Harvard graduate Tony Hsieh sold his first company, LinkExchange to Microsoft for $265 million. Putting his next investment into an online shoe retailer named Zappos.com, Hsieh proved his success with the development of the billion-dollar-a-year business.  Hsieh recently launched his own book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose where he confirms the idea that money doesn’t give you happiness. He further talks with Goodreads CEO,  Otis Chandler about humbleness and connectedness being one key to building a good business culture and how he attracted all this success.

Otis Chandler: Why did you write this book?

Tony Hsieh: Originally it was just one of those things to check off—like running a marathon. I thought it’d be cool to write a book one day. It actually has evolved quite a bit since the original idea.

A big goal for the book is to spread the message that it is possible to make employees and customers happy and drive profits and long-term financial growth. Which I think is pretty different from 50 years ago, when most companies had to choose between making employees and customers happy versus making more money. We live in an age where we are so connected, and information travels so quickly, that it actually is possible today. Really one of the big goals of the book is the title: Delivering Happiness. Beyond just Zappos employees or Zappos customers, we’re really hoping that this type of mentality will spread to other people and other companies.

We created ZapposInsights.com, where we share everything we do. There we help [companies] figure out their own core values that are right for their company.

OC: A key tenet of the book is the idea that money alone does not bring happiness. You proved your belief in that tenet when after selling LinkExchange, your first company, to Microsoft for $265 million, you reinvested your cut of the sale into keeping Zappos afloat in the early 2000s. Not many people would have taken such a risk. What inspired you to spend all of your savings on Zappos?

TH: It ultimately came down to deciding whether I really believed in the team we had at Zappos and whether it could grow into something meaningful. It wasn’t just me. Fred Mossler [Zappos Senior Vice President] quit a great career at Nordstrom; he had a kid and another on the way and had just bought a house. He took the leap of faith because he believed in Zappos, so in some ways he was actually risking a lot more than I was. That was basically his entire life. It came down to a leap of faith.

OC: How does technological change impact customer service?

TH: Companies have become more and more transparent, whether they like it or not. If someone had a bad customer service experience 50 years ago, they could tell their neighbors and that was about it. No one else would find out about it. Whereas today they put it on Twitter or in a blog post, and overnight it can be read by millions of people. The reverse is true, too: If a company provides really great service, that reputation can spread very quickly, which is what we’ve found at Zappos. So it’s exciting to be living in a time where it’s actually possible for the good guys to win.

More of the interview can be read here.