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The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior
- nkurz 6y agohttps://archive.is/yp447 https://archive.is/yp447
- julienchastang 6y agoGenius and madness often appear to go together (e.g., Vincent van Gogh, etc.) and this is no exception. It seems like he was perhaps afflicted by something like bipolar disorder. It is all very sad indeed.
- kepler1 6y agoSounds like he was rebelling hardcore against an overly restrictive, maybe typical (?), 1st generation immigrant parent background? "“Ultimately happiness is really just about enjoying life,” he wrote in the 2010 book..." This is often what you hear from someone who has doesn't have much of a sense of higher calling, or doesn't quite know what to do with his capabilities other than go for satisfaction in the short term. And leaves you feeling empty and unsure of what your life should be when work evaporates as your sense of self?
- kowsheek 6y agoYou might just be on the money. Having come from a similar background, where the childhood abuse was real and looking back on my life I realize how much of my stress to succeed and achieve was really an attempt to appease/show up my parents. Addiction to work and "bad" habits was all a part of the response to that childhood abuse. Like I wrote in one of my tweets [1], Gabor Mate's work has helped me to see and work towards reworking my relationship to stress. It's unfortunate that Gabor Mate's work isn't part of our conversion around addiction, stress, crime and suicide. [1] https://twitter.com/ksqio/status/1334978112703131651 https://twitter.com/ksqio/status/1334978112703131651
- ciabattabread 6y agoIs there a particular book of Dr. Mate’s that you recommend?
- kowsheek 6y agoBoth "Scattered Minds" and "When the Body Says No" are great. I've found the content on Youtube from his talks very insightful as well. Particularly this series of videos in Scotland starting with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tef5_HK5Zlc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tef5_HK5Zlc.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- grugagag 6y agoSomeone mentioned this here on HN and possibly setting the house on fire but was dismissed as unfounded. I actually realise that they knew something... It is sad that Tony Hsieh didn’t get the help that he needed and instead tried to self medicate in order to get away from all that. This recurrent story where extremely intelligent people are battling mental health issues and cannot speak out because the stigma behind this issue is too damaging is why we need to normalize the discourse around mental health if we want to avoid this type of tragedies. I’m not actively suffering (and am not as bright as Tony) but had some bouts of depression and hypomania in the past and know how afraid I was to let anyone official (eg. at work, school) know about my suffering because once out it always trails you like a cloud and will always deem you inferior to others. Luckily I was able to escape the black hole and have been good and calm for about 10 years and learned to never slip into that again. But there’s a remnant fear of a possibility of going back to it. Along with that there is the fear of falling begind, loosing job, becoming isolated and homelessness. This fear is clearly exacerbated in the US where one or a few slip-ups turns everything into an ever accelerating down-spiral. Tony had so much more to loose as his cliff was much higher than an ordinary person. He could have seeked professional help and he probably did but too late in the game. Had we not have this stigma around, he and others could get the help early on when much more could be done. Self-medication with drugs works temporarily but its abuse is clearly a quick path to compelte madness and early death. I personally stay away from drugs except from an ocasional puff of weed, the once a decade or two experience with LSD and the weekend bottle of beer. Rest in peace Tony, you will be missed
- nxmnxm99 6y ago> This recurrent story where extremely intelligent people are battling mental health issues and cannot speak out because the stigma behind this issue is too damaging is why we need to normalize the discourse around mental health if we want to avoid this type of tragedies. Where exactly is the "stigma" of mental health in tech nowadays? We're blasted day and night to the point where apparently every other person is "battling mental health issues". Maybe there's a deeper issue here than "stigma" and seeing overpriced therapists.
- 6y ago
- thehealthycoder 6y agoSad to read. Does seem like anxiety and stress is a big factor of the tech world.
- draw_down 6y agoAnd it casts in a different light the whole body of successwin literature written about his ascent.
- throwaway2016lv 6y agoI visited Zappos HQ with a university group in 2016. As part of the tour, we visited the executive area, where they all sat in cubicles/rows like anyone else's. They even pointed out Tony's desk, though he wasn't around at the time. I came away from that tour with two distinct impressions: 1 - Zappos had an amazing company culture; everyone seemed to get along and really enjoy their work. 2 - Tony Hsieh had a surprisingly large collection of half-empty liquor bottles at his desk. Tony's death is certainly a tragedy for his family and the communities he helped build. I hope even during this pandemic we can all maintain those key relationships in life that keep us in check.
