Given the multitude of ways in which consumers can buy shoes, how did Zappos grow from a struggling start-up into a billion-dollar company in less than a decade? Managers took on the goal of extraordinary service and made it the cornerstone of an entire way of doing business—in effect, a corporate culture.

The manager credited with making Zappos an icon of culture is CEO Tony Hsieh. Hsieh started as an investor in Zappos. As the company grew, founder Nick Swinmurn hired Hsieh as chief executive. The new CEO was determined to avoid repeating his earlier experience of building a company he did not enjoy working for.

Instead, Hsieh preaches and models his vision of “delivering WOW”—going so far beyond customers’ expectations that they exclaim in surprise. Hsieh uses the same kind of approach with employees. He placed delivering WOW at the head of 10 corporate values, which also include “embrace and drive change, create fun and a little weirdness, and pursue growth and learning.” In pursuit of this last value, the company set up a Zappos Family Library, from which employees can borrow books on ideas for strengthening the company’s culture. Hsieh also hired David Vik to serve as a “coach” developing talent and reinforcing the culture.

Vik set up a throne in his office, and whenever an employee visits, he or she sits in the throne. This is Vik’s way of indicating that he sees employees’ potential for greatness. The throne is only one of many cultural symbols. Support for “fun and a little weirdness” is as diverse as a petting zoo, employee karaoke, and doughnut-eating contests. To build relationships and show that everyone is valued, a Face Game greets employees whenever they log into the computer system. The game presents a photo of an employee’s face and asks for the person’s name. It responds to whatever name is entered by providing information about that employee.

Maintaining this culture extends to leadership and goals. To amaze customers requires creative decisions. Hsieh’s leadership style involves pointing out issues and letting employees develop their own solutions. He sees himself mainly as the keeper of the Zappos vision. The company also challenges employees to make at least one weekly improvement in how the company delivers on its core values.

Today, Zappos’s vision has been rephrased slightly as “delivering happiness.” If that sounds less exciting than “delivering WOW,” it may represent the challenge of maintaining such a distinct culture. Vik notes that companies lose their positive culture when they stop talking about who they are and begin letting their cultural values become diluted. Zappos was purchased in 2009 by Amazon, which promised to let Hsieh continue running the business in his distinctive way. It remains to be seen whether he can maintain the fun-loving Zappos culture as part of Amazon, although at least Amazon shares Hsieh’s single-minded dedication to customer service.1