Zappos founder Tony Hsieh dies in home fire

Photographer: David Paul Morris

Tony Hsieh, the retired CEO of Zappos.com who revolutionized the online shoe industry and gained notoriety through his company’s unique corporate culture, has passed away. He was 46 years old.

Hsieh’s cause of death has not been revealed. Puoy Premsrirut, an attorney for Hsieh, told media that Hsieh was injured in a house fire while on his way to Connecticut. He was with his family there when he died on Friday night, KLAS-TV reported.

A Harvard graduate, Hsieh found success in the dot com era. He joined Zappos in 1999 when it was called ShoeSite.com and ran it for two decades. Amazon.com Inc. bought the company for $ 1.2 billion in 2009 and Hsieh remained managing director until his resignation in August.

Amazon’s purchase of the company showed Jeff Bezos to be both impressed and threatened with the fast delivery of online orders and Zappos’ reputation for customer service. Hsieh’s success in selling shoes online stood out because it was a product that people traditionally love. feel on their feet before buying.

“We are deeply saddened to learn of the untimely passing of Tony Hsieh, and our hearts are with his family and friends,” Amazon tweeted on a corporate account. “Tony was a visionary leader and innovator who will be sorely missed.

Management style

Hsieh was an integral part of the tech speaker circuit and espoused his company’s commitment to “holocracy,” a decentralized management style where decision-making was distributed throughout the organization with no traditional hierarchy.

He stood out as a non-traditionalist, even in an industry known to break tradition. He lived in a trailer park in downtown Las Vegas that attracted creatives working on the Strip. They ate meals together near a large fireplace, and a pet alpaca roamed the park. Hsieh would make random appearances in the park to play a card game with visitors that forced them to choose priorities in their lives.

Tributes swirled across social media from the tech industry, Las Vegas – where the company was headquartered – and President Trump’s daughter. Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak thanked him for helping transform the city, while Ivanka Trump said Hsieh’s originality challenged her to “reject compliance.”