- enraged_camel 6y ago>>Tony Hsieh had a surprisingly large collection of half-empty liquor bottles at his desk. Not just Tony. My best friend used to work at Zappos. He used to brag to me that every employee/team gets their own mini-fridge, which is stocked with booze and liquor. He said that a common "bonding" experience for different teams in the company is to exchange different types of liquor. This was in early 2010s. He said drinking on the job is common, but going overboard is discouraged (for obvious reasons). But even he admitted that Zappos clearly understood that in order to attract customer service people to the company (headquartered in Las Vegas), being able to drink on the job, i.e. during the day, would be a great recruitment tool. I thought it was very cynical, although it obviously worked out well for them. Too bad about Tony though, I hear he was a great guy.
- m3kw9 6y agoStartups usually have fridge full of booze. We usually use it on fridays or during certain major milestones. Not a big deal
- wutbrodo 6y agoThis was the case for most teams I worked on at Google too; I would have an afternoon beer and work from the couch near the mini-fridge at least once a week (I was in my early 20s, so this was less impairing than it probably would be now), and people would usually join me, though not everyone would drink. That being said, a mini-fridge of booze _per-employee_ is pretty unusual.
- da39a3ee 6y agohttps://archive.is/SkjZg https://archive.is/SkjZg
- da39a3ee 6y agoUm, downvotes? Are you saying that that link is not to the full contents of the article? Or are you saying that you think it is bad to give people access to data? Or are you saying that one should not circumvent the paywall of the WSJ because it is stealing?
- zaroth 6y agoI find the best place for the archive.is link is at the very bottom of the comments. Easier to find that way.
- wgjordan 6y agoThanks for the link. For the downvoters, note that HN allows posts to paywalled articles only if they have a workaround, and users usually post workarounds in the comment thread. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
- fortran77 6y ago> But please don't post complaints about paywalls.
- detaro 6y agoWords immediately before that: > it's ok [...] to help other users do so. In which category does an archive.is link fall more, complaint or help?
- freefaler 6y agothanks for the link da39a3ee, it's appreciated.
- sergiomattei 6y ago
- v64 6y agoSome of the speculation in this thread [1], originally flagged as hearsay, seems to be confirmed by this article, namely his use of nitrous oxide. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25235843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25235843
- paul7986 6y agoThe singer, Jewel who was a friend sounded an alarm in August https://people.com/music/jewel-wrote-to-tony-hsieh-before-his-death/ https://people.com/music/jewel-wrote-to-tony-hsieh-before-hi... She's pretty credible.
- fossuser 6y agoShe sounds like someone that actually cared about him. It’s terrible that someone who seemed like a genuinely kind person ended up surrounded by sycophants taking advantage of his wealth and encouraging his drug issues. "I am going to be blunt," she wrote in the letter, obtained by Forbes. "I need to tell you that I don’t think you are well and in your right mind. I think you are taking too many drugs that cause you to disassociate. “Jewel reportedly told Hsieh in the note that "people you are surrounding yourself with are either ignorant or willing to be complicit in you killing yourself. “When you look around and realize that every single person around you is on your payroll, then you are in trouble," Jewel wrote, according to Forbes. “You are in trouble, Tony.” She was right.
- paul7986 6y agoIndeed and thus life is hard whether your poor or rich, especially for those who suddenly get mega wealthly or fame. They seem to cant handle it very well from Michael Jackson to Whitney Houston to Tony to many others. A lot of us I imagine wanted to be in Tony's position, yet would you still want to be him with how it all went down? His mega-wealth and fame of wealth seem to be his un-doing.
- fairity 6y ago
- yevpats 6y agoRIP. It's really sad. Mental health problems are often dismissed or not caught in time. I read his book "Delivering Happiness" after I heard about his death and before reading this article about mental health problems. As I read it I saw some interesting stories and ideas about the businesses that he built but I also read stories which put way too much focus (imho) on various nights and parties which don't really relate to entrepreneurship or business. The first thing that popped into my mind is depression, drugs and alcohol overuse.
- Aeolun 6y ago> Which don't really relate to entrepreneurship or business To some extend, but startup events generally combine exactly those things (without the drugs, depending on where it is).
- ashtonkem 6y ago> put way too much focus (imho) on various nights and parties which don't really relate to entrepreneurship or business. “Work hard, party hard” is an extremely common aspect of startup culture. I personally suspect that startups tend to draw in risk takers, which explains the prevalence of over-drinking in many (but not all) startups.
- watwut 6y agoHow is drinking risk taking? I was in groups that where drinking was super normalized and never ever perceived it to be dangerous. Plus, anxious fearful people do drink too, it makes them feel better. I mean, I avoided drinking near to some specific individuals (I am woman), but I perceived those individuals to be unsafe. Drinking itself did not constituted risk taking for me.
