I woke up early this morning and the first news I read was of Tony Hsieh’s passing last night. It hit me hard - he was only 46-years old. Tony was the long-time CEO of Zappos, only recently retiring in August.

Although I cannot say Tony was a close friend, he was an acquaintance that I had some good history with, most of it indirect. Zappos was one of the original pioneers of customer reviews, which Brant Barton and I decided to bring to the majority of the retail industry when we founded Bazaarvoice (literally named “the voice of the marketplace”) in 2005. Zappos was one of our early influences, with Amazon of course being our biggest (Amazon initially launched customer reviews in 1997, three years after their founding). I believe eBags had reviews even prior to Zappos (they were definitely an influence too), and Circuit City (kind of like a Best Buy that went out of business in 2009) had just launched them, paving the way for Brant and I to see that traditional, store-based retailers had a big need for us to fill.

In 2009, I was named Entrepreneur of the Year in Austin by E&Y. Tony had received the same Award for the Northern California region in 2007. My wife, Debra, and I were invited to the National Awards in Palm Springs. It was there that I connected with Tony, and we immediately connected on innovative company culture. We shared a lot of tips with each other, and it was clear that he was just as eager to learn as share.