Delivering Happiness

A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

Ranked #2 in Customer Service, Ranked #6 in Retailingsee more rankings.

You want to learn about the path that we took at Zappos to get to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales in less than ten years. You want to learn about the path I took that eventually led me to Zappos, and the lessons I learned along the way. You want to learn from all the mistakes we made at Zappos over the years so that your business can avoid making some of the same ones. You want to figure out the right balance of profits, passion, and purpose in business and in life. You want to build a long-term, enduring business and brand. You want to create a stronger company culture, which will... more

Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of Delivering Happiness from the world's leading experts.

Ev Williams Co-Founder/Twitter, CEO/MediumRecommends this book

Chip Conley [The author] is a wise guy. Sincerely. He’s one of the wisest and most thoughtful business leaders of the modern age. (Source)

Florian Hubner A great journey behind the Zappos founder with strong focus on how to lead employees. (Source)

Ee Ling Lim One of my favourite business book is Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh. What I loved about it was that not only was it was insightful and filled with some thought-provoking advice, it was extremely readable. You see, I love reading since young, but I used to only read fiction books, and it took me awhile to make the conversion into reading business books. Delivering Happiness is one of the rare ones which reads like a storybook. (Source)

Chelsea Frank I read everything with an open mind, often challenging myself by choosing books with an odd perspective or religious/spiritual views. These books do not reflect my personal feelings but are books that helped shape my perspective on life, love, and happiness. (Source)

Erik Cheong In this book, it shows how serial entrepreneur Tony shares the different lessons he has learned in business and life, from starting a worm farm to running a pizza business, through LinkExchange [acquired by Microsoft for $265 million], and becoming a venture capitalist before Zappos. Key takeaway: Focus on company culture & help employees grow both personally and professionally. (Source)

Henry Medine The Zappos story opened my mind to Entrepreneurship and business building. I read this book in high school and it probably had something to do with my choice to major in Entrepreneurship at Babson College. I met my co-founder while at college and am subsequently building a technology start-up as we speak. We try to deliver happiness everyday and customer centricity is a pillar of our business. (Source)

Nathan Hirsch I'm a big customer service guy. That's my background. When I was in college I worked at Firestone. They really preached it to me from day one, which gave me a huge advantage when I worked as a seller on Amazon and when I started my Amazon business. I always recommend Zappos, the Pursuit of Happiness, where they just talk about how customer service needs to be the backbone of your company. We talked a little bit about this a little already, how your first 100, 500 clients are so key and making them happy. If you don't understand customer service, if you don't understand what goes through a... (Source)

Julie Rice [At SoulCycle] we’re all big fans of [this book]. (Source)

Michael Herrmann The biography of Zappos' founder. Interesting journey. You learn the importance of customer happiness. (Source)

Joel Gascoigne Zappos has always been a huge inspiration for us at Buffer. I clearly remember watching a video interview Tony Hsieh had where he was asked what one thing he would do sooner if he could start Zappos again. He replied "put values in place on day 1". We had already started Buffer, but we established our values shortly after that when we were 7 people.  On top of their focus on culture and values, Zappos has also provided us with inspiration for making half of our vision "to set the bar for great customer support". We have always had a large happiness team compared to the ratios other companies... (Source)

Ola Olusoga Like Charlie Munger once said: “I’ve long believed that a certain system - which almost any intelligent person can learn - works way better than the systems most people use [to understand the world]. What you need is a latticework of mental models in your head. And, with that system, things gradually fit together in a way that enhances cognition. Just as multiple factors shape every system, multiple mental models from a variety of disciplines are necessary to understand that system". You can read this book to start building a "latticework of mental models in your head". (Source)

Raluca Radu Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh inspired what I think of customer service ever since I read it. (Source)

Gunhee Park Ever since I wanted to create my own company, I wanted to create one that offers an amazing customer experience. This book was a big inspiration. (Source)

Robert Hajnal I chose this book because it taught me how important it is that your business represents you and that you passionately believe in it. I also learned from it the importance of organizational culture, and that the endpoint of a sale should always be customer's happiness, not the money-product/service exchange. (Source)

Eytan Levit Recommends this book

Jilliene Helman I really, really like company biographies. They're just kind of the style of book that I've gotten really into. [...] I've read the Happiness book by the Zappos CEO. (Source)

Adam Johnston Inspiring case study into building brand and customer service. (Source)


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