The online shoe retailer whose culture is built around the “Zappos Family Core Values” is Zappos.
Founded in 1999 by Nick Swinmurn as Shoesite.com, Zappos became known for selling footwear online while competing through unusually personal customer service. The company’s ten core values were developed with employee input and formalized its culture, brand, and business strategy. They include “Deliver WOW Through Service,” “Create Fun and a Little Weirdness,” “Pursue Growth and Learning,” and “Be Humble.”
Zappos is often confused with Amazon because Amazon acquired it in 2009. However, the clue refers to Zappos’s own cultural system, not Amazon’s leadership principles. Tony Hsieh, who joined as an investor and later became CEO, strongly promoted the idea that culture and service should drive the business. Zappos even created culture-focused programs such as Zappos Insights, which shared its practices with other organizations.
A related detail readers often ask about is Zappos’s experiment with holacracy. Beginning in 2013, the company tried a flatter, self-managing structure, but its enduring cultural identity remains associated with the ten Family Core Values.