The Unexpected Death of a Former Idol

When I was in my early twenties, I once did, for a time, a new kind of international trade—unlike traditional international traders, we found customers through the Internet. At that time I greatly admired a Chinese-American entrepreneur named Tony Hsieh; he founded zappos.com, an online platform that sold shoes exclusively. He built the online shoe retail business into the largest on the entire Internet, and this company was later acquired by Amazon.

Tony Hsieh was a highly individual, talented entrepreneur. Before founding Zappos, he started an Internet advertising platform called LinkExchange, which was later acquired by Microsoft for 265 million dollars. Tony Hsieh thus had ample capital to start his new business and to put his life ideals into practice. He read widely and also loved writing; in 2010 he even published a book called *Delivering Happiness*, which was a bestseller at the time.

He dismissed philosophy and psychology; a programmer by training, he believed that human joy and happiness could, like a computer program, be achieved by setting a series of conditions. Mr. Hsieh had dealt with code too much, so his mind was full of "if……, then……"; he tried to build an "if……, then……"-style utopia to solve the problems of the human spirit.

Tony Hsieh said: "Most of the frameworks about happiness consider that happiness requires four things: perceived control, perceived progress, close connection with the outside world (meaning the depth of interpersonal relationships), and being part of something bigger than oneself." So he believed that happiness could be studied as a science, and he dedicated himself to making his employees achieve happiness in his enterprise. I could not disagree more with this view—I believe that if happiness needs to depend on something to be realized, the seeker of happiness will end up with a bamboo basket drawing water in vain, not even touching a hair of happiness.

But I defend his right to hold to his own views. Mr. Tony Hsieh was an idealist, and I too am an idealist. Although, if Mr. Hsieh and I were to discuss problems together, the two of us might well come to blows because of our wide differences of opinion, yet I admire him greatly—if he understood me, perhaps he would be as full of interest in me as I am in him. He was not at all like a businessman; he took his ideas seriously and practiced them earnestly, and doing business was merely one way for him to practice his ideals.

Zappos's corporate culture was therefore especially unconventional, so much so that Amazon's boss Jeff Bezos considered it the most unusual corporate culture he had ever seen. Tony Hsieh treated Zappos as a platform for verifying his ideas; he refused to pose as the company's founder, and like his other colleagues worked in a tiny cubicle, taking an annual salary of only 36,000 dollars, carrying the ideal of equality into the most thoroughgoing practice.

Although Amazon acquired his company, it almost entirely preserved Zappos's corporate culture and management team. Tony Hsieh was thus able to remain as he was, striving to practice his ideas. Many employees could not adapt to this bossless corporate culture and did not feel happy because of Tony Hsieh's "science of happiness," so they left him. But this programmer, graduated from Harvard's computer science department, believed that if he could not "get" the result he wanted, it must be because his "if" was not yet refined enough; so he remained as he was, exploring his "if……, then……"-style utopia of happiness.

On November 18, 2020, he was injured in an accidental fire and later succumbed to his injuries, dying at the age of 46. After I saw the news of his death, I was quite taken aback. The two of us are roughly contemporaries; he was five years older than I. For a time I, like him, dealt with computer programs, relying on tapping out lines of code to find business opportunities. And we were both different from ordinary merchants seeking to get rich; we had an idealistic streak, hoping to explore a path that could make humanity happy.

He challenged traditional philosophy and psychology, denying them, and tried to solve the problem of human happiness with a programmer's mode of thinking; I, on the other hand, try to find, in medicine and anthropology, ways to solve human physical and mental suffering. Doing business was merely a tool we used to achieve this end; through business he solved his own financial problems and built the utopian enterprise he wanted to build.

Through business I too solved my own survival problems, achieving the goal of settling in the core urban district of Beijing before the age of thirty—had I not, perhaps I could not, after thirty, have focused on medical research without having to worry about making a living. Young doctors are truly too poor, but their intelligence and talent are actually enough to create far more wealth than practicing medicine yields. Many people condemn doctors for earning above the social average, but overlook the reality that these people, if they did not practice medicine, would create more wealth than as doctors. And if the medical profession were not driven forward by a group of people of outstanding intelligence, this world would surely have countless more wrongfully deceased souls.

Among the many who aspire to study medicine, I am rather unusual. Looking back now on the few years of effort I made in my twenties to clear away the obstacles to my livelihood for the rest of my life, I feel the result of that effort was passable. Although I do not reach Mr. Tony Hsieh's heights, it did lay the material foundation for the neither-humble-nor-arrogant attitude to life I have today. Guanzi said: "When the granaries are full, people know propriety; when food and clothing are sufficient, people know honor and disgrace." For a doctor practicing medicine without cringing, a basic livelihood security is necessary.

I do not know whether, on his deathbed, Mr. Tony Hsieh found the answer he wanted—whether or not he found it, I praise him for his exploration. If there were no explorers in this world, no new roads would ever appear, and humanity would not progress.

I am not yet dead; to be honest I have not yet found the answer I want, and for now I am still just pressing on along the road of searching above and below. I continually interpret through writing the truth of life that I personally see—some "truths," limited by my own level of understanding, may not be true; some readers tell me that, after reading my articles, they have gained peace and happiness; other readers gain nothing and scold me roundly, considering me a fraud who deceives the world for fame.

I can hardly agree with Mr. Hsieh's attitude toward philosophy and psychology; "all men are created equal" and "everyone has the opportunity to display their talent" are only an ideal state. In the real world, the gap between people is large; many people have no opportunity to realize their life ambitions, and society is thereby split by a huge chasm.

Without philosophy, psychology, and religion—these things enough to console the human heart—many people in this world would have to live a life of suffering. As Mr. Shi Tiesheng said, the gap between people is an objective reality in the human world; if people were no different, the world would be unimaginably tedious. A person who has suffered a life tragedy, if he wants to save himself from the deep pool of suffering, can get some help from philosophy, psychology, and even religion.

As far as I know, the physicians and pharmacologists dedicated to solving the problem of human physical and mental health have not yet invented a wonder drug enough to make people happy. So hoping that medicine will solve this problem, under present medical conditions, is also just daydreaming.

Last night, before bed, I reread *Yuanjue Jing (Perfect Enlightenment Sutra)* in bed; for a moment I thought: if, as the Buddha said, everyone reached the state of "perfect enlightenment," dispelled all attachments, and polished one's spiritual mirror until the grime was gone and brightness remained, with no more confusion in the heart, perhaps in this world everyone could really be happy. But this idea is of the same nature as Mr. Tony Hsieh's "if……, then……"-style utopian ideal; it is merely setting another "if," and then expecting to "get" a great unified world. In fact, until human doomsday arrives, we cannot reach such a state.

Perhaps all we of this generation can do is just a few odds and ends of things. Among the multitude of living beings, there are always a few who can benefit from the odds and ends of work we do; that is enough.

May Mr. Tony Hsieh, who spent his whole life tirelessly in pursuit of human happiness, rest in peace! May countless idealists also be able, in whole or in part, to realize their life ideals. Only thus will more of our descendants be willing to risk taking the idealist road, striving endlessly to make human society better.