Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
name	Tony Hsieh
alt	Tony Hsieh's Zappos identity badge in 2009
birth date
occupation	CEO of Zappos.com, Inc.
website	http://twitter.com/zappos }}

Tony Hsieh ( "shay", born December 12, 1973) is the CEO of online shoe and clothing shop Zappos.com. Prior to joining Zappos, Hsieh co-founded and sold the internet advertising network LinkExchange to Microsoft in 1999 for $265 million.

Early life

In 1995, Hsieh graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Computer Science. While at Harvard, he managed the Quincy House Grille selling pizza to the students in his dorm (his best customer, Alfred Lin, would later be Zappos’s CFO and COO). After college, Hsieh worked for Oracle. After five months, Hsieh found himself dissatisfied with the corporate environment, and quit to found Link Exchange.

Career

LinkExchange

In 1996, Hsieh started developing the idea for an advertising network called LinkExchange. Members were allowed to advertise their site over LinkExchange's network by displaying banner ads on their website. They launched in March 1996, with Hsieh as CEO, and found their first 30 clients by direct emailing webmasters. The site grew, and within 90 days LinkExchange had over 20,000 participating web pages, and had its banner ads displayed over 10 million times. By 1998, the site had over 400,000 members and 5 million ads rotated daily. In November 1998, LinkExchange sold to Microsoft for $265 million.

Venture Frogs

After LinkExchange sold to Microsoft, Hsieh co-founded Venture Frogs, an incubator and investment firm, with his partner, Alfred Lin. The name originated from a dare. One of Hsieh’s friends said she would invest everything if they chose "Venture Frogs" as the name, and the pair took her up on the bet (although they have yet to see any money). They invested in variety of tech and internet startups, including Ask Jeeves, OpenTable and Zappos.

Zappos

In 1999, Nick Swinmurn approached Hsieh and Lin with the idea of selling shoes online. Hsieh was initially skeptical, and almost deleted Swinmurn’s initial voice mail. After Swinmurn mentioned that "footwear in the US is a 40 billion dollar market and 5% of that was already being sold by paper mail order catalogs," Hsieh and Lin decided to invest through Venture Frogs. Two months later, Hsieh joined Zappos as the CEO and has since doubled revenues every year, starting with $1.6 million in 2000. By 2009, revenues reached $1 billion.

On July 22, 2009 Amazon.com announced the acquisition of Zappos.com in a deal valued at approximately 1.2 billion . He is said to have made at least $214 million from the sale not including money made through his former investment firm Venture Frogs.

Personal life

In June 2010, Hsieh released ''Delivering Happiness'', a book about his entrepreneurial endeavors. It was profiled in many world publications, including ''The Washington Post'', CNBC, TechCrunch, ''The Huffington Post'', and ''The Wall Street Journal'' It debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List, and stayed on the list for 27 consecutive weeks.

Hsieh currently lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.

References

External links

Fantastic New Interview With Tony

Delivering Happiness Official Website

Category:Amazon.com people Category:American chief executives Category:Corporate executives Category:Living people Category:American people of Taiwanese descent Category:Harvard University alumni Category:1973 births

Alfred Lin is a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital and currently sits on the board of Stella & Dot. Alfred focuses on consumer internet, enterprise and mobile companies. He was born in Taiwan and moved to New York City at the age of six or seven.

Prior to Sequoia Capital, Alfred was the Chairman, COO and CFO of Zappos.com which was acquired by Amazon.com in 2009. While at Zappos, Alfred managed all financial, administrative and strategic operations. Previously, Alfred was the VP of Finance and Business Development of Tellme Networks (MSFT) and co-founded Venture Frogs, an incubator and investment firm with Tony Hsieh. Venture Frogs invested in companies such as Ask Jeeves (ASKJ), OpenTable (OPEN), MongoMusic (MSFT) and even Zappos.com (AMZN). Prior to Venture Frogs, Alfred was the VP of Finance and Administration at LinkExchange which was sold to Microsoft for $265M.

''TechCrunch'' has stated that Alfred has the "Midas touch" since "Every company he’s worked for has been acquired, and the smallest deal was $265 million."

