Zappos

The founder

Tony Hsieh joined Zappos as an early investor and advisor and became CEO in 1999, building it into an e-commerce powerhouse famous for its customer-service culture ("Delivering Happiness"). He had turned down Amazon’s acquisition interest as early as 2005, wanting to keep growing independently, but ultimately agreed to a sale under pressure from Zappos’ board, including Sequoia Capital. He stayed on as CEO for another decade after the acquisition. Hsieh passed away in November 2020.

How it was sold

Amazon acquired all outstanding Zappos shares for stock plus cash/RSUs for employees, announced in July 2009 at roughly $847–928 million. Because the deal was stock-based and Amazon’s share price climbed between announcement and the November close, the effective value rose to about $1.2 billion — a rare case where a seller ended up receiving significantly more than the announced price.