For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.
Learn by doing. Theory is nice, but nothing replaces actual experience.
A bigger business is like a cruise ship: There are lots of amenities and you can go a lot further, but it’s harder to turn quickly.
Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you.
If I was going to go into an office I wanted it to be with people I would choose to be around even if we didn’t have to work together and so that was one of the major reasons why I decided out of all the different companies we invested in to work with Zappos.
To never forget that the most important thing in life is the quality of life we lead.
Without conscious and deliberate effort, inertia always wins.
If you’re focused on the friendship as its own reward, serendipitous stuff just happens. I know that sounds weird, but I can tell you for our 12 years of existence, it’s actually how a lot of stuff happens.
Twitter is like hugging. Just because it’s hard to measure the return on investment doesn’t mean there isn’t value there.
If someone is self-aware, then they can always continue to grow. If they’re not self-aware, I think it’s harder for them to evolve or adapt beyond who they already are.
Every employee can affect your company’s brand, not just the front-line employees that are paid to talk to your customers.
Our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff, like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand or empowering passionate employees and customers, will happen on its own.
Your brand is your culture.
I think everyone should get a little exposure to computer science because it really forces you to think in a slightly different way, and it’s a skill that you can apply in life in general, whether you end up in computer science or not.
Having a higher purpose is more than just about profits. You actually end up making more profits in the long run because employees really are a lot more engaged and customers see the higher purpose in the company.
Just figure out what your personal values are then just make those the corporate values.
Good businesses generate missions to drive their profits. Great businesses generate profits to drive their missions.
The brand is just a lagging indicator of a company’s culture.
Our society in general has is more money equals more happiness and all the research has shown that that’s true up to a point, up until you can get your basic needs met, but then really there is other stuff that has a much bigger impact on your happiness besides just money.
Our customers call and e-mail us to say that’s how it feels when a Zappos box arrives. And that’s how we view this company.