- emptyfile 6y agoDrinking is normalized in my entire country, but its still pretty obvious you're literally poisoning yourself with alcohol. That much I understood even as a teen.
- kepler1 6y agoI mentioned this below in the other thread about it. Sounds like he was rebelling hardcore against an overly restrictive, maybe typical (?), 1st generation immigrant parent background? "Ultimately happiness is really just about enjoying life,” he wrote in the 2010 book..." This is often what you hear from someone who has doesn't have much of a sense of higher calling, or doesn't quite know what to do with his capabilities other than go for satisfaction in the short term. And leaves you feeling empty and unsure of what your life should be when work evaporates as your sense of self?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- s5300 6y agoThis is so incredibly saddening. Some people seem to truly be too kind and empathetic to cope with this modern world. I'll be forever wondering why he didn't make an extreme decision to do something such as literally disappearing into rural nowhere Asia/Europe or somewhere and attempt to live the simplest of lifestyles for some time. I want to think something of that nature may have helped reset things a bit, but what do I know. Life is so incredibly grueling for those that wish to help others so much as he seemed to want to in our now completely globalized and arguably scarily downtrending world.
- tempsy 6y agoAs an aside: I hadn't bought anything off Zappos for years, and checked it out when the news hit and surprised that it still basically looks the same as I remember it maybe 10+ years ago. Certainly looks and feels like an eCommerce website from the late 2000s/early 2010s. I'm curious if this was an intentional choice or a sign the website has been on cruise control since the acquisition. It certainly makes me wonder what Hsieh was doing as CEO as late as this summer either way, which is to say while he was certainly a pioneer in the 2000s I'm not sure what about Zappos in the 10+ years post-acquisition feels cutting edge.
- PaulWaldman 6y agoAudible maintainted their pre-Amazon aquisiton site for quite some time as well. Their mobile app still has the same look and feel. Maybe this is a reflection of being aquired by Amazon?
- ashtonkem 6y agoGoodreads too.
- subpixel 6y agoMy impression - perhaps incorrect - was that everything on Zappos was also on Amazon. Zappos became an Amazon channel and lead generator.
- CydeWeys 6y agoYou buy shoes through amazon.com now (with fulfillment by Zappos). That's where all the development has gone. I get the feeling zappos.com is a dead end.
- tempsy 6y agoYeah that makes sense, but then my question is why did Hsieh stay as CEO for that long in what was basically a dead end company within Amazon? It doesn’t seem like that is something someone like Hsieh would ever want to do, and yet he stayed there for a decade post acquisition.
- underseacables 6y agoCareful, this community does not like it when you tear down their heroes.
- disordinary 6y agoOh crap, I had no idea he'd died - I met him once when he was on his happiness tour, really interesting, genuinely nice, and driven guy. He took the idea of selling shoes and somehow morphed it into spreading happiness including touring it to markets that Zapos didn't operate in (like NZ where I met him), which obviously had limited direct benefit to his company. Only really visionary people would be able to pull off something like that and connect those dots. I also met someone who grew up with him, he said that Tony was always looking at everything with an entrepreneurial eye. Anything and everything would be a business, even bringing in a grill to sell burgers to his class mates at lunch. Big loss of a visionary.
- Scoundreller 6y ago> After a therapist recommended a “digital detox” this spring, Yeah, uhhh, I’m sure a lot of us here could benefit from a digital detox, but unless the plan also includes “go to australia”, this doesn’t seem like the right year for this advice.
- danhak 6y agoI couldn’t think of a better year for this advice.
- elorant 6y agoHow is that so? I couldn't live in quarantine without having an Internet connection. There's a limit to how many books one can read.
- detaro 6y ago"Digital Detox" isn't a clearly defined term, but usually does not mean no internet use long-term. And e.g. limiting access to social media or 24/7 news is not necessarily a bad idea in the year of "doomscrolling".
- Aeolun 6y agoOnly because it’s hard to buy new ones with the bookstore closed. If you were online you could order anything you want.
- adrianpike 6y agoIn those dark times before the internet, we searched for the limit to how many books one could read in a lifetime. We never found it.
- mylons 6y agothousands of generations of humans existed without it before you.
- 6y ago
- cvhashim 6y agoDrugs are bad, be careful kids.
- whoisjuan 6y agoSame article, no paywall: https://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/the-death-of-zappos-tony-hsieh-a-spiral-of-alcohol-drugs-and-extreme-behavior https://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/the-death-of-za...