Alfred holds a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard and an M.S. in Statistics from Stanford.

References

External links

Sequoia Capital profile

Crunchbase profile

Twitter profile

Category:Stanford University alumni Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Venture capitalists Category:American people of Taiwanese descent Category:Living people

Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
birth name	Demi Gene Guynes
birth date	November 11, 1962
birth place	Roswell, New Mexico, U.S.
occupation	Actress
years active	1981–present
spouse	Freddy Moore (1980–1985)Bruce Willis (1987–2000)Ashton Kutcher (2005–present)
children	Rumer Willis, Scout Willis, Tallulah Willis }}

Demi Guynes Kutcher ( ; born November 11, 1962 as Demi Gene Guynes), known professionally as Demi Moore, is an American actress. After minor roles in film and a role in the soap opera ''General Hospital'', Moore established her career in films such as ''St. Elmo's Fire'' (1985), and in the early 1990s, became one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood with her successes in ''Ghost'' (1990), ''A Few Good Men'' (1992), ''Indecent Proposal'' (1993), and ''Disclosure'' (1994).

Moore took her professional name from her first husband, musician Freddy Moore, and is the mother of three daughters from her marriage to actor Bruce Willis. She has been married to actor Ashton Kutcher since 2005.

Early life

Moore was born Demi Gene Guynes in Roswell, New Mexico. As a child, she had a difficult and unstable home life. Her biological father, Charles Harmon, left her mother Virginia King (November 27, 1943 – July 2, 1998), after a two-month marriage, before Moore was born. As a result, Moore had the surname of her stepfather, Danny Guynes (March 9, 1943 – October 1980 by suicide), on her birth certificate. Danny Guynes frequently changed jobs; as a result, the family moved a total of forty times. Moore has two younger half-brothers: James Craig Harmon (paternal) and Morgan Guynes (maternal, born 1967). Her parents were alcoholics who often fought and beat each other. Moore was cross-eyed as a child and wore an eye patch in an attempt to correct the problem until it was ultimately corrected by two surgeries. She also suffered from kidney dysfunction.

Moore's family settled in Los Angeles in 1976. She attended Fairfax High School in Hollywood, where her schoolmates included Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, bassist Michael Balzary (aka Flea) and actor Timothy Hutton. When Moore was 16, her friend Nastassja Kinski persuaded her to drop out of school to become an actress.

Career

After training with John Casablancas, Demi Moore made her film debut in the 1982 3-D science fiction/horror film, ''Parasite'', which was a hit on the drive-in circuit, ultimately grossing $7 million. However, Moore was not widely known until she played the part of Jackie Templeton on the ABC soap opera, ''General Hospital'', from 1982 to 1983. Moore also had an uncredited cameo at the end of the 1982 spoof ''Young Doctors in Love''.

In the mid-1980s, Moore appeared in the youth-oriented films ''St. Elmo's Fire'', ''Blame It on Rio'' and ''About Last Night...'', and she was often listed as one of the Brat Pack, a name the media dubbed a certain group of top young actors at the time. In 1988, Demi starred in ''The Seventh Sign'' directed by Carl Schultz. After the commercial success of ''Ghost'', Moore was given more prominent roles in ''A Few Good Men'', ''Indecent Proposal'', ''Disclosure'', and ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame'' for which she was the first actress to reach the $10 million salary mark.

thumb|left|150px|Moore at the Huffington Post Pre-Inaugural Ball, 2009.During the early 1990s, she was the highest paid actress in Hollywood. She never surpassed the success of ''Ghost'', and had a string of less successful films like ''The Scarlet Letter'', ''The Juror'', ''Striptease'', and ''G.I. Jane''. Moore's ''Passion of Mind'' co-star Joss Ackland lambasted her by describing her as being "not very bright or talented", although he worked with her again on ''Flawless'' in 2008. At the same time, she produced and starred in a TV mini-series called ''If These Walls Could Talk'', written by Nancy Savoca. A three-part series on abortion, Savoca directed two segments, including the one in which Moore played a single woman in the 1950s seeking a back-alley abortion. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress for that role.

