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Tony Hsieh, who helped grow the online company Zappos into one of the largest retailers of shoes on the Internet, died Friday after being injured in a house fire. He was 46.

"The world has lost a tremendous visionary and an incredible human being," Zappos CEO Kedar Deshpande said in a 

. "We recognize that not only have we lost our inspiring former leader, but many of you have also lost a mentor and a friend."

Megan Fazio, a spokeswoman for Hsieh's side venture, DTP Cos., 

 the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Hsieh died from injuries sustained in a house fire in Connecticut. 

The Day newspaper reported the day of the fire that one person had been removed from a waterfront home in New London, Conn., with possible burns and smoke inhalation. The person, whose name authorities did not release, was eventually taken to Bridgeport Hospital, which has a burn center.

Fire Chief Thomas Curcio was quoted by The Day as saying that crews arrived around 3:30 a.m. after a report of someone trapped in part of the house, that firefighters had to force their way in, and that they removed the victim, performed CPR and took him to a hospital.

Hsieh graduated from Harvard University in the mid-90s with a degree in computer science. While working at Oracle, Hsieh and a college roommate created a business called LinkExchange to help companies buy advertisements on websites. In 1998, during the heyday of the dot-com bubble, they sold the company to Microsoft for $265 million. That provided funding for what came next.

"I'm actually not passionate about shoes at all," Hsieh 

in 2017. What he was passionate about, Hsieh said, was customer service and company culture. That's one of the reasons he sold LinkExchange, he said: At some point the company grew so large that the corporate culture changed, and no longer appealed to Hsieh, an introvert.

With his newfound wealth, Hsieh started an incubator to invest in other companies. One day, he got a voicemail from the founder of Zappos, Nick Swinmurn, who had an idea for selling shoes online. It was one of the numerous random pitches Hsieh was getting every day, and he almost deleted the email.

"It seemed like the poster child of bad Internet ideas," Hsieh said: Who would actually buy shoes without seeing them in person? 

But Swinmurn intrigued Hsieh with two facts: First, footwear was a $40 billion industry in the United States. Second, mail-order catalogs were, at the time, the fastest-growing segment of the footwear industry in the country.

That was "clear proof that people are going to remotely try on shoes," Hsieh said. He spent the next 20 years leading the shoe seller to enormous success as CEO. 

"I'm probably different from a lot of typical CEOs," Hsieh told “How I Built This.” "Imagine a greenhouse, where maybe at a typical company, the CEO might be the strongest and tallest, most charismatic plant that all the other plants strive to one day become. ... For me, I really think of my role as more about being the architect of the greenhouse, and then all the plants inside will flourish and thrive on their own."

In 2009, facing potential cash flow problems, Hsieh 

 Zappos to Amazon for $1.2 billion. He stayed on as CEO until 

In addition to Zappos, Hsieh was known for his venture DTP Cos., which poured hundreds of millions of dollars into 

. By 2017, Hsieh's company had a portfolio of about 90 properties there, according to the Review-Journal.

"Today is a sad day," former Zappos Chief Operating Officer Alfred Lin 

 on Twitter. "The world lost a pioneer of company culture, the shoe industry, Downtown LV, web advertising, and also a gentle soul who gave a part of himself to countless people. We'll remember Tony for that and the happiness he brought to so many people."  

Business and Economic News

Matthew S. Schwartz

Author

The technology entrepreneur made his fortune in the heyday of the dot-com era, before pivoting to lead the online shoe company — despite knowing little about shoes.

Tony Hsieh, former Zappos CEO, dies at 46

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