Tony Hsieh attempted to deliver "happiness" at Zappos. He even tried to extend this to the city itself with the "Las Vegas Project" to revitalize downtown Vegas. Alas, his "happiness" was just as superficial as Vegas itself. The culture encouraged partying and superficial signs of happiness. He attempted to have a "self-organizing" culture rather than bureaucracy. Alas, it often ended up enabling cronyism. The Las Vegas Project attempted to setup a startup community in Vegas with many "cultural" institutions. Many startups came, but the community never really got off the ground and many of the lofty goals fell away.
Today, Zappos has been more closely integrated into Amazon. Tony retired as CEO, then died a few months later. He had fallen into heavy drug use and his health had degraded. The Utopia he tried to create ended up being nothing more than a Las Vegas mirage.
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