Moore was a founding "celebrity investor" in the Planet Hollywood chain of international theme restaurants (modeled after the Hard Rock Cafe and launched in New York on October 22, 1991) along with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and then-husband Bruce Willis.

After a break from her acting career, Moore returned to the screen as the villain of the 2003 film ''Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle''. In 2006, she appeared in ''Bobby'' which featured an all-star cast, including her husband Ashton Kutcher, although they did not appear in any scenes together. She later starred in the thriller film ''Mr. Brooks'', which was released on June 1, 2007. She appeared in Jon Bon Jovi's longform video "Destination Anywhere" as Janie.

In 2006, Moore became the new face for the Helena Rubinstein brand of cosmetics.

''Vanity Fair'' controversy

In August 1991, Moore appeared nude on the cover of ''Vanity Fair'' under the title ''More Demi Moore''. Annie Leibovitz shot the picture while Moore was seven months pregnant with her daughter Scout LaRue, intending to portray "anti-Hollywood, anti-glitz" attitude. The cover sparked an intense controversy for ''Vanity Fair'' and Demi Moore. It was widely discussed on television, radio, and in newspaper articles. The frankness of Leibovitz's portrayal of a pregnant sex symbol led to divided opinions, ranging from complaints of sexual objectification to celebrations of the photograph as a symbol of empowerment.

The photograph was subject to numerous parodies, including the ''Spy'' magazine version, which placed Moore's then husband Bruce Willis' head on her body. In ''Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp.'', Leibovitz sued over one parody featuring Leslie Nielsen, made to promote the 1994 film ''Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult''. In the parody, the model's body was attached to what is described as "the guilty and smirking face" of Nielsen. The teaser said "Due this March". The case was dismissed in 1996 because the parody relied "for its comic effect on the contrast between the original". In November 2009, the Moroccan magazine ''Femmes du Maroc'' emulated the infamous pose with Moroccan news reporter Nadia Larguet, causing controversy in the majority Muslim nation. In August 1992, Moore would again appear nude on the cover of ''Vanity Fair'', modeling for the world's leading body painting artist, Joanne Gair in ''Demi's Birthday Suit''. The painting is widely considered to be the best-known example of modern body painting artwork.

Personal life

She married singer Freddy Moore in 1980 at the age of 17, retaining his surname. In 1987, Moore met and married actor Bruce Willis. They had three daughters together: Rumer Glenn Willis (born August 16, 1988), Scout LaRue Willis (born July 20, 1991), and Tallulah Belle Willis (born February 3, 1994). Moore and Willis divorced in 2000.

In 2005, Moore wed actor Ashton Kutcher after dating for two years.

Moore's primary residence is in Hailey, Idaho, near the famous Sun Valley resort, although she spends much time in the Los Angeles area with Kutcher. She also owns a waterfront mansion on Sebago Lake, Maine. She is a practicing follower of the Philip Berg's Kabbalah Centre religion, and initiated Kutcher into the faith, having said that she "didn’t grow up Jewish, but ... would say that [she has] been more exposed to the deeper meanings of particular rituals than any of [her] friends that did." Contrary to popular belief, Moore claims she has never been a raw foodist and dispelled the vegan rumors by eating a hamburger in a recent Mario Testino photo shoot.

Moore legally changed her last name to Kutcher two years after marrying Kutcher. However, she continues to use Moore in her professional life. According to the ''New York Times'', Moore is "the world's most high-profile doll collector," and among her favorites is the Gene Marshall fashion doll.

