Delivering Happiness

A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

By: Tony Hsieh

Narrated by: Tony Hsieh

Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

In this, his first audiobook, Tony Hsieh - the widely admired CEO of Zappos, the online shoe retailer - explains how he created a unique culture and commitment to service that aims to improve the lives of employees, customers, vendors, and backers. Using anecdotes and stories from his own life experiences, and from other companies, Hsieh provides concrete ways that companies can achieve unprecedented success. Even better, he shows how creating happiness and record results go hand-in-hand.

He starts with the "Why" in a section where he narrates his quest to understand the science of happiness. Then he runs through the ten Zappos "Core Values" - such as "Deliver WOW through Service", "Create Fun and A Little Weirdness", and "Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit" - and explains how you and your colleagues should come up with your own.

Hsieh then details many of the unique practices at Zappos that have made it the success it is today, such as their philosphy of allocating marketing money into the customer experience, thereby allowing repeat customers and word-of-mouth be their true form of marketing. He also explains why Zappos's number-one priority is company culture and his belief that once you get the culture right, everything else - great customer service, long-term branding - will happen on its own.

Finally, Delivering Happiness explains how Zappos employees actually apply the Core Values to improving their lives outside of work - and to making a difference in their communities and the world.

©2010 Tony Hsieh (P)2010 Hachette

Great Vision

It's refreshing to see what boredom can help innovate.
The biggest lesson to me is that when there's no more room for dreaming big Hsieh got bored and moved on to something that ignited his passion. Great lesson in being fearless

Story is good. Nothing I was surprised about

Pretty generic story. Nothing surprising here. Narration was good and kept me listening. This is a one time listen book

Happiness

This is not necessarily a biography or a self-help book, but it effectively delivers on both fronts. Understanding Tony's beginnings really translates into his early and later careers and the why factor as to why he operates his businesses as he does. The book is interesting from beginning to end, and the story is informative just as much as it is interesting. Tony may not be around with us anymore, but he definitely made an impact on people on the globe, including his philosophy impacting the giant Amazon.

A Must Read for every business with customers

What did you love best about Delivering Happiness?

I loved everything about this book, from the personal stories and experiences of the author, the history of Zappos.com, the narration by the author himself, and especially the explanations and examples of Zappos's values and philosophies on treating customers. I can honestly say this book is changing how our company does business- for the better!

I knew I was going to love it and it was better than I thought it would be

Just like Zappos this book delivered more than advertised and made me happy. I knew nothing about Tony and now I'm a huge fan. Need to relisten every couple years!

This may very well be Historical Turning Point in

I was turned onto the book because I went on a tour not of Zappos but CEO Tony Hsieh's "The Downtown Project". My whole world has changed since going on the tour. After finishing the book, its all starting to make sense how and why he built what he did downtown. He has started a very important revolution which may be a turning point in industrial and corporate culture history.

Tony Hsieh Delivers Again

What did you love best about Delivering Happiness?

The best part about this audio book is that Tony Hsieh, the person who owns the subject of the book is also its narrator. It is delivered in his own tongue, which makes the message more personal.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Delivering Happiness?

Although not a key focus of the book, the demonstration of persistence through adversity is an underlying element to the message of success through inovation and adherence to common principles and goals.

Have you listened to any of Tony Hsieh’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This is the only Tony Hsieh audio book I have listened to.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

I think this would make a very interesting movie. Good story line and the fact that his first fortune vanished and he recovered in an even larger way truly promotes his never say die attitude. Tony refers to the book From Good to Great in his book. I would say Tony's tag line could be from Great to Greater.

Any additional comments?

I recoomend this as an entyertaining and inspirational listen.

Must read

Amazing. Inspiring. Loved it. Great story and awesome lessons on creating a fun work environment. Loved the stories and lessons learned.

The best book on employer branding

If you are a fan of teal organizations you gonna love this book. Must read for modern managers.

Incredible

Greatly enjoyed this book. Learning about the company’s beginning and the company culture was the most interesting