- dontbeabill 6y agotake away: it’s easy to be happy with lots of money, but harder to not blow your life on drugs, and bad choices, no matter how “nice of a person” you appear to be on the outside.
- g42gregory 6y agoHe was an amazing human being. RIP, Tony!
- codecamper 6y agoI knew someone that spent some time on Necker Island. She said that there were plenty of drugs and told me a certain celebrity was taking way too much cocaine.
- okareaman 6y agoI am a recovering nitrous oxide addict who once set himself on fire, so I understand the terrible predicament he found himself in. Many people do nitrous recreationally as a party drug, but there's a reason they call it 'hippie crack.' Some become obsessed with it
- seibelj 6y agoI have done nitrous before - what about it makes you more likely to be set on fire? Just risk of passing out while smoking a cigarette maybe?
- userbinator 6y agoIt's an oxidiser; it can make things which are normally not flammable become flammable, as well as accelerate burning.
- okareaman 6y agoIt's amazing how fast it makes things burn. They sell nitrous at auto stores for super charged engines but I never did that because it's very dirty
- tashoecraft 6y agoNitrous in cars cools the chamber allowing you to add more fuel/oxygen. It’s also not for “super charged” engines specifically.
- okareaman 6y agoThat's not how I understand it. You may be referring to some other use I am not aware of. I'm not a car guy. "A nitrous oxide engine is an internal combustion engine in which oxygen for burning the fuel comes from the decomposition of nitrous oxide, N2O, rather than air. The system increases the engine's power output by allowing fuel to be burned at a higher-than-normal rate, because of the higher partial pressure of oxygen injected with the fuel mixture." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide_engine
- hodgesrm 6y agoIt's the saddest article I have read in a while. Tony Hsieh was an amazing human being. The manner of his passing from the world does not take away from the good he did while alive.
- whyenot 6y agoMaybe sharing the circumstances of his death will also do some good if it encourages others with friends or loved ones who have mental illness to do something before it is too late. One of my friends has been spiraling out of control for the past few months. I have tried and tried to help them. I'm going to keep trying.
- loraa 6y agoWe enjoy the spiral as it's one of the only interesting things left.
- throwaway201103 6y agoYou can offer help and support but it's up to your friend to accept it.
- neonate 6y agohttps://archive.is/1Yb3c https://archive.is/1Yb3c
- bredren 6y agohttps://pastebin.com/9w9huq3z https://pastebin.com/9w9huq3z
- Scheherazade 6y ago“for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.” - Niccolò Machiavelli
- phkahler 6y agoNot sure how that applies here, but it's a nice quote that seems to ring true.
- TedShiller 6y agoThis is the first thing people said on Hackernews, when the news first came out, but those comments were downvoted and/or deleted.
- overgard 6y agoI think something that gets lost in the concern about COVID is how many addicts and people struggling with mental health are being killed indirectly by these quarantines. I don't have an easy answer of course, it's a serious virus, but while for a normal person these shutdowns are depressing, for addicts these shutdowns can be indirect death sentences. I really think that needs to get factored into these decisions.
- lazyasciiart 6y agoFortunately it is being factored into these decisions, and has been publicly discussed for about nine months now as a consideration. What makes you think it's getting lost? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-alcoholics-drugs-online.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-alcoho...
- downandout 6y agoGiven the extreme conditions being imposed in certain states, it certainly is not being factored into these decisions uniformly by all governors. There are states that are using reason and common sense. But look at California for example. When you have Sheriffs in virtually every major county directly and publicly refusing to enforce your orders, perhaps you have gone too far [1]. [1] https://ktla.com/news/local-news/riverside-county-sheriff-slams-gov-newsom-vows-not-to-enforce-lockdown-order/ https://ktla.com/news/local-news/riverside-county-sheriff-sl...
- Mauricebranagh 6y agoThat's a weakness of allowing elected police chiefs who may be doing this for political reasons and not considering their duty to protect the public.
- downandout 6y agoThat’s pretty cynical. A more likely explanation might be that police agencies have limited resources, and and as a result have to prioritize their enforcement activities for actual crimes. There simply aren’t enough police, jails, or courts to arrest random people for leaving their homes with a mask on. Further, by advocating for aggressive enforcement, you are also advocating for the ultimate super spreader event: filling jails with people that don’t belong there, where the virus already runs rampant. Most of these people would be booked in, get the virus, and then bail out or be released by a judge a few days later. Then, they would take the virus out into the community and spread it further. These restrictions are a fun exercise in virtue signaling, but are impractical and actually enforcing them would increase the spread of the virus.
