Happy at Any Cost

The Revolutionary Vision and Fatal Quest of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh

By: Kirsten Grind

Narrated by: Raymond J. Lee

From award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters, “a startling portrait of one of our greatest tech visionaries, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh” (Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road), reporting on his short life, untimely death, and what that means for our pursuit of happiness.

Tony Hsieh—CEO of Zappos, Las Vegas developer, and beloved entrepreneur—was famous for spreading happiness. He lived and breathed this philosophy, instilling an ethos of joy at his company, outlining his vision for a better workplace in his New York Times bestseller Delivering Happiness. He promoted a workplace where bosses treated employees like family members, where stress was replaced by playfulness, and where hierarchies were replaced with equality and collaboration. His outlook shaped how we work today.

Hsieh also aspired to build his own utopian cities, pouring millions of dollars into real estate and small businesses, first in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada—where Zappos is headquartered—and then in Park City, Utah. He gave generously to his employees and close friends, including throwing notorious Zappos parities and organizing gatherings at his home, an Airstream trailer park.

When Hsieh died suddenly in late 2022, the news shook the business and tech world. Wall Street Journal reporters Kirsten Grind and Katherine Sayre discovered Hsieh’s obsession with happiness masked his darker struggles with addiction, mental health, and loneliness. In the last year of his life, he spiraled out of control, cycling out of rehab and into the waiting arms of friends who enabled his worst behavior, even as he bankrolled them from his billion-dollar fortune.

Happy at Any Cost sheds light on one of our most creative, yet vulnerable, business leaders. It’s about our intense need to find “happiness” at all costs, our misguided worship of entrepreneurs, the stigmas still surrounding mental health, and how the trappings of fame can mask all types of deeper problems. In turn, it reveals how we conceptualize success—and define happiness—in our modern age.

A very real look into it the mind of a striving entrepreneur.

It’s amazing he could still compare himself against other entrepreneurs and become discouraged about his success.

This book emphasized the importance of gratitude, avoiding substance abuse, and having true friends.

Previous Zappos Employee

As I listened to this book, I was whisked back to a table full of friends and coworkers at an All Hands, Vendor Party, or annual Zappos Family picnic recounting events around the office.

Leaving Zappos in the fall of 2020 has proven to be one of the hardest times of my life.

A captivating story

The story is sad but very interesting and hard to put down. It sounds like Tony impacted the lives of many people and was a leader in innovative thinking.

I worked and lived in Vegas

for about 15 years. while many of us watch with curiosity what was happening in downtown, and didn't know if the Zappos experiment was going to work or not, there's no denying his vision for the city led to a great deal of sustaining long-term things such as Life is Beautiful, The container Park and of course the building they owned which was The Old City Hall. when the new management style was discussed, when they launched it in 2015, many of us in gaming observe this and if you even made fun of it but there was no denying, Zappos employees believed. they believed in their company and they believed in Tony.

Hoping for better

I followed this story in real time via the WSJ, so I was quite interested in this book. The book spent too little time on the later years. Narrators don’t usually bother me, but this narrator was annoying. His falsetto used when quoting other people was also particularly irritating.