Tony Hsieh
| Tony Hsieh | |
|---|---|
Hsieh in 2009.
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| Born |
December 12, 1973 Illinois |
| Residence | Las Vegas, Nevada, USA |
| Alma mater | Harvard University (S.B.) |
| Occupation | Internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist |
| Known for | CEO of Zappos |
| Home town | San Francisco Bay Area |
| Net worth |
 US$ 840 million |
| Website | twitter |
Tony Hsieh (/ˈʃeɪ/ shay; born December 12, 1973) is an American internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is the CEO of the online shoe and clothing shop Zappos. Prior to joining Zappos, Hsieh co-founded the internet advertising network LinkExchange, which he sold to Microsoft in 1999 for $265 million.
Both of his parents (Richard and Judy) came from Taiwan. Tony Hsieh was born in Illinois and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area of California. He has two younger brothers, Andy Hsieh and Dave Hsieh.
In 1995, he graduated from Harvard University with a degree in computer science. While at Harvard, he managed the Quincy House Grille selling pizza to the students in his dorm; his best customer, Alfred Lin, would later be Zappos’s CFO and COO. After college, Hsieh worked for Oracle Corporation. After five months, Hsieh found himself dissatisfied with the corporate environment and quit to co-found LinkExchange with Sanjay Madan, a college friend and also an ex-Oracle employee.
In 1996, Hsieh started developing the idea for an advertising network called LinkExchange. Members were allowed to advertise their site over LinkExchange's network by displaying banner ads on their website. They launched in March 1996, with Hsieh as CEO, and found their first 30 clients by direct emailing webmasters. The site grew, and within 90 days LinkExchange had over 20,000 participating web pages and had its banner ads displayed over 10 million times. By 1998, the site had over 400,000 members and 5 million ads rotated daily. In November 1998, LinkExchange sold to Microsoft for $265 million.
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