Tony Hsieh next big gamble: The livelihood of a thousand or so Zappos employees

Some highlights from Glassdoor. Strange since Zappos is championed on a regular basis by bschools for customer service, employee satisfaction, and culture.

"It was great the first 4 years, great leader great benefits. it has changed tremendously and not for the good at all."

"The reality is once someone leaves, they become persona non-grata to an extreme. They are not allowed to come to events, if they show up as your guest… Figure out how to say goodbye with some class. Figure out how to let people go with their souls intact. There is over 20% turnover every year."

"The relaxed environment becomes hindering when you need to get work done. Even simply asking others to tone it down or that you need to focus is met with purposeful continuance of whatever it is you tried to stop in the first place. It is a "so what?" environment."

"Many people joke around so often that nothing gets accomplished when it matters or takes a very very long time to do simple tasks. Voluntary outings that are really mandatory. You are viewed as an outsider if you do not act like you're part of the Zappos college fraternity like lifestyle. It is very much like high school or college all over again."

"After getting rid of the attendance policy, people are no longer showing up to work on time. Those that do show up to work are forced to deal with how busy the phones are. There are petty incentives and rewards for actually coming into work and doing what you're supposed to do."

tl;dr sentiment is that Zappos is like high school and college all over again with a lot of politics getting in the way of work. Reminds me a bit of some startups here.