Delivering Happiness Audiobook By Tony Hsieh cover art

Delivering Happiness

A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

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Delivering Happiness

By: Tony Hsieh
Narrated by: Tony Hsieh
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About this listen

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
Career Success Entrepreneurship Leadership Management Marketing & Sales Workplace Culture Business Career Customer Service Inspiring
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Editorial reviews

Tony Hsieh is a really nice guy. This is what makes him a very unusual CEO, which is what makes his company so interesting. It also makes him a writer who doesn't use much corporate lingo, and a terrifically casual reader of his own book on the growth and development of Zappos, his unique company. One part memoir, one part philosophy, one part corporate handbook, and all silly optimism, Delivering Happiness will appeal to a surprisingly wide audience.

Hsieh begins with his business history, which adequately conveys his wackiness. First, there was the worm farm in elementary school. All the worms escaped, and he lost money. Then there was the mail order button business in middle school, so successful that he passed it along to his younger brothers in succession. In high school, he learned a bunch about programming, thereby combining his instincts with an appropriate knowledge base. He laughs out loud at his own computer club lunchtime antics, and so will you. Then there was the pizza business in his dorm at Harvard, where Hsieh found innovative ways not to attend any classes, and a high-paying corporate gig after graduation where he once again did as little as possible.

This is a man who likes to take business risks, and as he explains how he made decisions that caused him to grow from slacker into a Red Bull-pounding, 24-hour working machine, you'll be amazed that it sounds like he's smiling the entire time. From his first major start-up, which was subsequently sold to Microsoft, to his repeated close calls where Zappos almost went under before it was eventually bought out by Amazon, this true story of one man's corporate odyssey will leave you believing that anything really is possible. It will also at least make you want to shop at Zappos, if it doesn't make you want to move to as Vegas to work there.

Shot through with brief guest-narrations using the actual participants relevant to Hsieh's fast-paced world of entrepreneurship, there are a wealth of memos, emails, and testimonials that all serve as evidence to his weird intellect. And if you played a drinking game where you drank a shot every time Hsieh mentions having a drink, you'd be drunk before the book is half finished. From the tone of his voice to the story he tells, this is clearly a guy who needs his work to be fun and challenging. Just as Zappos has done, Hsieh's book casually fires the opening volley in a new era of corporate culture and management.

This eye-opening treatise on how to be happy at work has the added bonus of an hour-long conversation between Tony Hsieh and Warren Bennis, who has been universally considered one of the most significant leadership gurus for the past 40 years. Much of what Hsieh says is a more concise version of what he says in the book, though insights from the aging but still hilariously astute Bennis do offer something extra exciting. They discuss happiness in a way that is useful to all people, not just corporations. Megan Volpert

Featured Article: Big Ideas in Business and Tech


Even the most successful entrepreneurs had to start somewhere. When it comes to groundbreaking technology, the people who became leading business executives often began as lone visionaries with nothing but an idea. Now that they’re global industry leaders, many of them have shared their amazing stories in memoirs. These tales of heartbreak and triumph will bring you along on the roller-coaster of success, all the while showing you the secrets of how business greats transformed their dreams into reality. Read on to find your next great inspiration!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Do one thing exceptionally

The first quarter of the book about Tony Hsieh's childhood and the lessons he learned feels a bit forced (my button business taught me the lesson of ______). But, my doubts were quickly dispelled with the story of Zappos. I loved how Tony focused on one thing, the best customer service, and did it really well. To have the best customer service, they focused on company culture through a system of hiring (it's easier to hire people who fit the culture than try to change people) and through employee advancement opportunities through their "pipeline," giving employees perceived control of their careers. I can't think of any other large company that has been able to sustain a culture (Starbucks had a unique culture, but in recent years they've become too big to sustain it). Tony says that the Zappos company culture is their one sustainable competitive advantage. Will company culture work for your company? It's hard to say, but there probably is one thing that your company could do better than any other company...and it is probably worthwhile to develop that.

