Riding on the coattails of other’s success to deliver happiness
I was disappointed in the flippant tone of this book. I am a victim of corporate American culture and this book was ‘the book’ that everyone had on their desk a few years back and I feel that it is finally time to write an unbiased review for those that are interested as I am going to be getting rid of my copy at the next garage sale. It’s been some time since I’ve read this book but what has left an indelible mark in my memory is that this autobiographical story of Tony's childhood and career preached a tone of entitled self-indulgency that is a common thread among many people I have met throughout my professional career that have not quite yet been humbled by life.
There are a number of ideas Tony brings to the table now that are progressive in that they lend a bit of fun to the mundane corporate nonsense most of us have to get through or at least make the day to day grind a bit more tolerable for his lemmings.
His book focuses a lot on Zappos culture now but my largest issue with Tony’s rise to success was the fact that he admitted to committing blatant fraud while working for Oracle. Nobody would argue that his intelligence, hard work and perseverance got him to the comfortable career working for a Fortune 500 company which afforded him the opportunities to explore new business ventures. The fact of the matter is that while he was working at Oracle he launched his new business venture on the company’s dime. There is a level of trust that a company grants to individuals that work remote and spending that time building entrepreneurial ventures when he should have been working to help improve Oracle’s business, service his customers or help improve the process he instead selfishly moved his own agenda forward and violated the company’s trust. This is my sticking point.
Would he be as gracious with an employee that was earning a six figure salary and chose to spend over half the company’s time on their own venture? Google allows employees to spend 10% of their time on personal projects but this is an exception to the rule it could certainly be argued that Zappos is the intellectual property of Oracle. We should all be so lucky.
Amazon Link: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose