A Special SarahLacy.com Tony Hsieh Retrospective

I've always loved this blog because practically no one reads it. It's a nice contrast to writing a column for the largest business magazine, blogging for the largest tech blog, and hosting a show for the largest site on the planet. (BusinessWeek, TechCrunch, and Yahoo respectively.) But ironically, it's this blog-- and not those other mega-platforms-- that is responsible for my relationship with Zappos and its CEO Tony Hsieh.

One of my very first posts was about Zappos and their TV commercials, which I thought sucked. I'd never covered Zappos, wasn't a big fan personally of ordering shoes online and frankly, didn't know that much about the company. I got an immediate flood of responses from people defending the company-- and these weren't trolls. These were just passionate Zappos fans that wanted me to understand what I was missing. The most impressive comment I got was on a ho-hum Sunday afternoon from Hsieh. It was a PR masterstroke. No one reads this blog and there was no chance what I'd written could do any harm to his brand, but he wanted to engage nonetheless. And it was light and jokey, inviting me to come visit Zappos headquarters next time I was in Vegas. I did him one better and invited him to be on my Yahoo show the next time he was in town.

I still don't order shoes much on Zappos. But as a reporter, I've had Hsieh on TechTicker, blogged about him here and on TechCrunch, used him as an example in keynotes about companies that use social media exceptionally well, mentioned him in BusinessWeek columns, and on other national TV shows. We've even co-hosted parties in Vegas.

What I found captivating about Hsieh was how he thought differently from any other CEO I've met in the Valley. It's common to meet entrepreneurs in the Valley who are great coders or great product visionaries, but finding that kind of contrarian thinking about management, cash flows, marketing and brand is rare.

So obviously, I've had a lot to say about the company's decision to sell to Amazon. Here's a round up of my coverage on the subject:

My TechCrunch post as the deal was breaking
My TechCrunch post about Draper Richards-- a firm that could have owned more than anyone else, but demanded loan repayment instead of equity back in 2001. DOH!
My TechCrunch post about what everyone made from the deal. (Hsieh has responded to my outing his $218 million + fortune by forwarding me all financial management and investment pitches he gets.)
Last, my BusinessWeek column about why this acquisition is one of only four I've seen make total sense in all the time I've covered startups.

There was  a bit of debate about that BW column, because I noted Hsieh didn't have a traditional "lock-up." In other words, he doesn't make any less money if he quits Amazon tomorrow or stays for ten years. This is incredibly rare in startup deals. A commenter noted he does have one, as stated in the S4. Actually that's only a restriction for when he can sell his Amazon shares-- no public company would allow you to dump them all at once because it would hurt the stock. But it has nothing to do with whether he has to work at Amazon at the time he sells them, which was the point.

Anyway, a huge congratulations for Hsieh, Zappos CFO Alfred Lin, Sequoia and the Zappos team. Moving on to a new story now I promise!