Zappos

In 1998, at the age of 24, Tony Hsieh sold his first company to Microsoft for $265 million.
In 2009, at the age of 35, he sold his e-commerce company, Zappos, to Amazon for $1.2 billion.
In 2020, at the age of 46, he died.

From award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters, "a startling portrait of one of our greatest tech visionaries, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh" (Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road), reporting on his short life and untimely death and what they mean for our culture's pursuit of happiness.

Decisions equal success—nothing happens until one is made. Businesses make millions of decisions every day. But once in a great while a leader makes a truly game-changing decision that shifts not only the strategy of a single company but how everyone does business. These big decisions are counterintuitive-they go against the conventional wisdom. In hindsight, taking a different direction may seem easy, but these bet-the-company moves involve drama, doubt, and high tension.