Zappos CEO Hsieh: How to build a company culture that delivers happiness
(I’m live-blogging from Startup School, a daylong program from startup incubator YCombinator held at Berkeley today. This is paraphrased. Tony Hsieh is the CEO of online shoe company Zappos, which is in the process of being acquired by Amazon.)
Hsieh: Basically in college I was working at a pizza business. Then I started a company called LinkExchange and sold it to Microsoft for $265 million. The reason we sold it was because the company culture went totally downhill.
When I got… Continue Reading
Twitter starts to talk up corporate-account plan
Sometime soon, Twitter is expected to unveil its plan to make money. Based on comments made by Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams recently, it seems likely the plan will involve charging companies for accounts with special privileges.
In New York Magazine this week, both Stone and Williams said that charging companies for brand verification is something that the company was looking into. This makes a lot of sense, especially given the rise of fake… Continue Reading
Beacon backlash continues: Class action lawsuit filed gainst Facebook
A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Facebook and other sites for their participation in Facebook’s Beacon program.
The controversial program, which turned into a publicity disaster that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg apologized for, alerted a user’s friends about their activity on other sites, for example buying movie tickets on Fandago. Beacon sparked an outcry from Facebook users, who saw it as a violation of privacy and complained that it was difficult to opt out.
In addition… Continue Reading