, but I hadn't made the connection to Hsieh until reading this. I strongly suspect that Hsieh's repressed emotions were a causal factor in recent events.

bdcravens 6y ago

I didn't know much of Tony TBH, but a simple customer service interaction with Zappos still ranks as the best experience I've had. It was pre-Amazon, so directly influenced by the culture he put into place.

dmalvarado 6y ago

<img src="s.gif" height="5" width="100%" title="Tony Hsieh has died."> Please.

tmsh 6y ago

I never met Tony but I saw him speak at an event in 2009 (Startup School 2009) in Berkeley. I just remember before his presentation he had TechCrunch up on his laptop and one could tell he didn’t have the pretense of any other speaker (and all the speakers that day were very successful like him). His talk on Delivering Happiness was good. It was memorable how unique and kind of a culture he had created throughout Zappos. That was unique in that it was the only talk about doing moral things, from the only startup that was successfully employing these practices. But before he started, the most memorable part — and to be honest the saddest thing now - was just seeing him browsing TechCrunch real quick on the screen in the auditorium in front of everyone. I remember thinking — whoa he is just one of us. Nor was he concerned about not being who he was in front of other people. You could tell he was very good at socializing but slightly introverted (moved quickly around the room but wasn’t much for small talk). And that behind a very successful entrepreneur was just a person trying to figure it out like everyone else and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the point (ie unconsciously or not if leaving TechCrunch up on the projector briefly wasn’t intentional). It meant a few things to the audience: (a) it doesn’t matter what people think (b) we’re all human (c) there’s nothing special about my success (d) other than I’m so focused on doing important things with it it doesn’t matter what you think. And that was way more of a leadership by example situation — for a few brief moments — than anything else (and there were a lot of great talks that day). Rest In Peace.

benzible 6y ago

He arguably played have played a tangential role in the establishment of Google's business model. Some really interesting history from Ali Partovi, cofounder of Tony's first startup, LinkExchange: https://techcrunch.com/2010/08/29/bubble-blinders-the-untold-story-of-the-search-business-model/ https://techcrunch.com/2010/08/29/bubble-blinders-the-untold... It's worth reading the whole thing but the summary is: Scott Banister, then founder of a startup called Submit-It, seems to have been the first person to have conceived of an AdWords-like business model... > In 1996, he brilliantly conceived an idea he called “Keywords”: to sell search listings based on pay-for-placement bidding – more or less the same as today’s AdWords. Banister began pitching the idea to anybody who would listen to him, including, among others, Bill Gross of IdeaLab, and the principals of LinkExchange: Tony Hsieh, Sanjay Madan, and me.[...] Tony, Sanjay, and I also loved the idea, because we had the benefit of the right context. [...] LinkExchange proceeded to acquire Submit-it; and I became obsessed with the idea of realizing Banister’s vision via deals with the world’s top search drivers [...] In late 1998, Microsoft bought LinkExchange for $265 million, telling us they liked the “Keywords” vision. As Microsoft employees, we continued pitching the Keywords deal not only to Yahoo, but also to the up-and-coming Google. I wasn’t surprised to find that these companies were wary of partnering with Microsoft.

CitizenKane 6y ago
Thanks for the story. I got to hear a lot about Tony through a colleague of his from the LinkExchange days and was able to meet him briefly once. Sounded like and seemed to be a very singular human being. Makes me think about how much he shaped the landscape of the internet and the world.

breck 6y ago

More details and a touching biography: https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh-dies-at-46-11606572300 https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh-di...

norabean 6y ago

Im feeling sad. I just want to start by saying that. I think one of the most special moments in my life was going to the Zappos holiday party many years ago, where it was me and a friend from SF and all Zappos employees, including Tony. He is still one of the most humble, inspiring, kind, and impactful leaders I have met, and I have been in a room with Elon Musk and his family. Why do I remember this party of so many parties globally that I have attended? It was because how he CHANGED LIVES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN / MEN IN VEGAS. I listened to stories of many people while riding the bus to this cowboy ranch Themed Xmas party. At the time I was a tech blogger. One story sticks out, a story of a woman who said she had no options than to work in a casino before Zappos, like many people in Vegas. She said, also many of her friends who wanted regular jobs were ostracized if they left adult industry to find jobs that were stable... Zappos was not just secure, but people mattered. Tony cared. His vision wasn’t some bullshit PR communication, he was a legit leader who cared. I left that holiday party inspired and hopeful for the downtown project... my takeaway from his death: recognize good leaders, highlight them, support them, and relèvera, when such people and companies succeed, it is not just success in funds, but more importantly communities get positive impact! Love to Tony’s family and condolences to them and all those feeling the sadness of his loss...

