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Were there any rumours about odd behavioural or personality quirks of Tony at the time? There might have been some indication if the article is true, but I'm n

• helpfulclippy 4y ago
  I didn't know him personally, so I wish I could say I had some firsthand experience. Rumor-wise, there was every story you can imagine. The guy loved the spotlight and was personally bankrolling something that was simultaneously a VC fund and an urban revitalization project, so obviously opinions went all over the board. In the end, he was a Burning Man kind of guy with huge amounts of money, vision and risk tolerance. Put that way, maybe it's not a shock that after the Downtown project collapsed he built a tiny little Bioshock-y dystopia for his clique, and blasted himself stupid with whip-its until he died. And maybe there's a better parallel universe somewhere in which the project succeeded and the right people came around him, and in that timeline's 2023, every billionaire there is cribbing notes about how to recreate what he did in their own city. Neither story is all that inconsistent from what I saw from my very, very distant vantage point as a lowly tech guy at the fringes of the whole thing.
• gojomo 4y ago
  Even before Hsieh left Zappos, anecdotes I heard from the fringes of his circle, including people who had worked at Zappos, made it clear he operated in a very heavy-drinking culture. For example, both media & employee reports mention well-stocked office beer fridges & toleration of drinking during the workday in the office.