Zappos, the billion-dollar, Amazon-owned e-commerce site, has become known for its unusual corporate culture as much as it has for its wide shoe selection and stress-free customer service.

Its visionary CEO, Tony Hsieh, had spent years trying to maintain an innovative startup feel for the company as it grew in both age and headcount when he decided to begin implementing "Holacracy" in 2013.

It's a replacement for the traditional corporate hierarchy that gets rid of traditional management roles and job titles in favor of "distributed authority." Hsieh told Business Insider that one of the problems with Holacracy is that it can't be explained succinctly, but here's our best shot.