Gawker: valleywag, zappos

Amazon Buys Zappos, Gives Press the Boot

Ryan Tate — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:08:15 EDT

Amazon.com bought Zappos, the beloved online retailer of shoes, for $920 million, mostly in stock. Amazon's announcement was as direct as its business model; while reporters were calling the company in vain, CEO Jeff Bezos was dishing via YouTube.

Bezos' video, above, was directed not at the press or even customers but at Zappos employees, who Bezos presumably wants to keep firmly in place through the acquisition and integration of the company. The CEO of Zappos, meanwhile, did his talking on the company blog.

Bezos cut out the middleman — the press, in this case — big time. And why not? Instead of having to answer boring financial questions, Bezos got to pontificate on Amazon's history, ostensible focus on its customers, and on his management philosophy. The manic laugher would never have been able to sermonize like this in the Wall Street Journal.

UPDATE: And of course there's a downside, which is being mocked by the likes of Fast Company's David Lidsky. Lidsky's funny satirical liveblog of Bezos' video is here.

Zappos.com Reveals Secret to Selling Overpriced Shoes

Owen Thomas — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:52:27 EDT

The dotcom dream is alive! Zappos, the Las Vegas online shoe retailer, has free food, on-site massages, and a life coach! Employees are even paid to Twitter. Just don't mention the November layoffs, okay?

Do You Trust These People to Save the Economy?

Gabriel Snyder — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:18:23 EST

That White House summit of young business leaders actually happened. We know because our new economic saviors are posting their cameraphone pics on Twitter. Here's noted thought leader Ivanka Trump and Twitter founder Ev Williams.

We're still waiting for a more thorough after action report, but for now, here's TOMS Chief Shoe Giver (yes, that's his actual title) Blake Mycoskie, who blogs this comforting thought, "The administration really does want our input, each gave their personal email addresses and encouraged dialogue."

According to CNET's Caroline McCarthy, other attendees included "Kluster founder Ben Kaufman, Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, Toms Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie, Threadless exec Jake Nickell, marketer Josh Spear, former Googler Chris Sacca, and the one everyone's making the jokes about—Twitter co-founder Evan Williams."

Below, some more visual evidence.

Mycoskie and Threadless founder and Chief Strategy Officer Jake Nickell.

Trump and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, who, now that he's done saving the economy, will be appearing on Celebrity Apprentice this Sunday.

Zappos layoff turns into lovefest

Owen Thomas — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:20:00 EST

Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, has a promising career as a cult leader. In a blog post, the online shoes-and-clothes retailer's boss acknowledges the layoffs his employees were Twittering about this morning, writing that the company had laid off 8 percent of its workforce. He all but admits the cuts were forced on him by investor Sequoia Capital. The severance packages are generous in comparison to most startups; two months or more of pay, and six months of health insurance. Sweet enough, perhaps, that people won't ask a key question about the layoffs."Tony cares about his company and his employees more than anyone else around," says an entrepreneur who knows Hsieh. His employees, even the former ones, seem to be returning the favor on Twitter. But if he loved his employees so much, why didn't he resist the pressure from Sequoia to make the cuts? We hear Sequoia is insisting that all of its portfolio companies cut payrolls by around 10 percent, regardless of the particulars of their businesses. Zappos seems to be doing well in its e-commerce niche — well enough, at least, to afford a generous severance. Hsieh's company offers free returns if the shoes its customers buy don't fit. Why didn't he just mark Sequoia's orders "return to sender"?

At Zappos, careers live by the Twitter, die by the Twitter

Owen Thomas — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:40:00 EST

No company has embraced Twitter quite like Zappos, the online shoes-and-whatever-else retailer — from its CEO, Tony Hsieh, on down. It even hosts a live feed of all Zappos-related messages on the microblogging service. That has made it easy to gather that the company is going through a tumultuous round of layoffs.

Zappos_Jackie reports that she was laid off an hour ago; other ex-employees are proclaiming their lasting love for Zappos. We look forward to the New York Times updating its trend story about how companies blog about layoffs. They must now Twitter them instead, lest misinformation spread quicker than sluggish RSS feeds. (Oddly, Hsieh never mentioned the pending layoffs in an interview he gave to the Times about Zappos' vaunted corporate culture.)

Why outsource when you can replace humans entirely?

Jackson West — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:40:00 EDT

When online shoe retailer Zappos isn't paying newly trained employees to leave the company, it's replacing them entirely. Robots developed by Kiva Systems zip around a Zappos warehouse picking up items and deliver them to their meatbag underlings for packing, and then move the packages to another small group of primates where the boxes are shipped. The only problem I foresee is that the robots have wheels, so when they inevitably take over, they won't be buying any shoes from Zappos. [CNET]

Zappos advertising in some unexpected places

Jackson West — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:40:00 EDT

Las Vegas-based e-tailer Zappos, which prides itself on innovative management techniques like paying new hires to leave, is also an "innovator" in the advertising space. Not for the company's TV ads, but for leveraging the post-9/11 security landcape to get the word out. "When I'm coming through security I know that it can be frustrating and this is to provide a little lightheartedness," senior marketing manager Andy Kurlander said of the ad-buy for space in the buckets used by travelers to feed shoes and other items through the x-ray machine. The company should also consider a market which can only buy mail-order that's an even more captive audience: Prisoners. Heck, they could order new kicks straight from a Microsoft TouchWall.

Why Zappos pays new hires to leave

Jackson West — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:00:00 EDT

Zappos, the Nevada-based online shoe and accessories retailer, has an interesting twist on new-hire bonuses. After applying and being chosen for a job, employees get a month of paid training. Then they're offered $1,000 to leave. It's a test of commitment, meant to see if money is what matters to workers. The amount offered has risen from an initial $100 and could grow even more. Only 1 in 10 take the offer, according to CEO Tony Hsieh, and the company now employs approximately 1,600 who passed the test. Our question is, would you take the money and run or stick around to sell shoes?

(Photo by Nate Ritter)

Handvertising is the new banner ad

Jackson West — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:00:00 EDT

An impromptu "Tweetup" at Medjool from the online shoe salesfolk at Zappos lured reporter Sarah Lacy out to Medjool. The promise: free booze if you promoted the website with a backhanded mention. Can you suggest a better caption? Do so in the comments. Yesterday's winner: "This picture brought to you by Seagate" by Duncan. (Photo by Scott Beale)