The recent death of Tony Hsieh has caused a major point of discussion throughout the tech and entrepreneur online communities. As many internet users are looking for information regarding the cause of death and what happened to the entrepreneur in his last moments of life, it would be appropriate and enlightening to first discuss who he was as a business man and as a person.
Tony Hsieh was a digital media entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He was CEO for Zappos, an online shoe and clothing company, for 21 years before he retired.
He also co-founded an advertising network, LinkExchange, which he sold to Microsoft for $265 million in 1998.
Although he had much success in Silicon Valley, he was actually born in the Mid-west in Urbana, Illinois. Both of his parents were immigrants from Taiwan. His family moved to the west coast in California when he was only five years old. Hsieh developed his academic skills from his parents; his mother was a social worker and father was a chemical engineer. He also had two younger brothers.
Hsieh graduated from Harvard University with a degree in computer science. Hsieh was a part of the Harvard University team that won the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. He also received an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Hsieh’s book Delivering Happiness debuted at No.1 on the New York Times Best Seller List for 27 weeks in a row.
Hsieh should be remembered for his dedication to education, perseverance and the contributions he made to e-commerce and digital media. He was intelligent, talented, and his career continues to be a good paradigm for emerging entrepreneurs.
In the last few months of his life, Hsieh was planning on entering rebab for alcoholism. It also has been confirmed that he was taking illegal drugs like mushrooms and ecstasy, and wanted to remove his dependency on these types of drugs.
He died from medical complications from a fire that happened on November 27 where the entrepreneur was stuck inside the basement. His specific cause of death was smoke inhalation.
There is still an active investigation on the fire and how it got started.
There is also evidence that he may have been suffering from an eating disorder that resulted in him weighing less than 100 pounds.
His friends have come forward and talked to several media outlets in regards to Hsieh’s experimentation with figuring out the least amount of oxygen he can live with per day. Some critics are suggesting that these experimentations may have accelerated the smoke inhalation. These statements have not yet been proven but may be circumstantial evidence at a later time.
Some critics are asserting that the entrepreneur was living a lifestyle that contributed to his early demise. However, the evidence on the “experiments” he was conducting with his body comes from statements from his friends and the majority of which may be accurate, but readers have only the toxicology report to find information to verify these claims. Tony Hsieh made big contributions to technology and innovation. His life should be celebrated and his works appreciated for what they represent to internet cultures