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A comment on The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior. Parent comment

Re:The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and E... by 1123581321 on Monday December 07, 2020 @01:09AM (#25329758)
Zappos 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.

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Re:The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and E... by ajit_singh on Monday December 07, 2020 @05:22AM (#25330854)
Truely 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.

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Re:The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and E... by AlanYx on Monday December 07, 2020 @08:25AM (#25331904)
While 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.)
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