Book Review: Delivering Happiness by Tony Hseih

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh is a great inspiring book. It is part biography, part employee handbook and part company history. Tony Hsieh is the CEO of zappos.com. As a frequent online shopper, I am well acquainted with Zappos and their free shipping and 365 day return policy.


In the book, Hsieh details how he has followed his passion and created Zappos. It is an incredible story. For me, it was very inspiring to read how he made it through the tough times – going from a $20 million buyout to having to sell everything he owned to make Zappos’ payroll. He highlights the core values of Zappos and the huge gains that can be made by being honest, have a singular goal, and creating a fantastic work culture. He realized early on in Zappos development that the niche for Zappos was to be the best at customer service. He then weighed all of the major decisions that followed on that key principle. Later that principle has evolved into the tag line of Delivering Happiness. He challenges all his readers to evaluate how they are measuring up to Zappos core values.

Hsieh’s writing is straight-forward and sometimes even funny. He also includes vignettes from other members’ of the Zappos team. I highly recommend this book.