Filmography

! Year	! Film	! Role	! Notes
1981	''Choices''	Corri
1982		Patricia Welles
1983	''Young Doctors in Love''	New Intern	Uncredited
	''No Small Affair''	Laura Victor
''Blame It on Rio	Nicole 'Nikki' Hollis
1985		Jules
		Karen Simmons
''One Crazy Summer''	Cassandra Eldridge
''About Last Night...''	Debbie
	''The Seventh Sign''	Abby Quinn
''The New Homeowner's Guide to Happiness''		Short film
1989		Molly
1990		Molly Jensen	Saturn Award for Best ActressNominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
	''The Butcher's Wife''	Marina Lemke
''Mortal Thoughts''	Cynthia Kellogg
	Diane Lightson
1992		LCDR JoAnne Galloway
1993	''Indecent Proposal''	Diana Murphy
1994		Meredith Johnson	Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable FemaleNominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Villain
		older Samantha
	Hester Prynne	Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Female
	''Beavis and Butt-head Do America''	Dallas Grimes (voice)
	Erin Grant
''The Juror''	Annie Laird
	''Deconstructing Harry''	Helen/Harry's Character
''G.I. Jane''	LT Jordan O'Neil	Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Fight with Viggo Mortensen
''Destination Anywhere: The Film''	Jenny	Short film
2000	''Passion of Mind''	Martha Marie/'Marty' Talridge
2002	''The Hunchback of Notre Dame II''		''Straight-to-DVD''Nomination – "Best Animated Character Performance" at the DVD Exclusive Awards
2003	''Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle''	Madison Lee	Nomination – MTV Movie Award for Best VillainNomination – "Sexiest She-Villain" (Villana más Sexy) at the MTV Movie Awards México
	''Half Light''	Rachel Carlson	Limited release.
	Virginia Fallon	Hollywood Film Award for "Ensemble of the year" at the Hollywood Film FestivalNominated – "Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture" at the 13th Screen Actors Guild Awards
		Laura Quinn	Limited release
''Mr. Brooks''	Detective Tracy Atwood
		Director	Directorial debut
		Laura
''The Joneses''	Kate Jones
	Alexandra
	''Margin Call''	Sarah Robertson
	Annie	''Post-Production''

Television

! Year	! Title	! Role	! Notes
1982–83	''General Hospital''	Jackie Templeton
		Holly Trumbull	1 episode
''Bedroom''	Nancy	Comedy series
1989		Woman in Elevator	Uncredited
1990		Cathy Marno	1 episode, "Dead Right"
1991	''Master Ninja''	Holly Trumbull	TV movie
1996	''If These Walls Could Talk''	Claire Donnelly
1997		The Sample Lady	1 episode "The Puppy Episode: Part 2"
2003	''Will and Grace''	Sissy (The Babysitter)	Sitcom

References

External links

Category:1962 births Category:Living people Category:Actors from Idaho Category:Actors from Los Angeles, California Category:Actors from New Mexico Category:Actors from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American soap opera actors Category:Fairfax High School (Los Angeles) alumni Category:People from Blaine County, Idaho Category:People from Hollywood Category:People from Roswell, New Mexico Category:Saturn Award winners

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Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
name	Seth Godin
birth date	July 10, 1960
occupation	author, marketing guru
website	sethgodin.com }}

Seth Godin (born July 10, 1960) is an American entrepreneur, author and public speaker. Godin popularized the topic of permission marketing.

Background

Born in Mount Vernon, New York, Seth Godin graduated from Tufts University in 1979 with a degree in computer science and philosophy. Godin earned his MBA in marketing from Stanford Business School. From 1983 to 1986, he worked as a brand manager at Spinnaker Software. For a time Godin commuted every week between California and Boston both to do his new job and to complete his MBA.

After leaving Spinnaker Software in 1986, Godin used $20,000 in savings to found Seth Godin Productions, primarily a book packaging business, out of a studio apartment in New York City. It was in the same offices that Godin met Mark Hurst and founded Yoyodyne. After a few years Godin sold the book packaging business to his employees and focused his efforts on Yoyodyne, one of the first online marketing companies. It was with Yoyodyne that Godin came up with the concept of permission marketing. For a period of time, Godin served as a columnist for ''Fast Company''

Godin and his wife Helene now live in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York with their two sons.

Viewpoints

Godin believes that the end of the "TV-Industrial complex" means that marketers no longer have the power to command the attention of anyone they choose, whenever they choose. Second, in a marketplace in which consumers have more power, he thinks marketers must show more respect; this means no spam, no deceit and a bias for keeping promises. Finally, Godin asserts that the only way to spread the word about an idea is for that idea to earn the buzz by being remarkable. Godin refers to those who spread these ideas as "Sneezers", and to the spreading idea as an "IdeaVirus." He calls a remarkable product or service a purple cow. Yahoo! currently has a model of a purple cow in the lobby of its Sunnyvale campus.

