Tony Hsieh Comes Clean... One Year Later
People typically react in one of three ways after we publish something they’d rather keep secret: (1) No comment; (2) Confirm and spin; and (3) Deny, deny, deny. But now there is a fourth path: Deny loudly via an official statement to other news outlets (who accept it as gospel), and then admit the truth nearly one year later. The culprit here is Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. When his company agreed last July to be acquired by Amazon, peHUB reported the following: “The decision to sell hot online shoe retailer Zappos to Amazon.com was more in line with the interests of Sequoia Capital than the company’s CEO, according to two sources close to the company… Moritz and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh came into conflict about the company’s future. Moritz, the sources say, wanted Zappos to sell while Hsieh wanted to remain independent.” Hsieh responded swiftly with a statement that read, in part:
