Question of the Day - 07 December 2020

By now, most everyone knows that Tony Hsieh, the visionary former CEO of Zappos shoe company and deep-pocket booster of downtown Las Vegas, died on Saturday November 28 from injuries sustained in a fire at a house in New London, Connecticut. The son of Taiwanese immigrants -- born in Illinois, moved to California and eventually found his way to Nevada -- he was 46.

While Hsieh died with much of his $350 million vision for reinventing downtown Las Vegas unrealized, he is certain to loom large in the history books, not to mention the tangible legacy he left in the form of the Downtown Container Park, the reinvention of the dilapidated east end of downtown Fremont Street, fashionable renovations of downtown motels, along with establishing affordable housing and bringing Zappos headquarters to the heart of the city (in the former City Hall), among other good works.

An outpouring of tributes followed Hsieh's untimely demise, including statements and tweets from Bill Clinton, Jeff Bezos, Ivanka Trump, Kenneth Cole, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, fellow entrepreneurs Andrew Yang and Tony Hawk, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, Derek Stevens, and many others in the footwear, fashion, and entertainment industries. The Fremont Street’s Viva Vision video canopy also played an homage to Hsieh, featuring songs by Jewel, of whom Hsieh was a fan; they became close friends and colleagues (until a few months before his death, when they had a major falling out over Hsieh's devolving mental health). 

Not everyone in the gaming community was particularly fond of Hsieh. He was vocally critical of casinos as detrimental to downtown; he also banished gambling from the Gold Spike and the Western (the latter of which never reopened, leaving unrealized Hsieh’s dream of an e-sports arena). Still, prior to Hsieh’s arrival, downtown Las Vegas was generally perceived as a place to do two things: gamble and serve jury duty. Hsieh’s large-scale property purchases, which brought about affordable condos, fashionable dining and varied entertainment, can be said to have changed that.

Unlike some magnates who pay lip service to civic good works, Hsieh put his $840 million fortune (considerably enlarged when he sold Zappos to Amazon for $1.2 billion) where his mouth was. Once he committed to downtown, he was all in. 

But we have to observe that what we'll always remember Hsieh for is his belief that happy employees make for better companies. When he joined founder Nick Swinmurn at Zappos (then called Shoesite.com) in 1999, selling online was essentially a novelty; their shoe sales the first year amounted to a little more than a million dollars. The innovations Hsieh came up with, particularly in the areas of customer comfort and service, including free overnight shipping and free returns, plus the perkiest sales force on the planet, set standards for the industry that remain in place today. 

We wish there were more moguls like Tony Hsieh and, judging from the continuing outpouring of grief and tribute, he’ll be long and fondly remembered in Sin City.