Tony Hsieh was an innovative business leader, but he was also frenetic, generous, difficult, and tormented. “In Wonder Boy, Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans have delivered a heartbreaking and extraordinary account of a heartbreaking and extraordinary man. But as Hsieh fell deeper into his struggles with mental health and drug addiction, the people making up his inner circle began changing from friends to enablers.ĭrawing on hundreds of interviews with a wide range of people whose lives Hsieh touched, journalists Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans craft a rich portrait of a man who was plagued by his eternal search for happiness and ultimately succumbed to his own demons. Then Hsieh moved the Zappos headquarters to Las Vegas, where he personally funded a nine-figure campaign to revitalize the city’s historic downtown area. The secret to his success? Making his employees happy.Īt its peak, Zappos’s employee-friendly culture was so famous across the tech industry that it inspired copycats and earned a cult following. From there, he went on to build the billion-dollar online shoe empire of Zappos. At Harvard, he made a profit compiling and selling study guides. Tony Hsieh’s first successful venture was in middle school, selling personalized buttons. He was also a man in search of happiness. Tony Hsieh revolutionized both the tech world and corporate culture.

In 2009, at the age of 35, he sold his e-commerce company, Zappos, to Amazon for $1.2 billion.

In 1998, at the age of 24, Tony Hsieh sold his first company to Microsoft for $265 million.

Zappos happiness book