Tony originally got involved with Zappos.com as an advisor and investor in
1999, about 2 months after the company was founded. Over time, Tony ended up spending more and more time with the company because it was both the most fun and the most promising out of all the companies that he was involved with. He eventually joined Zappos.com full time in 2000. Under his leadership, Zappos.com has grown gross merchandise sales from $1.6M in 2000 to $840M in 2007 by focusing relentlessly on customer service.
Tony focuses on continuing to grow the business at a rapid pace while
maintaining the culture and feel of a small company. Prior to joining
Zappos.com, Tony co-founded Venture Frogs with Alfred Lin. Venture Frogs is an incubator and investment firm that invested in Internet startups,
including Ask Jeeves, Tellme Networks, and of course, Zappos.com. Prior to
Venture Frogs, Tony co-founded LinkExchange, an advertising network that was successfully sold to Microsoft for $265M in 1998.
Tony met Alfred Lin (COO/CFO) in college, when Tony was running a pizza
business and Alfred was his #1 customer.