How Being A Little Bit Weird Made Zappos A Fortune

After he graduated from Harvard with a degree in Computer Science, Tony Hsieh landed what seemed like a dream job at Oracle. But he quickly realized however that the corporate environment wasn’t for him and quit after just five months.

Hsieh and his roommate then teamed up and started an Internet advertising network called LinkExchange. Their business became a huge success and sold to Microsoft in 1999 for $265 million.

But by then the company’s culture had been destroyed, Tony says.

Shortly after the Microsoft deal, Tony discovered a company called Zappos, an online shoe and clothing store. He joined the company as an advisor and investor and eventually became CEO.

Last year, a decade after selling LinkExchange, Tony sold Zappos to Amazon for $1.2 billion.

Here, Tony tells us what has made Zappos one of the most successful online companies of the past decade–success that continues under Amazon’s ownership today.