brookshalladay 6y ago
You are absolutely right. Thank you so much for sharing this!
Arainach 6y ago
>He is still one of the most humble, inspiring, kind, and impactful leaders I have met, and I have been in a room with Elon Musk and his family. Great story, but this anecdote confused me. Musk is one of the two least humble people I'm aware of, and I certainly wouldn't associate "kind" with him either.
- norabean 6y ago
  It was comparison to people that are seen as major leaders today. Perhaps to you, kindness matters, but most get excited just by the execution and success. Thanks for asking clarity. N

brookshalladay 6y ago

Yesterday, God told me to pray for Tony Hsieh without any knowledge of his condition. I am ashamed to admit that I often forget to pray at all, so this was very striking. Tony has had a huge influence on me from working for startups downtown and at Zappos. The Lord told me he needed love and prayers sent his way. I sent him a message that I don't think he got. I'm praying he was well received in heaven. He was one of the good ones- full of light that radiated to everyone he met. He knew how to have fun, not take life or work too seriously and always treated people better than himself. He lived in a trailer with his friends downtown for years, even though he had unlimited resources. He understood servant leadership, supported the dreams and aspirations of thousands of employees, small business owners and entrepreneurs around the world. He helped the poor and unfortunate. He invited my kids to play at his airstream park for a community breakfast. He was generous, kind, welcoming, visionary, and had an incredibly contagious vibe about him. He will be remembered and honored by countless thousands for a long time to come. I cannot believe he is gone. It is too unreal and sad to contemplate. I want everyone who reads this to pray, have faith, and be inspired. Tell your friends and loved ones how much you care because we never know what will happen next. We are here only a short while. Rest in peace, Tony. We miss you.

AbenezerMamo 6y ago
What a wonderful comment. Thanks.
- inostc 6y ago
  What a wonderful comment. Thanks.
  - inostc 6y ago
    What a wonderful comment. Thanks.
audiometry 6y ago
Don’t beat yourself up about it.

valusr 6y ago

He was a great, humble guy. When he said he'd email you back (when I was a perfect stranger), he meant it. RIP Tony Hsieh

AbenezerMamo 6y ago

Didn’t know much about the dude but reading about Holocracy was definitely a huge impact on my career and leadership / org principles. Damn. Rest In Peace. Wow. Wow. Wow. Didn’t think to connect it to the guy but it’s probably only Valve and Zapppos that actually cared enough to push it on the org design front. Legends.

quda 6y ago

Who the f..k is this ? Shoe seller...ok. What's the relevancy of this for HN ? The HN starting to become a place for obituaries.

fairity 6y ago

It's interesting to me that every thread about Tony Hsieh prior to this one was filled with criticism and skeptics. Why does it take someone's death to start appreciating his body of work? I think many skeptics believe they're speaking truth to power and therefore making the world a better place. There's certainly an element of truth to this, but I think if you take the ten thousand foot view, you'll find that we can be a more powerful agent of change by building good people up rather than tearing bad people down (or even worse, tearing net-good people down). My condolences go out to Tony's family and friends. As a fellow founder who's faced similar challenges as Tony, I remember tearing up in the airport reading Delivering Happiness. Rest in peace.

saluki 6y ago

I came across Tony in his Mixergy interview in 2008, he was always inspiring. Even though I didn't meet him it hit home when I saw the news. Rest In Peace, you inspired millions.

bahmboo 6y ago

What a terrible way to die. Seems like deep suffering. I hope not.

truthonlypleass 6y ago

Something is amiss here. How does a damn near Billionaire die alone trapped in a basement? The home was purchased August, 2020 by Rachael Brown a Zappos employee since 2004, Where was Rachael during this so-called fire? Where was his brother? Why was his name hidden November 18th when the so-called fire broke out? A week later we here him being in the ICU since November 18th and died November 27th I read it was a hit.

truthonlypleass 6y ago

Something isn't adding up about his death

markdown 6y ago

Did Tony used to have a Twitter account? I recall exchanging tweets with him, but can't seem to find his account anymore.

mandeepj 6y ago

Such a precious life; gone like a blow of wind

jacobwilliamroy 6y ago

Tony Hsieh has died at the age of 46. He died of injuries sustained during a house fire in Connecticut. Tony Hsieh is most well-known for his work as the former CEO of Zappos, a company that sells shoes on the web. His family, friends and co-workers mourn his loss.

foobaw 6y ago

I loved his How I Built this Episode - probably one of my favorite podcast. This is so sad and shocking.

foxhop 6y ago

Wow, the fire was about 5 minutes from me. The single family style house which caught fire was recently purchased by a former Zappos employee about 3 months prior. Tony was the only fatality, Fire fighters extracted him from the basement. https://www.theday.com/local-news/20201128/tony-hsieh-retired-zappos-ceo-dies-after-new-london-house-fire https://www.theday.com/local-news/20201128/tony-hsieh-retire... https://www.redfin.com/CT/New-London/500-Pequot-Ave-06320/home/53737217 https://www.redfin.com/CT/New-London/500-Pequot-Ave-06320/ho...

nobodyandproud 6y ago

RIP, Tony Hsieh. A person of color, he proved that a business doesn’t have to be souless in order to be successful.

nobodyandproud 6y ago
Not sure why this was downvoted?

wtmt 6y ago

I will always remember the Zappos culture and the way the company interacted with customers and supported them. It’s rare to see companies of that kind.

richajak 6y ago

spoken in 2017 they discussed the hypothetical question, "If your house was on fire and you could only save one thing, what would it be?" As Hsieh surveyed his possessions, he couldn't think of a single item he cared about enough to single out. www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/05/08/why-multi-millionaire-zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh-lives-in-a-trailer-park.html

uundaa 6y ago

humble leadership at its best. too early. RIP Tony.

hummel 6y ago

Will we remember tony in 100 years? What will be his legacy in society?

thewileyone 6y ago

I'm sad cause he's younger than me and I feel that I'm not done with my life yet. He probably other dreams he wanted to pursue and based on his history, he would have succeeded. We will never see what he wanted to do next. What a loss for us all.

wyldfire 6y ago

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9005781/Listen-firefighters-Tony-Hsieh-barricaded-inside-shed-house-fire.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9005781/Listen-fire...