Tony Hsieh Quotes

Our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff, like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand or empowering passionate employees and customers, will happen on its own.

Chick-fil-A is what it is today because of its people, purpose and product.

The trick is to develop a culture that is customer centric.

We asked ourselves what we wanted this company to stand for. We didn't want to just sell shoes. I wasn't even into shoes - but I was passionate about customer service.

Since most startups operate at a break-neck pace, with a concept to prove or a product to launch within a rapidly shortening runway of financing, company culture often gets shoved aside. This is a big, big mistake: Nobody serious about their business should put culture in the corner.

The culture is what creates the foundation for all future innovation. If you break the culture, you break the machine that creates your products.

No one gave me a recipe for how to create company culture. I wish I had had one.

Good customer service begins at the top. If your senior people don't get it, even the strongest links further down the line can become compromised.

Care about your customers more than about yourself, and you'll do well.

Startups need to focus on building a foundation for their company culture early, and then they need to revisit it often. Every time a hire is made, a feature is launched, a Facebook status is updated, a press interview is given, a round of financing is raised, or a meeting is held, culture should be part of the decision-making process.

I love being part of a company, and telling a story.

Our customers call and e-mail us to say that's how it feels when a Zappos box arrives. And that's how we view this company.

Beyond brand, culture can help drive your product itself by creating the conditions for the idea generation that is and will continue to be the lifeblood of any company.

Stay externally focused - on your customers - and focus internally when you have to hire.

We tried to set up a company that patterned ourselves after Southwest in all the fun, the spirit, the great people, the smile, the efficiency side of it, but we've added some extras that people aren't used to finding on Southwest.

Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can't deliver good service from unhappy employees.

Some of the greatest businesses operating from a deeper purpose have a real commitment to service, like Four Seasons, Joie de Vivre hotels, Southwest Airlines, and JetBlue.

The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people.

We always talk about how you have to build a brand from the inside out, not the outside in. Brands are not wrappers. Brands are based on the values of the founders, and then they spread to the people who work for the company, and then that psychological contract is spread to the customer.

When we began Starbucks, what I wanted to try to do was to create a set of values, guiding principles, and culture.

There's a dance happening on both sides of the table. Individuals are giving their personal and career values a lot more weight when it comes to finding a company that aligns with both. At the same time, companies are becoming a lot more transparent about their core values as an organization and the types of people they want to attract.

If your employees are disengaged, and they don't take care of your customers, it doesn't matter how good your strategy is - your customers will still go somewhere else.

Ultimately, what any company does when it is successful is merely a lagging indicator of its existing culture.

Keeping customers is about the experience, and the employees control the culture and temperature of the business. Never forget that.

In my experience, it is the leader - the CEO - who plays the crucial role in creating and 'owning' an organization's culture, setting the tone, and executing on that consistently.