Dear Zappos Employees: We’re Rich!
Breaking news this afternoon:
Amazon spent a boat load on shoes. Yep,
Amazon spent more than $850 million on
Zappos.com.
Sounds like a dot-com deal of yore, especially when you consider recent bankruptcy deals like Golden Gate Capital’s purchase of Eddie Bauer or Golden Gate’s on-the-cheap deal for J. Jill.
Why did Amazon shell out so much money, and why was Zappos willing to make the deal? Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh summed it up in this e-mail to his employees:
(This is just about everything… for the full transcript, check the SEC website)
To: All Zappos Employees
Subject: Zappos and Amazon
Please set aside 20 minutes to carefully read this entire email. (My apologies for the occasional use of formal-sounding language, as parts of it are written in a particular way for legal reasons.)
Today is a big day in Zappos history.
This morning, our board approved and we signed what
