> Tony Hsieh died from injuries in a November house fire
He was locked in an external shed that caught on fire, not sure "house fire" is an appropriate description?
The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior
171–180 of 314 posts
Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior
#172Don't want to sound harsh and insinuate anything but did Zappos make any profit? I think the merits of 'Holacracy' that Zappos and Hsieh vehemently propagated can only be validated if it made any impact on the bottomline.
The reason I am saying this is because I worked in a startup which tried posturing like Zappos- flat hierarchy, no cabins, boozing, chilling et al, while being run by a cynic CEO. The startup failed badly so this cool culture never got the limelight but my hunch is that if they had raised enough money and survived another 5 years somebody would have included them in their book or dissertation.
Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior
#173I 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...
Given the extreme conditions being imposed in certain states, it certainly is not being factored into these decisions uniformly by all governors. There are states that are using reason and common sense. But look at California for example. When you have Sheriffs in virtually every major county directly and publicly refusing to enforce your orders, perhaps you have gone too far [1].
[1] https://ktla.com/news/local-news/riverside-county-sheriff-sl...
Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if you genuinely believe the extreme hyperbole in the second paragraph of your post or if you're just trying to counteract the people who act like the virus is nothing at all. If it's the former, you should probably find some more reliable information sources. If it's the latter, truth and accuracy are a better counterpoint than taking the opposite extreme of misinformation.
What do you think is the hyperbolic part? That millions of people have died and millions more were extremely sick is a simple statement of fact. As far as I can tell there is nothing even slightly controversial in what I wrote. Your response is a weird combination of vague and rude/patronizing. I’m not sure what your point is.
Well, just for starters, millions of people haven't died of the virus. At last count, the death toll so far is just over 1.5 million. A terrible number, to be sure, but if you claim to not be engaging in hyperbole or misstatement of facts, it would be good to back that by not making your very first statement completely non-factual.
Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you think is the hyperbolic part? That millions of people have died and millions more were extremely sick is a simple statement of fact. As far as I can tell there is nothing even slightly controversial in what I wrote. Your response is a weird combination of vague and rude/patronizing. I’m not sure what your point is.
Well, just for starters, millions of people haven't died of the virus. At last count, the death toll so far is just over 1.5 million. A terrible number, to be sure, but if you claim to not be engaging in hyperbole or misstatement of facts, it would be good to back that by not making your very first statement completely non-factual.
There have been 1.5 million confirmed Covid deaths, but the total number of people who have died from Covid is far higher than that, I would guess at least 1 million more, but possibly higher. Even wealthy countries with developed healthcare/government infrastructure are missing a significant fraction of deaths (in the USA alone, we have probably missed about 100k Covid deaths from the confirmed count). In many less developed countries, a majority (in some cases an overwhelming majority) of Covid deaths are never counted as such.
It will be hard to get a total estimate until at least a year or two after the pandemic is over, because even in developed countries death reporting can lag by up to a year (that’s leaving aside cause-of-death attribution). If you check back in a year or two WHO, CDC, etc. will have much better estimates for the total death toll in 2020, with (possibly wide) error bars you can largely trust.
Beyond that, this is weak pedantry about the definition of “millions”. People commonly use this plural to mean >1 million; we’re talking about the order of magnitude here, not the precise count.
Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior
#176I 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.
The virus itself is doing far more to damage mental health than stay-at-home orders ever will. Around the world, we’re talking about millions of grieving people who have lost parents, siblings, spouses, children, friends, coworkers, .... Millions more people who struggled to stay breathing and may now suffer severe long-term (or maybe permanent) symptoms. Health care workers around the world who will have PTSD from h…
I understand why this was downvoted, but I am a bit annoyed at the downvotes because _we can do both_. We can do more to control the virus, and we can do more for people dealing with the fallout of mental health issues exacerbated by the pandemic. That these two very related things are seen as mutually exclusive is the real bummer of this whole scenario. The number one priority is not controlling the virus or helping people with mental health or addiction issues. The "number one priority" is helping people who are struggling, pandemic-related or not, period.
Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior
#177RIP. It's really sad. Mental health problems are often dismissed or not caught in time. I read his book "Delivering Happiness" after I heard about his death and before reading this article about mental health problems. As I read it I saw some interesting stories and ideas about the businesses that he built but I also read stories which put way too much focus (imho) on various nights and parties which don't really rel…
> The first thing that popped into my mind is depression, drugs and alcohol overuse.
Same. A shadow story that eclipses the text.
"Delivering Happiness" is explicitly about delivering happiness. The subtext or implicit story is about someone who could not find happiness for himself. It's worth re-reading in the context of his passing. RIP.
Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior
#178Don't want to sound harsh and insinuate anything but did Zappos make any profit? I think the merits of 'Holacracy' that Zappos and Hsieh vehemently propagated can only be validated if it made any impact on the bottomline. The reason I am saying this is because I worked in a startup which tried posturing like Zappos- flat hierarchy, no cabins, boozing, chilling et al, while being run by a cynic CEO. The startup failed…
Zappos didn’t posture. They really believed in what they were doing was good for the people who worked there. They also had imitators who were sincere. Sorry to hear yours wasn’t. Tony Hsieh was not a cynic.
I don’t know the financials pre-acquisition but I remember reading they had an excellent repeat purchase rate. Just the fact that they made shoe selling work online, in the first place, was also success as those were not considered viable ECommerce products in the first few years of Zappos’ existence.
Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior
#179I 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.
Lost to some perhaps, however deaths of despair exacerbated by the situation surrounding this virus is a recognized and studied phenomenon.
Re: The Death of Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior
#180I 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.
Based on the article, it doesn't sound like he was actually living in isolation. He just chose to surround himself with a crowd that enabled selfdestructive behaviors.