- abellerose 6y agoIt's distasteful/unethical to attach "a spiral of alcohol, drugs and extreme behaviour" to someone's name after their death. Some may argue that doing so will result in "positive change" for others but the same is possible without attaching the identity of a person that died by alcohol, drugs and extreme behaviour as the title puts it. People oddly value anonymity & privacy but disregard it when a person dies. edit: ah yes, the downvotes without comments for why you disagree is the evolution of hackernews (another echo chamber).
- not_a_moth 6y ago> Tony Hsieh died from injuries in a November house fire He was locked in an external shed that caught on fire, not sure "house fire" is an appropriate description?
- ajit_singh 6y agoDon't want to sound harsh and insinuate anything but did Zappos make any profit? I think the merits of 'Holacracy' that Zappos and Hsieh vehemently propagated can only be validated if it made any impact on the bottomline. The reason I am saying this is because I worked in a startup which tried posturing like Zappos- flat hierarchy, no cabins, boozing, chilling et al, while being run by a cynic CEO. The startup failed badly so this cool culture never got the limelight but my hunch is that if they had raised enough money and survived another 5 years somebody would have included them in their book or dissertation.
- 1123581321 6y agoZappos didn’t posture. They really believed in what they were doing was good for the people who worked there. They also had imitators who were sincere. Sorry to hear yours wasn’t. Tony Hsieh was not a cynic. I don’t know the financials pre-acquisition but I remember reading they had an excellent repeat purchase rate. Just the fact that they made shoe selling work online, in the first place, was also success as those were not considered viable ECommerce products in the first few years of Zappos’ existence.
- ajit_singh 6y agoTruely believe that Tony Hsieh wasn't a cynic or a wannabe. My question was centred around their financials because I still believe that the culture that Zappos famously practiced is impossible to imitate without dangerously compromising the company's productivity. So I want to know did it work for Zappos either? Because I think it didn't but I don't have any data. Disclaimer- Nothing against Tony Hsieh. I am sure he is a good person as I have rarely heard anything other than nice stuff about him.
- AlanYx 6y agoWhile it had good gross sales numbers, Zappos had a cash flow problem prior to the sale to Amazon. Hsieh acknowledged this a few years ago in an article titled "Why I sold Zappos". (Even that may have been an overly positive spin on the situation at the time; I've seen speculation elsewhere that they may have been on the verge of insolvency.)
- mlyle 6y agoThe article points to ordinary eccentricities a whole bunch for sensationalism. E.g. the 26 day alphabet diet mentioned here sounds interesting. Think of all the new things you'd try to fill out days where you don't know many foods that start with that letter. And the days that are mostly fasting (e.g. Z) aren't too common. Plenty of us are a little weird. I guess something to think about is where do you know the "little weird" is treading towards excessive danger.
- twblalock 6y ago> I guess something to think about is where do you know the "little weird" is treading towards excessive danger. This is way beyond that. People don't huff nitrous oxide 12 times a day, every day, unless something is very wrong.
- mlyle 6y agoYou've never come across the car with the passenger seat full of whippits? I guess they could have been a particularly overzealous cakemaker. I'm just jesting. But more seriously, I think a lot of people think I'm pretty weird. And if I'd developed a nitrous habit they'd not necessarily know. How does my family differentiate between my normal eccentricity and if I go off the deep end one day?
- schoen 6y ago> And the days that are mostly fasting (e.g. Z) aren't too common. You could eat ziti with zucchini! Options I hadn't heard of before -- Slavic savories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapiekanka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapiekanka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakuski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakuski and Italian desserts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabaione https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabaione https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuccotto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuccotto
- mlyle 6y agoHow could I not think of ziti?! My wife bakes ziti casseroles all the time. And yes, it seems there are a lot of Z options :D
- sn41 6y agoIt seems that Jewel wrote this in a letter warning him about his addiction. “When you look around and realize that every single person around you is on your payroll, then you are in trouble." [1] Not only in this particular tragedy, these are words to live by in general. We all need some neutral people around to provide an unbiased perspective so that we can make informed decisions. [1] https://people.com/music/jewel-wrote-to-tony-hsieh-before-his-death/ https://people.com/music/jewel-wrote-to-tony-hsieh-before-hi...
- birdsbirdsbirds 6y agoIs he the only one? What about all the other 'driven' founders who have the means to enable their self-destructive behaviour? What about everybody else? What can and should be done? Do we want to get something done at all? The forces that made him build Zappos and motivated him to clean up down-town Las Vegas, aren't they the same as the ones that let to his sad ending? Are deaths like this the price for civilization to thrive?