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The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior

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Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior

#141

Post by wutbrodo »

m3kw9 wrote: post #135
enraged_camel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Tony Hsieh had a surprisingly large collection of half-empty liquor bottles at his desk. Not just Tony. My best friend used to work at Zappos. He used to brag to me that every employee/team gets their own mini-fridge, which is stocked with booze and liquor. He said that a common "bonding" experience for different teams in the company is to exchange different types of liquor. This was in early 2010s. He said drinkin…

Startups usually have fridge full of booze. We usually use it on fridays or during certain major milestones. Not a big deal

This was the case for most teams I worked on at Google too; I would have an afternoon beer and work from the couch near the mini-fridge at least once a week (I was in my early 20s, so this was less impairing than it probably would be now), and people would usually join me, though not everyone would drink.

That being said, a mini-fridge of booze _per-employee_ is pretty unusual.

Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior

#142

Post by tyingq »

tashoecraft wrote: post #92
okareaman wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how fast it makes things burn. They sell nitrous at auto stores for super charged engines but I never did that because it's very dirty

Nitrous in cars cools the chamber allowing you to add more fuel/oxygen. It’s also not for “super charged” engines specifically.

It is a nice complement, as compressed air from a turbo or super charger is very hot. The nitrous cools it down. People also use a water or alcohol spray for a similar reason.

Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior

#143

Post by harrisonjackson »

m3kw9 wrote: post #135
enraged_camel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Tony Hsieh had a surprisingly large collection of half-empty liquor bottles at his desk. Not just Tony. My best friend used to work at Zappos. He used to brag to me that every employee/team gets their own mini-fridge, which is stocked with booze and liquor. He said that a common "bonding" experience for different teams in the company is to exchange different types of liquor. This was in early 2010s. He said drinkin…

Startups usually have fridge full of booze. We usually use it on fridays or during certain major milestones. Not a big deal

> every employee/team gets their own mini-fridge

That's not startup normal. Maybe having beer and liquor bottles in the kitchen or snack room or whatever but half empty bottles littering the CEO's desk and every employee or even every team having their own mini-fridge is odd.

I've worked at startups with a "drinking culture" and startups with a "board game culture" and I'll take the board game culture every time. Doesn't mean you can't let loose and drink, too - but drinking as the central activity quickly turns a business into a frat house. I do have some great memories celebrating milestones, new hires, etc with early stage coworkers :D

Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior

#144

Post by mook »

breck wrote: post #63
detaro wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A relative talking about it at the funeral is quite different than anonymous claims that are impossible to (dis)prove within hours of the death.

Hindsight is 20-20, but looking back it seems clear they were credible and correct, which is why I just wonder if dang could explain why they were flagged. Were moderators involved? Was any attempt made to verify? Or was it just lost in a sea of comments flagged daily (I don't know, not sure how the backend works here).

> Hindsight is 20-20, but looking back it seems clear they were credible and correct,

As far as I can tell, they were correct but not credible: they did not provide sources in the comment, and it was basically left to be evaluated in a vacuum.

(For context: I did not down vote or flag that comment.)

Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior

#145

Post by abellerose »

It's distasteful/unethical to attach "a spiral of alcohol, drugs and extreme behaviour" to someone's name after their death.

Some may argue that doing so will result in "positive change" for others but the same is possible without attaching the identity of a person that died by alcohol, drugs and extreme behaviour as the title puts it.

People oddly value anonymity & privacy but disregard it when a person dies.

edit: ah yes, the downvotes without comments for why you disagree is the evolution of hackernews (another echo chamber).

Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior

#146

Post by lazyasciiart »

overgard wrote: post #125

I think something that gets lost in the concern about COVID is how many addicts and people struggling with mental health are being killed indirectly by these quarantines. I don't have an easy answer of course, it's a serious virus, but while for a normal person these shutdowns are depressing, for addicts these shutdowns can be indirect death sentences. I really think that needs to get factored into these decisions.

Fortunately it is being factored into these decisions, and has been publicly discussed for about nine months now as a consideration. What makes you think it's getting lost? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-alcoho...

Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior

#147

Post by wutbrodo »

overgard wrote: post #125

I think something that gets lost in the concern about COVID is how many addicts and people struggling with mental health are being killed indirectly by these quarantines. I don't have an easy answer of course, it's a serious virus, but while for a normal person these shutdowns are depressing, for addicts these shutdowns can be indirect death sentences. I really think that needs to get factored into these decisions.

> something that gets lost in the concern about COVID

I don't know if I'd describe it as passively as "getting lost". Very visible people have been talking about it, including the outgoing President, who mentioned the mental health costs of lockdown multiple times. Leaving aside the fact that even true things that Trump says are discounted due to his lunacy, most people are too dim to understand the concept of trade-offs, so anything that gives "aid and comfort to the enemy" is systematically downplayed among most of those that are pro-Covid-restrictions (I say all of this as someone who think that restrictions have tragic costs but are necessary).

That is to say, the problem isn't that no one has thought of factoring this into decisions, it's that the discourse upstream of policy is driven largely by the majority of voters that don't actually care about pandemic policy as anything other than another wedge issue to fight pre-existing cultural/religious wars over.

Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior

#148

Post by djmips »

redisman wrote: post #134
okareaman wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to crack a bunch of cartridges into a large plastic bag such as an outdoor trash bag. I didn't realize N2O was an accelerant so I was smoking. The tip of the cig fell on the bag and it went up in a flash. Fortunately it burned quickly and only singed me.

Interesting. I guess I always assumed most gases are flammable

There's plenty that aren't but it's safer to assume they could be.

Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior

#149

Post by tempsy »

CydeWeys wrote: post #127
tempsy wrote: post #26

As an aside: I hadn't bought anything off Zappos for years, and checked it out when the news hit and surprised that it still basically looks the same as I remember it maybe 10+ years ago. Certainly looks and feels like an eCommerce website from the late 2000s/early 2010s. I'm curious if this was an intentional choice or a sign the website has been on cruise control since the acquisition. It certainly makes me wonder…

You buy shoes through amazon.com now (with fulfillment by Zappos). That's where all the development has gone. I get the feeling zappos.com is a dead end.

Yeah that makes sense, but then my question is why did Hsieh stay as CEO for that long in what was basically a dead end company within Amazon? It doesn’t seem like that is something someone like Hsieh would ever want to do, and yet he stayed there for a decade post acquisition.

Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior

#150

Post by bredren »

harrisonjackson wrote: post #143
m3kw9 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startups usually have fridge full of booze. We usually use it on fridays or during certain major milestones. Not a big deal

> every employee/team gets their own mini-fridge That's not startup normal. Maybe having beer and liquor bottles in the kitchen or snack room or whatever but half empty bottles littering the CEO's desk and every employee or even every team having their own mini-fridge is odd. I've worked at startups with a "drinking culture" and startups with a "board game culture" and I'll take the board game culture every time. Doe…

I’d add that casual alcohol use being normalized is not necessary or positive.

Alcohol use among high school seniors in the US is on the decline, so is use of any “illicit” drug. [1]

I’m no square, but this should be encouraged.

Young people already deal with stress of fitting in at a high-velocity workplace.

Modeling conspicuous substance consumption at work seems pretty backward to me.

Perhaps the most irresponsible illustration of this is Elon Musk who has made his substance use so overt I think it wrongly and perhaps dangerously couples using to entrepreneurial success.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/26/the-concern...

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