“Just figure out what your personal values are then just make those the corporate values.”

I believe that there’s something interesting about anyone and everyone – you just have to figure out what that something is.

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.

Never accept or be too comfortable with the status quo, because the companies that get into trouble are historically the ones that aren’t able to adapt to change and respond quickly enough.

To never forget that the most important thing in life is the quality of life we lead.

Success is getting to a point where you’d be truly OK with losing everything you have and starting over.

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 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.

Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you.

Help shape the stories that people are telling about you.

If there are too many competitors, even if you’re the best it’s a lot harder to win.

Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees.

I’d rather spend money on things that improve the customer experience than on marketing.

Whatever you’re thinking, think bigger.

For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.

We asked ourselves what we wanted this company to stand for. We didn’t want to just sell shoes. I wasn’t even into shoes – but I was passionate about customer service.

Launching a business is kind of like a motorboat: You can go very quickly and turn fast.

Having two bathrooms ruined the capacity to co-operate.

Our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels and the corporate mandate to maximize shareholder value encourages drilling without taking into account the costs to the ocean, even without major spills.

[The business is] more corporate and more formulaic and less experiential.

In the classic old business cycle, there would be a diminution in sales; it would take a little while for this information to reach corporate headquarters.

I would love to be a corporate leader.

After my varied and celebrated career in television, movies, publishing, and the lucrative world of corporate speaking, being a fellow at Harvard seemed, frankly, like a step down.

Corporate governance is concerned with holding the balance between economic and social goals and between individual and communal goals.

Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines. And in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them.