Link: This review also appears on Amazon-UK here.
Most non-fiction books I have read recently appear, absent the author’s need to write a full-length book, fit to be or have remained a long-form essay. Not this one, although Tony Hsieh’s hard-to-classify book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose, too could have benefited from some editing. However once one makes peace with the colloquial tone – which is a refreshing change from many “business books”, but then again this isn’t exactly one – the book is a page-turner. At just over 250 pages – not including the appendices – for the paperback edition I read, it took me just under 5 hours to finish.
The book is above all a story: of the making of Tony Hsieh (now the CEO of Zappos.com), of his entrepreneurial journey starting in his childhood through college and later, of how he came to be involved in Zappos.com first as an investor and then as the CEO, and finally of what made Zappos.com the unique e-commerce success story it is. Organised in three parts, titled “Profits”, “Profits and Passion”, and “Profits, Passion and Purpose”, it appears to map Mr Hsieh’s journey of personal and professional growth.
Mr Hsieh is a child of Taiwanese immigrants. The parents feature in the book, but refreshingly not in the holier-than-thou tone, which is the staple of much immigré writing. They have made seminal contribution to his entrepreneurial spirit, mainly by not strangulating it with the burden of parental expectation, although Mr Hsieh himself, as a young person, wasn’t above some mischief to get his own way. In many ways, it made me wonder if Mr Hsieh’s story could pan out the same way anywhere but in America.
The story slowly morphs from being about Mr Hsieh’s entrepreneurial adventures and misadventures – including the lessons he learnt at Link Exchange and the Venture Frogs fund he ran jointly – to being about Zappos.com. It is in the description of the the mechanics at Zappos.com that the tone changes to more business-like, especially the emails he has included. In illustrating what the famous Zappos.com values mean, he has included write-ups from his colleagues and Zappos.com employees. That is a nice touch. The story culminates with the share deal Zappos.com made with Amazon, after which Amazon let Zappos.com continue to operate independently.
The recurrent themes in this story are loyalty, relationships and risk-taking, besides the obvious ones in the title of the book, namely, profits, passion and purpose.
There is intended and perhaps, unintended, humour in the book. For instance, Mr Hsieh writes about how his parents appear to have found “all ten” Asian families in Marin county for regular get-togethers. Michael Moritz of Sequoia doing the Macarena is not an image easily banished from the mind! There are also some notable gaps. Not all key characters in his story are featured, a sometimes deliberate exclusion which Mr Hsieh explains in the foreword. But while Fred Mossler appears prominently, rightly so, Nick Swinmurn, the founder of Zappos.com appears to have been glossed over and his departure doesn’t figure in the book. This seems a bit strange seeing as the Zappos.com story is about motivating the team, and engaging and leading them to a higher purpose. Towards the end, the book become a tiny bit tedious and “corporate”. Especially in the chapters titled “Taking it to the next level” and “End game”.
But if one can get over those quibbles, it is an engaging, hilarious, often moving, thought-provoking and inspiring read about creating a business that many now look to as the exemplar in customer service.
Star rating: 4 out of 5
Usefulness note: While reading it, I thought of mentors, friends and young entrepreneurs I know and admire. Many of them appear to have read the book already; others will certainly benefit from reading it.