The argument was made about Tony "getting lucky." I have to agree, but I'd add that any business success is 80% luck and 20% planning, tenacity, insight, and work ethic. The 20% is critical to making success, but it's not sufficient. Even the most brilliant people will fail more often than they succeed, but you don't often see the entire journey of failures before success. You could use the "luck" argument for any success (Thomas Edison just got lucky, after all, he was wrong 999 times before he was right).

I thought that Tony did an excellent job of narrating his book. This isn't the case with many authors turned narrators (i.e. Beer School), but with several authors like Malcom Gladwell and Bill Bryson, hearing the book in the author's voice puts you into the story better than with a professional narrator. I'd put Tony's narration squarely in this category.

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30 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Delivering Happiness

This is an astonishing book. Forget the guy who doesn't like the narration -- Tony is a real guy, and you know he's talking from the heart. This book will change how business is done. I am one of the founding members of a music .com company. I was absolutely fascinated and inspired by Tony's approach to running a big business with the feel a small family. Their ideas about writing down "core values" and printing a company culture book are ideas I will implement asap. I remember vividly (I am in my fifties) the sense of depressing dread I felt in almost every job place I ever worked, and it was completely unnecessary. Why does "work" not have meaning, whatever your position? When I sweep the floor in my house, I don't feel like a loser, because it's my house. I think Tony would agree if I sweep the floor at Zappos.com, it's my house too, and why would I not be proud? (Hopefully I'd be in the "pipeline" for learning and advancing!) Listening to this book, I was also impressed by the realness and humbleness of his partners and the voices of their employees -- these people LOVE their "callings" (not job or careers, reminds Tony). For anyone who wants to embrace a new vision for the workplace, a way of doing business that brings happiness to employees and customers -- and therefore MORE PROFITS, listen to this book. I could not recommend it more, I am spreading the word to everybody I know.

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7 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars

Tony Hsieh

Great book. I recommend this book to anyone in the Customer Service field. Tony Hsieh has helped develop one of the best customer service centers. Their customer service philosophy should be a model for everyone to use.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

People Service! Not just customer service.

Wonderful and energetic narration from the author himself.

Like so many of the success stories during the internet age, this one starts with a carefree young person who seems a bit lost at the start, not knowing exactly what to do, but he finds his way by risking everything several times to create something that feels just perfect to him. Tony seemed to have identified his field of sales/marketing early--it just took a while to recognize the right opportunity when it came along. Once he did that, he made it his and devoted himself to making it a success. Tony Hsieh's energy and excitement are Zappos. He has a system in place to wow customers like no other internet company. He didn't need to invent anything new, all those steps were always available for anyone caring enough to put it all together and mold it into a system to "Deliver Happiness" to customers and employees. Zappos employees are happy, they feel a part of the system and are being treated as valid partners. Tony's kind of energy and excitement is contagious. I will be watching to see what's next for him.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

This book gives meaning to helping people.

I really enjoyed this book. Tony Hsieh never hear of him and never logged on to Zappos. Now I read all blogs and would love to visit Zappos for there tours they offer. Tony Hsieh captures your attention in this book and gives a new meaning to customer service.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A flat out good read

Really nice book to read. Tony Hsieh offers interesting commentary on the story of Zappos that provides insight into the importance of customer service and how to deliver it. This book may not be the best book in the customer service category, but it is the most personal and interesting. Tony tells real stories from his time at Link Exchange and Zappos and uses them to both entertain and teach.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Great story

A success and Inspiring story and it's nice to hear Tony tell the story. I admire his courage and determination it getting it done the way he wanted.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Walk the talk happiness

This is a book I will recommend to every significant person who crossed and will cross my life.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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delivered happiness

this is a great read, more about the life of Tony, than just Zappos, however this audio version of the book has times of bonus content that a book just couldn't contain

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Very good audible book

Where does Delivering Happiness rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

One of the better audible business books I've had.

Who was your favorite character and why?

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Which scene was your favorite?

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Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no, i listened on the way to/from work.

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