If I was going to go into an office I wanted it to be with people I would choose to be around even if we didn’t have to work together and so that was one of the major reasons why I decided out of all the different companies we invested in to work with Zappos.
The problem when someone feels burned out, bored, unchallenged, or stifled by their work is not the job itself but rather the environment and playground rules given to them to do the job at hand.
Hopefully 10 years from now people won’t even realize we started out selling shoes. They will just think about Zappos as a place to get the best customer service.
Business is all about learning to balance the short-term, medium-term and long-term and I think it’s when things are going well it covers up a lot of mistakes and bad decisions because you’re growing so quickly.
I thought about how easily we are all brainwashed by our society and culture to stop thinking and just assume by default that more money equals more success and more happiness, when ultimately happiness is really just about enjoying life.
Happiness is really just about four things: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness (number and depth of your relationships), and vision/meaning (being part of something bigger than yourself).
I view my role more as trying to set up an environment where the personalities, creativity and individuality of all the different employees come out and can shine.
Having a higher purpose is more than just about profits. You actually end up making more profits in the long run because employees really are a lot more engaged and customers see the higher purpose in the company.
I think everyone should get a little exposure to computer science because it really forces you to think in a slightly different way, and it’s a skill that you can apply in life in general, whether you end up in computer science or not.
If you’re worried about putting food on the table or putting a roof over your head, that stress is definitely will contribute to unhappiness, but once you have your basic needs met then incremental money.
