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Zappos' retiring alpaca-loving CEO went from selling pizzas in his Harvard dorm to leading the shoe company he sold to Amazon for $1.2 billionhttps://www.businessinsider.in/retail/news/zapposapos-retiring-alpaca-loving-ceo-went-from-selling-pizzas-in-his-harvard-dorm-to-leading-the-shoe-company-he-sold-to-amazon-for-1-2-billion/slidelist/77790035.cms2020-08-27T23:05:05+05:30

Zappos' retiring alpaca-loving CEO went from selling pizzas in his Harvard dorm to leading the shoe company he sold to Amazon for $1.2 billion

Barbara SmithAug 27, 2020, 23:05 IST

While little is known about Hsieh's early life, he was born in 1973 and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Hsieh attended Harvard, where he sold pizza out of his dorm room with some friends.

His first business venture after graduating was LinkExchange, which he sold to Microsoft in 1998 for $265 million.

After the sale, Hsieh and his friend Alfred Lin were investing money into "20 or so" companies, including one company that would eventually become Zappos.

A year later, another entrepreneur by the name of Nick Swinmurn left Hsieh a voicemail telling him about ShoeSite.com (which would later be renamed Zappos.) Hsieh, still uncertain about the venture, joined the company and invested $500,000.

As an investor and advisor for Zappos, Hsieh was able to help the company go from almost no sales in 1999 to $1.6 million in sales by 2000. In 2011, the company passed the threshold of $1 billion in sales.

In January of 2004, Hsieh and his team decided to move the company's headquarters from San Francisco to Henderson, Nevada. Hsieh said the moved was based on the lack of people who want to work in customer service in San Francisco.

In 2006, Swinmurn left Zappos, and Hsieh became CEO, placing emphasis on employee satisfaction.

Hsieh moved the company toward Holacracy, meaning employees work in task-specific teams instead of each employee working on their own and then reporting to a manager.

One of Hsieh's most talked about employee perks is the "Pay to Quit" program, which gives employees a $1,000 quitting bonus if they feel like the company isn't the right fit after their first 4 months.

In 2009, Amazon bought Zappos for $1.2 billion, after Hsieh said no in 2005.

In 2013, Zappos bought the old Las Vegas City Hall and Hsieh moved his team to this new location. The new location is about 30 minutes from the new strip and just a stone's throw away from Fremont Street.

This move was a part of a bigger initiative, Downtown Project, to make Las Vegas another Silicon Valley. Hsieh put $350 million into the project, which included real estate, restaurants, and other ventures.

While the initiative garnered mixed results, it did bring some noteworthy attractions to the area, including the "Life is Beautiful" music festival and the Downtown Container Park.

Hsieh also lives in the area, in a micro community called "Llamapolis", which is comprised of tiny houses and Airstream trailers.

Inspired by the artsy community found at Burning Man, Llamapolis is also home to Hsieh's two alpacas, Marley and Triton.

The retiring CEO has a net worth of about $840 million, but he previously told Business Insider that he lives in the tiny community because "[he] wanted to maximize serendipity and randomness in [his] life."

Hsieh hasn't detailed his plans for what he'll be doing in retirement, but we know at least one thing for sure: His alpacas must be happy at the extra attention.

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