Advertisements on television and radio are classified as 'interruption marketing' which interrupt the customer while they are doing something of their preference. Godin introduced the concept of "permission marketing" where the business provides something "anticipated, personal, and relevant".

Business ventures

Yoyodyne

In 1995, Godin launched Yoyodyne which used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. In August, 1996, venture-capital firm Flatiron Partners invested $4 million in Yoyodyne in return for a 20% stake. The site gained significant traction, with over one million viewers visiting the site, and companies like America Online, American Express, H&R; Block, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Sony Music, Sprint, and Volvo using its services.

At Yoyodyne, Godin developed the principle of permission marketing and authored ''Permission Marketing: Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers''.

In 1998, Godin sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo! for $30 million and became Yahoo's vice president of direct marketing, a position he held until 2000.

Squidoo

In March 2006, Godin launched Squidoo, a community website allowing users to create pages (called "lenses") for subjects of interest. The site donates 5% of the profits to charity, and 50% to the lensmasters. Godin and Squidoo have been profiled on CNN and the Washington Post. The site was given top prize in SXSW's community/wiki category. As of July 2008, Squidoo is one of the 500 most visited sites in the world.

Other projects

ChangeThis

Godin developed the idea for ChangeThis, a website aimed at spreading ideas through PDF files. In the summer of 2004, Godin hired five interns—Amit Gupta, Catherine Hickey, Noah Weiss, Phoebe Espiritu and Michelle Sriwongtong—to build and develop the website. The website went live on August 14, 2004. Tom Peters, Chris Anderson, and Guy Kawasaki all had manifestos featured on ChangeThis. In July 2005, ChangeThis was turned over to 800-CEO-READ, the leading distributor of business literature in the United States.

Six month alternative MBA program

In December 2008, Godin announced in a blog post that he would be offering a six month alternative MBA program at his office in Hastings on Hudson, NY. 48,000 people looked at the post and 340 applied. He invited 27 applicants to his office for a group interview. They spent two hours interviewing one another. After co-mingling, they and Godin together wrote down the names of their favorite candidates. Three weeks later the chosen 9 showed up at Godin's office. This group graduated in July 2009.

Books

Godin is the author of 11 books; his ''Free Prize Inside'' was a Forbes Business Book of the Year in 2004, in its first two years of release, ''Purple Cow'' sold over 150,000 copies in more than 23 printings. ''The Dip'' was a Business Week and New York Times bestseller. And Godin has called his free ebook ''Unleashing the Ideavirus'' the most "popular ebook ever written". In the early 1990s he created a ten book series for children titled ''Worlds of Power'', which was written by various writers. In each the plot of a single video game was told in a novelized form.

Beginning with ''Permission Marketing'', Godin uses the concepts discussed in the books to promote the book. For ''Permission Marketing'', Godin gave 1/3 of the book away for free to anyone who sent an e-mail. For ''Unleashing the Ideavirus'', Godin released the entire eBook on the Internet for free, which led to eventual publishing deals in 41 countries and a public speaking career. For ''Purple Cow'', Godin created a milk carton container for the book which generated attention from work colleagues. For ''Tribes'', Godin launched an exclusive online community for the first 3000 people who pre-ordered the book. For Linchpin, Godin gave the book away for three weeks before its release for free to anyone willing to give $30 to the Acumen Fund for the $20 book, and raised $100,000 for the Acumen Fund.

Bibliography

''Book online'' - Detailing the idea of Viral marketing

Blog

Godin's blog, is ranked in the ''AdAge Power 150'' as the #1 marketing blog out of 976 tracked.

References

External links

Official site

Great New Interview with Seth Godin

Seth Godin on TED

An interview with Seth Godin on ''The Marketplace of Ideas''

Category:1960 births Category:Living people Category:American business writers Category:American business theorists Category:Business speakers Category:American bloggers Category:Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni Category:Tufts University alumni

bg:Сет Годин es:Seth Godin fr:Seth Godin he:סת גודין pl:Seth Godin pt:Seth Godin ro:Seth Godin ru:Годин, Сет fi:Seth Godin tr:Seth Godin vi:Seth Godin