A “must-read” (Greg Lindsay, author of Aerotropolis) insider’s look at the enigmatic former CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh, and his quest to create his own version of utopia in the center of Las Vegas. Featuring an all new introduction and afterword from the author.
In 2010, Tony Hsieh was introduced to many as a visionary modern business leader. Under his leadership, Zappos became the world’s largest online shoe company by championing satisfied customers and a valued workforce. After his company was purchased by Amazon, even as he continued as its CEO, Hsieh engaged his energies and considerable fortune toward a much larger goal: building a new and more socially conscious Silicon Valley in the heart of downtown Las Vegas.
Hsieh challenged business and technology journalist Aimee Groth to uproot her life and participate in his social engineering experiment. Living in Zappos corporate housing above the Gold Spike bar, Groth had a front-row view of Hsieh’s efforts to build his ideal society.
With interviews from insiders on all ends of the Zappos spectrum—like the “broken dolls” who gravitated toward Hsieh’s almost cultlike personality and made up some of his inner circle, to the Zapponians who live and work on campus, to players in the top echelon of Silicon Valley—Groth offers a unique view of a world few people know much about, and sheds new light on this complex, eccentric man.
The Kingdom of Happiness is the story of one man’s quest to create his own nirvana in the desert and “offers a crucial warning against being seduced by the warm rhetoric and positivity of gurus” (William Davies, author of The Happiness Industry).
