Tony Hsieh

Tony Hsieh (/ˈʃeɪ/ shay; Chinese: 謝家華; born December 12, 1973[1]) is an

American Internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is the CEO of the
online shoe and clothing company Zappos. Prior to joining Zappos, Hsieh co-
founded the Internet advertising network LinkExchange, which he sold
to Microsoft in 1998 for $265 million.
Both of his parents (Richard and Judy) came from Taiwan. Tony Hsieh was born
in Illinois and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area of California.[4] He has two
younger brothers, Andy Hsieh and Dave Hsieh.
In 1995, he graduated from Harvard University with a degree in computer
science.[5] While at Harvard, he managed the Quincy House Grille selling pizza to
the students in his dorm; his best customer, Alfred Lin, would later be
Zappos's CFO and COO.[6] After college, Hsieh worked for Oracle Corporation.
[7]
 After five months, Hsieh found himself dissatisfied with the corporate
environment and quit to co-found LinkExchange with Sanjay Madan, a college
friend and also an ex-Oracle employee.
In 1996, Hsieh started developing the idea for an advertising network
called LinkExchange.[8] Members were allowed to advertise their site over
LinkExchange's network by displaying banner ads on their website. They
launched in March 1996, with Hsieh as CEO, and found their first 30 clients by
direct emailing webmasters.[9] The site grew, and within 90 days LinkExchange
had over 20,000 participating web pages and had its banner ads displayed over
10 million times.[10] By 1998, the site had over 400,000 members and 5 million ads
rotated daily.[11] In November 1998, LinkExchange sold to Microsoft for $265
million.[12][13]
Venture Frogs
After LinkExchange sold to Microsoft, Hsieh co-founded Venture Frogs,
an incubator and investment firm, with his business partner, Alfred Lin.[14][15] The
name originated from a dare. One of Hsieh's friends said she would invest
everything if they chose "Venture Frogs" as the name, and the pair took her up
on the bet (although they have yet to see any money).[16] They invested in a
variety of tech and Internet startups, including Ask
Jeeves, OpenTable and Zappos.[16]
Zappos
In 1999, Nick Swinmurn approached Hsieh and Lin with the idea of selling shoes
online.[6] Hsieh was initially skeptical and almost deleted Swinmurn's initial voice
mail. After Swinmurn mentioned that "footwear in the US is a $40 billion market,
and 5% of that was already being sold by paper mail order catalogs," Hsieh and
Lin decided to invest through Venture Frogs. Two months later, Hsieh joined
Zappos as the CEO, starting with $1.6 million in 2000.[6] By 2009, revenues
reached $1 billion.[17][18]
On July 22, 2009, Amazon.com announced the acquisition of Zappos.com in a
deal valued at approximately $1.2 billion.[19] Hsieh is said to have made at least
$214 million from the sale, not including money made through his
former investment firm Venture Frogs.[20] [21]
JetSuite
Hsieh joined JetSuite's board in 2011. He led a $7 million round of investment in
the growing private "very light jet" concern. The investment allowed JetSuite to
add two new Embraer Phenom 100 jets which have two pilots, two engines and
safety features equivalent to large commercial passenger jets but weigh less
than 10,000 pounds and are consequently highly fuel efficient.[22]
Downtown Project - Las Vegas, NV
Since 2009, Hsieh, who still runs the downtown Las Vegas based Zappos.com
business, has been organizing a major re-development and revitalization project
for downtown Las Vegas, which has been for the most part left behind compared
to the Las Vegas Strip's growth. Hsieh originally planned the Downtown Project
as a place where Zappos.com employees may live and work, but the project has
grown beyond that to a vision where thousands of local tech and other
entrepreneurs may live and work.[23][24] Projects funded include The Writer's Block,
the first independent bookseller in Las Vegas.