The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

by Daniel Coyle

Things did not go well for Zappos at first. The business had trouble in the ways young businesses usually have trouble—supply, logistics, execution. At one point several staffers were living in Hsieh’s San Francisco apartment. But in the early 2000s, things started to improve slowly, then with astonishing speed. In 2002, revenues were $32 million; in 2003, $70 million; in 2004, $184 million. The company relocated to Las Vegas and kept growing, reaching $1.1 billion in revenues in 2009. Zappos, which was sold to Amazon, now has fifteen hundred employees and $2 billion in revenue. It is consistently ranked among the country’s top employee-friendly companies and attracts hundreds of applications for each available opening. It is easier to get into Harvard than to get a job at Zappos.