Overview

From award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters, an in-depth look at Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh's short life and untimely death--and what it means for our pursuit of happiness.Tony Hsieh--CEO of Zappos, Las Vegas developer, and all-around beloved entrepreneur--was famous for spreading happiness. He lived and breathed this philosophy, instilling an ethos of joy at his company and outlining his vision for a better workplace in his New York Times bestseller Delivering Happiness. He promoted a workplace where bosses treated employees like family members, where stress was replaced by playfulness, and where hierarchies were replaced with equality and collaboration. His outlook shaped Silicon Valley and the larger business world. Hsieh used his position at work to integrate levity into a normally competitive environment. He aspired to build his own utopian cities, pouring millions of dollars into real estate and small businesses, first in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada--where Zappos was headquartered--and then in Park City, Utah. He gave generously to his employees and close friends, including throwing infamous Zappos parties and organizing gatherings at his home, an Airstream trailer park. When Hsieh died suddenly in November of 2020, the news shook the business and tech world. Wall Street Journal reporters Kirsten Grind and Katherine Sayre quickly realized the importance of the story because of Hsieh's stature in the industry, but as they dug into the details of his final months, they realized there was a bigger story to tell. They found that Hsieh's obsession with happiness masked his darker struggles with addiction, mental health, and loneliness. In the last year of his life, he spiraled out of control, cycling out of rehab and into the waiting arms of friends who enabled his worst behavior, even as he bankrolled them from his billion-dollar fortune. Happy at Any Cost sheds light on one of the most venerated, yet vulnerable, business leaders of our time. It's about our culture's intense need to find happiness at all costs, our misguided worship of entrepreneurs, the stigmas still surrounding mental health, and how the trappings of fame can mask all types of deeper problems. In turn, it reveals how we conceptualize success--and define happiness--in our modern age.

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9781797140629

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Kirsten Grind is an enterprise reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where she has worked since 2012. She has received more than a dozen national awards for her work, including a Pulitzer Prize finalist citation for her coverage of the financial crisis, and a Loeb award for her coverage of the downfall of a famous bond fund manager. Her first book, The Lost Bank, about the collapse of Washington Mutual, was named the best investigative book of 2012 by the Investigative Reporters & Editors association. Katherine Sayre covers gambling and Las Vegas for the Wall Street Journal, where she has worked since 2019. She previously reported for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, covering business before joining the investigative team. Happy at Any Cost: The Revolutionary Vision and Fatal Quest of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is her first book. She lives in Los Angeles. Raymond J. Lee is an experienced film and television actor and audiobook narrator. His television credits include It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and How I Met Your Mother, and he's had notable supporting roles in Farah Goes Bang and A Leading Man. A founding member of the LA-based clown troupe Four Clowns, he can also be heard in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. For more information, visit www.theraymondlee.com.

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