the story of a truly american tragedy. hsieh was a born businessman, did everything right, went to harvard then already at the age of 25 finished the game and achieved “the american dream” by selling his bs dot com bubble company to microsoft for an obscene amount of money. the average person might be content to rest on their laurels at that point, but it’s not in the nature of those kinds of ambitious entrepreneurs to settle down easily. he does the typical silicon valley thing and becomes a venture capitalist, which doesn’t last very long until he goes all in on zappos (his new game+, basically), becoming the ceo and burning every last cent he has keeping it afloat during the dot com winter of the early noughties. after a decade of hard work and struggle, hsieh pulls it off once again and zappos was sold to amazon for over a billion dollars, after which he remains in the zappos CEO role but gradually steps away to focus on his other main interest: community building. this had been a theme for him throughout, with his big microsoft money hsieh had purchased a “party penthouse” and a bunch of units in a luxury condo building where for years he lived in a kind of college atmosphere with his friends, and he sought to recapture that energy after it had been lost to friends moving on and being forced to sell all the condos to keep zappos afloat. zappos itself was well-known for having a unique corporate culture, serving as a laboratory for hsieh’s ideas.

ironically, despite his obsession with community and companionship, hsieh struggled with social anxiety, and it was his attempts to overcome it through drugs and alcohol that would eventually lead to his downfall. his eyes were initially opened to the social possibilities of taking drugs after being introduced to underground raves and burning man, though he would end up becoming most reliant on heavy drinking to stay hypersocial during his las vegas downtown revival phase. as his drinking came to the attention of friends and got extreme enough to start causing major health problems, he did manage to quit but replaced it with something that would end up being even worse for him: ketamine.

it turns out that one potential side-effect from ketamine abuse is psychosis, and as his usage continues his behavior becomes erratic and he displays clear signs of delusional thinking. a lot of his antics during his descent into madness are eerily similar to how my brother acts during his manic states, which almost always involve psychosis and delusions of grandeur.

…he was acting in a manic manner, appearing shirtless and shoeless in the frigid air, pacing around the trailers and tiny homes and ranting about new, strange ideas. He wants to start a new religion. He claimed he could morph his body into a gazelle and become one with nature and terrain. He was working toward unlocking the escape combination to the universe. If he could break out of this simulation controlled by artificial intelligence, he said to friends, he could become the new controller of the universe and heal everyone from all physical and mental maladies.

people aren’t able to recognize what’s happening to hsieh, however, because he’s shielded by his money and his reputation as a slightly eccentric but effective and extremely successful businessman. so, when he made bold declarations like that he was going to “solve covid”, it was possible to believe because it was something he just might be capable of. the money also gave hsieh the ability to more-or-less pay off people within his circle into looking the other way as he angrily cut off all his closest family and friends that were trying desperately to get him help instead of just giving into his delusions, which led to hsieh finding himself surrounded by a small clique of cynical yes-men who were mostly just mooching off his money. things got especially bad when hsieh moved to a secluded mansion in park city utah, where access by friends/family and the authorities was strictly limited by his new inner circle trying to protect their golden goose that at that point would dash off a check for millions of dollars for any random “business idea” that catered to his delusions. although they do their best to keep him secure and out of trouble in the park city mansion, they’re still yes-men and going against him too much risks falling out of his good graces and having to get off the gravy train, so when he wants to go on the little trip that would end up leading to his accidental death, they don’t say no…