The Cost of Happiness: Tony Hsieh

Nastaran chats with Dan Lyons, best-selling author and screenwriter for HBO's Silicon Valley, about the Tony Hsieh story and the highs and lows of tech company culture.

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What remains of Tony’s utopian, llama-shaped vision for a neighbourhood? 

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Once again, Tony finds himself at the center of a toxic culture characterized by suspicion and silence. Except this time, there’s no escape.

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The feverish excitement around The Downtown Project begins to give way to frustration, confusion, and disappointment. Tony's utopian vision is concealing something toxic. And it isn’t just businesses and investors at stake. All of a sudden, so are people’s lives.

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When you talk about investing millions in a neglected city, buying up old buildings, funding small businesses and startups, and creating the happiest community on earth, people listen. So it’s no surprise that word quickly spreads about Tony Hsieh’s grand plans and the pilgrimages to Vegas begin. But will Tony’s utopia prevail? Or will the qualities that once made him beloved come back to bite him?

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Flush with cash from his sale of Zappos to Amazon, Tony Hsieh is writing big checks. He has some 350 million dollars to invest — and just a year into this bold experiment in social engineering, his efforts to transform downtown Vegas into the happiest place on earth seem to be well underway. Did his vision for a tech utopia really work wonders on this city?

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In July 2009, a man sells a company for $1.2 billion dollars — a company he’s spent the past decade building, and one that has revolutionized how we buy things on the internet. At just 35 years old, he’s instantly among the world’s richest people. But he sees himself as so much more than a business mogul.

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Josh thought he’d found a tech utopia — but then reality hit. This is a story about one man’s quest to transform a city, and the world, through his particular vision of happiness. It’s about the people who were seduced by that vision. And the people who were left behind. 

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Billionaire Zappos founder and tech CEO Tony Hsieh was obsessed with happiness and helping people achieve it. After running “the world’s happiest company” for two decades, Hsieh created his experimental community — The Downtown Project — dedicated to pursuing happiness. But what do Tony's life and death reveal about Silicon Valley’s obsession with re-imagining how society functions?

Series premieres December 5. Subscribe and follow now!

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