Hey there, Steven Dubner. We are breaking into your feed with an extra episode this week.

This is a playback of an episode we put out in 2015. It is about how one man, a soft

spoken but wildly interesting and accomplished man, had a vision and acted upon. His name

is Tony Shea. For more than two decades he was CEO of the shoe company Zappos. He was

known in the tech and entrepreneurial communities and beyond as an iconoclast and a dreamer,

maybe even a seeker. Before recording this episode in Las Vegas, I had met Shea just once

or twice before with my friend and co-author Steve Levit. Both of us were really taken

with Shea himself and a book he published called Delivering Happiness. About a week ago, Tony Shea

died at age 46. When I heard the news, I dug into our archives to play back the episode.

I thought you might all like to hear it too. Keep in mind that some of the facts and figures

are now outdated. We'll add a few updates at the end. Shea himself doesn't actually appear

until the second half of the episode, but as you'll hear his ghost is sort of floating

through the first half too. You'll also hear that his drink of choice was for Net

Branca. If you like a drink now and again, you might want to pour one out now for Tony.

We're standing at the corner of Ogden Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard North. In Las Vegas,

Nevada. Nevada? Nevada. It is Nevada. Oh God, I had it wrong the whole time. I always

try to be so respectful of the way that a place is pronounced in the place where it is,

like Oregon, I think. Oregon? Now I'm probably wrong on that.

I know you're right on that. It isn't New Year'sy, right?

And we're looking up at the Ogden. The Ogden is a luxury condo building in downtown Las

Vegas. Not on the strip, the famous part of the city with all the huge hotels and casinos

and glitter. The old downtown is about five miles north of the strip, but it's still

...