111–120 of 345 posts
The Zappos website now has a Steve Jobs-like tribute on the first page (as well as a banner), which seems appropriate given how amazing Hsieh has been (not merely founding Zappos, but the renewal of DT Las Vegas, plus cool stuff he did back in SF before Zappos -- the 1000 Van Ness place was quirky and awesome.) A really amazing person.
This is crazy, he's a veritable legend (and so young). RIP. My condolences go out to his friends and family. Maybe related to his stepping down 3 months ago[1]? My comment from that 3-month-old thread, regarding Hsieh: From 2015-2017, I worked at Edmunds.com which was (to put it lightly) a bit obsessed with "Delivering Happiness" and Zappos' culture. So much so, that the leadership team visited Vegas to get a tour of…
Where could I learn more about the onboarding practices? Sounds super interesting!
> It's no more a cult than cheering for your school mascot To just react to this part: from the perspective of someone growing up in a country without school mascots or inter-school sports competitions, the whole US treatment of school sport teams and their mascots (or, at least, their depiction in media) is rather cultish behaviour.
46. RIP. "Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” - Seneca
“Live each day like it’s your last.” “Live like you’ll never die.” The more I think about these two sentiments, the more I think the more popular one is bad advice, and the less popular one is good advice.
Be ready for either possibility.
46. RIP. "Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” - Seneca
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the whole US treatment of school sport teams and their mascots (or, at least, their depiction in media) is rather cultish behaviour It’s tribal. Or team like. We don’t have a good word for it in English. Being strongly affiliated with a group isn’t a bad thing. It drives innovation in companies and research groups and campaigns. It’s easy to mock. Often, there is some totem Kool-Aid everyone rallies around. This cu…
> This cult-ish mode isn’t antithetical to individualism. We freely choose to associate this way. Unlike cult members, there is an out. There is an incredible amount of social pressure to conform, whether it be to cheering for school mascots, or daily pledging your unconditional allegiance to a nation, years before you are old enough to understand what half of those concepts mean.
Wut, that's some serious 1984 shit, where is this common?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This cult-ish mode isn’t antithetical to individualism. We freely choose to associate this way. Unlike cult members, there is an out. There is an incredible amount of social pressure to conform, whether it be to cheering for school mascots, or daily pledging your unconditional allegiance to a nation, years before you are old enough to understand what half of those concepts mean.
> or daily pledging your unconditional allegiance to a nation Wut, that's some serious 1984 shit, where is this common?
46. RIP. "Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” - Seneca
“Live each day like it’s your last.” “Live like you’ll never die.” The more I think about these two sentiments, the more I think the more popular one is bad advice, and the less popular one is good advice.
Anecdata: my father died relatively young in his 50s after a decade of ill health that had forced him to give up some of the things that he loved, like sailing. This made a very big impression on me (I was in my mid-20s), specifically that you only get one life and you must make the most of your health while you have it. I am now older than he was when he died and I don't have a bucket list of things that I want to do in the future. That's because I've already done those things, rather than postpone them until I retire. That said, I'm currently in the process of seeing if I can bootstrap a totally new career for myself, in the outdoor conservation space after decades in the office in the s/w industry. I might not make it but at least I've tried.
YMMV.
This is terribly sad news. I saw Tony speak at YC Startup School in 2009, and his talk stuck with me far more than any other that day. It was exciting and inspiring to hear that you could build a company that was sincere about being good to its employees and customers whilst also being large and commercially successful, and that’s influenced how I’ve gone about trying to build products and businesses ever since. I ha…