Delivering Happiness (The book)

In this space I do not normally talk about business things. However there is new book just out by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, called "Delivering Happiness". It was given to me by the author to review in fact he gave me 2! My thoughts are as follows.

Most business tomes encourage the reader to plan better, execute better, treat their customers better and on and on in an endless stream of well packaged but not very helpful recipes for personal success and making lots of money.

Along comes this guy Tony Hsieh; a very bright, ambitious as hell, party animal. After a fair number of business successes and a some failures as well he falls in love with a struggling online shoe store named Zappos. He's got money invested in it (skin in the game) and Zappos is about to go down for the count.

What happens next is a genuine business breakthrough. Hsieh decides Zappos is not really in the shoe business at all. It's in the happiness business. A radical thought to be sure, yet this one insight turns Zappos into a cult economic juggernaut that does over a billion dollars worth of business a year (yes you heard that right...BILLION)

If you have never bought anything from Zappos, do it. You'll be happy you did and oh yes Tony's book is good too.  http://www.deliveringhappinessbook.com