Why the Death of Tony Hsieh Matters So Much

My wife and I learned of the passing of Tony Hsieh this past weekend.  

As business leaders who care deeply about culture, this loss hit us hard.  The world lost a wonderful champion of people and culture.  

Tony mostly stayed out of the limelight, so his substantial contributions to making the world a more productive, happy place, may have been missed by our newest generation of business leaders.  

Tony is one of the few tech founders who is universally loved by his employees, his investors and even fellow venture capital investors.  

The quote below from my fellow Georgetown Hoya Chris Sacca is beautiful.  

Chris hit on three core qualities that made Tony great:   

1. Inclusiveness: Tony genuinely listened to understand. 

2. Generosity: Tony shared his knowledge freely.  

3. Passion: Tony cared about the happiness of others. 

Tony wore these qualities on his sleeve and Tony was an early innovator on how much culture matters in business.  

In honor of Tony's life, I encourage all of us to look at the culture of our organizations.  If your organization does not reflect your values, work to change it.   

If you need help with building or changing your business culture, no better place to start than Tony's book: Delivering Happiness.  

Tony is a one of a kind and will be missed by all of us in the tech community.