Delivering Happiness Full Audio Book by Tony Hsieh

Book name: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
Author: Tony Hsieh
About: Delivering Happiness resembles an autobiography of Hsieh with business and life lessons sprinkled throughout the story.
This summary attempts to keep the plot and structure of the book while emphasizing the lessons.
Quick summary about the author: Tony Hsieh co-founded LinkExchange, which was later bought by Microsoft for $250 million. He then started an investing, playing poker, and a whole bunch of other things before the 2008 recession. During and after the recession, he doubled down on being the CEO of Zappos, an online shoe company. After Amazon acquired Zappos, Hsieh claims to have found the path to profits, passion, and purpose.
The structure of Delivering Happiness:
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Introduction: Finding My Way
SECTION I: PROFITS
Chapter 1: In Search of Profits
Chapter 2: You Win Some, You Lose Some
Chapter 3: Diversify
SECTION II: PROFITS AND PASSION
Chapter 4: Concentrate Your Position
Chapter 5: Platform for Growth: Brand, Culture, Pipeline
SECTION III: PROFITS, PASSION, AND PURPOSE
Chapter 6: Taking It to the Next Level
Chapter 7: End Game
Epilogue
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Introduction: Finding My Way
The author, the CEO of Zappos, recollects of the moment Amazon.com acquires Zappos as a jumping point in the book about his “path.”
Section 1: Profits
In Search of Profits
Worm Farm
Hsieh was young and aspired to become a worm farmer (his parent’s profession), but let the dream die after he failed to breed worms.
Growing Up
Hsieh was very focused on money when he was young. Before elementary school, he sold his self-written and self-published newspapers to his friends and his barber but later stopped for obvious reasons. Hsieh lists many more of his young and failed business ideas, but then transitions to a “successful” button business.
Dialing for Dollars
More childhood memories.
Classic Economics
Hsieh describes his high-school life. He always tried to do the least amount of work while getting decent grades.
College
Crowdsourcing: Never went to a single class in Bible studies but organized a massive study group to create the most comprehensive study guide. Hsieh did well in Bible studies.
Sold pizzas, met Alfred, who bought his pizzas and sold to his roommates. Realized although he made more money than Alfred, Alfred made $20/hr compared to his $2/hr. Alfred would soon become the CFO and COO of Zappos.
College interviews for jobs: he didn’t care about what company or location, only salary and amount of work mattered (high and low respectively)
You Win Some, You Lose Some
Out in the Real World
Hsieh and a friend land a $40000 “software engineer” job; however, they soon find the job to be boring. The pay was good, but when Hsieh and his buddy started on a side project, they decided that it was best to quit after only five months of working and focus full-time on their Web site business.
Startup
After a week, they got bored with their startup idea and were bored out of their minds. They had nothing to do, until one day, out of sheer boredom, they thought of a business idea which would later become LinkExchange. Hsieh recalls that growing the company, from first emailing his favourite websites to having floods of emails of people wanting to be signed up, to being offered $1 million to buy the company and turning that down, to being offered $20 million by Yahoo! and turning that down again.
In that emotional rollercoaster, Hsieh felt that the situation was them against the world and that they were living the time of their lives. Hsieh even remarked that he had the opportunity to not work a single more day in his life, but the reason he abstained from selling the company at $20 million was that he was still young and preferred adventure.
Rapid growth
“24/7 adrenaline high”
But as the company started to expand, soon they had to get larger offices. Soon, Hsieh realizes that there were faces in his office he had never seen, and it was a unique experience to him, and he welcomed it, at first (Foreshadowing: this is not good). Once the company reached 100 employees, Hsieh recalls a time when he couldn’t bother waking up and going to work: at that moment, he realizes that his attitude towards LinkExchange has changed. Hsieh viewed his own company more like a job (like his previous job) rather than the closely-knit culture club before. His company sold to Microsoft for $250 million, but when the deal was done, he wasn’t happy, just relief and apathy. The contract stipulated that he and his friend stay at the company for at least 12 more months, and Hsieh said to himself that he promised to do his bare minimum just not to get fired.
Note: Later in the book, Hsieh heavily emphasizes the importance of the culture of a company and the importance of a tribe like feeling where everyone knows each other-basically a large group of tight-knit friends.