The New Yorker has a fantastic story on Zappos. I’ve written about Zappos several times previously and I have to say this is one of the best profiles I’ve seen.

“Tony Hsieh, has earned a zealous following by imposing an ethos of live human connection on the chilly, anonymous bazaar of the Internet. He talks about being the architect of a movement to spread happiness, or “Zappiness,” via three “C”s: clothing, customer service, and company culture.

“Eventually, we’ll figure out a way of spreading that knowledge to the world in general, and that has nothing to do with selling shoes online.”

There has been much talk about what will happen to the Zappos culture and its all important focus on happy since it was acquired by Amazon. The culture was even considered important enough that the issue was addressed in an SEC filing—”Amazon vowed to leave Zappos’s management structure intact.”

Hsieh was already rich when he joined Zappos after selling his first company to Microsoft; he had a simple focus…

“What kind of company can we create where we all want to be there, including me? How can we create such a great environment, where employees get so much out of it that they would do it for free?”

Anyone who has seen Hsieh knows he isn’t a fashion icon; everything he wears is no name, moreover he has no interest, “I much prefer experiences to stuff.”

And that is what Zappos really sells, the intimate experience of a leisurely conversation on the phone with a person who is happy to hear from you, doesn’t multitask while talking or rush you because she has to do something else (the current record-holding call went on for five hours, twenty-five minutes, and thirty-one seconds) and, by the way, you get a pair or more of shoes with it.

The article is a fascinating and intimate look at Hsieh and Zappos; I hope you’ll take time to read it.

Image credit: Zappos

Southwest Airlines, like Zappos, has a corporate culture that is head and shoulders above most and is the envy of their competitors.

Southwest’s culture is so important that the company walked away from a deal to buy Frontier Air Lines.

It is that culture has helped Southwest weather the current financial storm and it zealously guards that culture because it knows it is the true foundation of its strength..

As Gary C. Kelly, Chairman, President and CEO, said in the during the Q2 Earnings Call,

“Excluding special items, we reported a second quarter profit of $59 million and that was $0.08 a share. And I would say given the deep recession that that is a very solid performance and, of course, I’m very proud of our people on every front. We continue to manage through the economic crisis with a lot of change and all the while our folks are delivering a very high-quality operation and outstanding customer service, so I’m very, very proud of them.”

The call was primarily with analysts, although many investors probably joined it, and the introduction included the following statement,

“This call will also include references to non-GAAP results; therefore, please see our earnings press release in the Investor Relations section of our website at Southwest.com for further information regarding our forward-looking statements and for a reconciliation of our non-GAAP results to our GAAP results.”

So if you’re Southwest and known for a fun culture, how do you incorporate that into something as eye-glazing as explaining GAAP, AKA Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, at your annual meeting?

Easily. You just ask David Holmes, known as the Rapping Flight Attendant, to explain it.

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Image credit: NutsAboutSouthwest on YouTube