Delivering Happiness
A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
Tony Hsieh
“You want to learn about the path that we took at Zappos to get to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales in less than ten years. You want to learn about the path I took that eventually led me to Zappos, and the lessons I learned along the way. You want to learn from all the mistakes we made at Zappos over the years so that your business can avoid making some of the same ones.”
I’ve just finished Delivering Happiness and I’ve got to say—it left me a bit unsure how to feel. The book is essentially the author’s life story: from his childhood side hustles to running Zappos and eventually selling it to Amazon. Some of those early stories were fun and gave me a laugh—clearly, he had that entrepreneurial itch from a young age.
But as things went on, I couldn’t help but wonder how much of the author’s success was actual brilliance, and how much was just good timing. He talks a lot about following his gut when it came to Zappos, but part of me felt like maybe he just needed it to work—especially after a bunch of failed projects and a lot of time (and money) spent on partying and soul-searching.
The tone gets a bit braggy at times. There’s a lot of talk about how great the company culture is, but not as much detail on what he actually did to build that. And while the book tries to blend personal stories, business lessons, and bigger-picture ideas, the mix doesn’t totally work. It feels a bit scattered—like three different books mashed into one.
There are some good takeaways though. If you’re into startup culture or just curious about how companies grow, you’ll find a few golden nuggets. But you’ll have to sift through a fair bit of filler to get to them. Also… the title? Kinda misleading. This isn’t really a book about “delivering happiness.” It’s more of a memoir than anything else.
Overall: decent read, but not life-changing. Probably felt more groundbreaking when it first came out, but now it reads as pretty average. Everyone knows about having a good culture these days. 3 stars. Some value, but not a must-read.
