Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard

From Barnes & Noble

Despite the slightly silly title, this business memoir by the CEO of Patagonia, Inc., manages to be about much more than the challenge of harnessing backpacking to the bottom line. Because Yvon Chouinard really is a lifelong rock climber (and climbing tool inventor) with a deep love of the outdoors, his unorthodox views on running a successful company embrace product development, ecological stewardship, and HR -- including encouraging employees to spend as much time climbing, kayaking, and surfing as he does.

From the Publisher

Whether you care about adventure sports, the fate of the natural world, or pure brand maintenance and business success, Patagonia, Inc. is one of the earth's most interesting and inspiring companies. For almost forty years, its reputation for unsurpassed high quality, maverick innovation, and long-term environmental responsibility has put it in a class by itself. And everything flows from Patagonia's founder, Yvon Chouinard.

Chouinard's creation myth is now an American business legend. As a child, he moved with his father, a French Canadian blacksmith, and the rest of his family to Southern California in the 1950s with little English and less money. He escaped into mountain climbing as a teenager and by his early twenties was among the best climbers in America, making famous first ascents of a number of notorious faces. When he decided he could make better climbing tools himself for less money and when his fellow climbers agreed and clamored for more, a way of life became a business. Some forty years later, Yvon Chouinard still summits peaks around the world (though he now spends more time surfing). Patagonia still makes exceptionally high-quality things, only it now earns more than $250 million a year from worldwide sales, and Chouinard is able to leverage his concern for the natural settings he's spent a lifetime enjoying. His resolve to minimize Patagonia's impact on the environment has led the company to make its famous fleeces out of recycled soda bottles and to donate at least 1 percent of its revenue each year to environmental causes, among many other things.

In Let My People Go Surfing, Yvon Chouinard relates his and his company's story and the core philosophies that have sustained Patagonia, Inc. year in and year out. This is not another story of a successful businessman who manages on the side to do great good and have grand adventures; it's the story of a man who brought doing good and having grand adventures into the heart of his business model--and who enjoyed even more business success as a result. Let My People Go Surfing gives ample evidence as to why there have been few more influential companies in American business in the last forty years than Patagonia, Inc.

The long-awaited memoir/manifesto from legendary climber, businessman, and environmentalist Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner of one of the world's most inspiring companies, Patagonia, Inc.

Publishers Weekly

Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia Inc., presents his philosophy for a "new style of responsible business" along with a chronicle of his personal and company history in this sincere if self-congratulatory creed. A Californian of French-Canadian descent, Chouinard started forging climbing hardware and selling it out of his car in 1957 and published his first catalogue, a one-page mimeographed sheet, in 1964. Today, his sporting goods company has annual revenues of $230 million, but he nonetheless identifies himself as more of "a climber, a surfer, a kayaker, a skier and a blacksmith" than a CEO. In this vein, he lays out his alternative vision of business, detailing eco- and people-conscious philosophies on aspects of the supply chain from product design and production to human resources and management. Chouinard has backed up his rhetoric with action: Patagonia pursues sustainability, gives 1% of annual net sales to environmental groups and has set benchmarks with its employee-friendly policies. Patagoniacs and socially conscious businesspeople may appreciate this account despite its wooden writing, especially as an antidote to headlines of corporate fraud. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Chouinard, founder/owner of Patagonia, Inc., mixes a bit of memoir with a lot more on his passionate philosophies about running a business in this engrossing story of his unique company. Although at first reluctant to enter the role of CEO of a growing company, Chouinard soon realized that he could blend business success with his values. His nicely explained core philosophies are defined in his unusual approach to product design and production, his savvy distribution plan, his financial and human resource management principles, his laid-back management style, and the strong environmental sensitivity of his company. From Chouinard's early ice-ax design, which continues to be the tool of choice for today's ice climbers, to his use of cutting-edge material in highly specialized sportswear, his company continues to excel in producing high-quality items at a relatively expensive price, thus confounding the Wal-Marts of the world. Readers will appreciate Chouinard's insights into what makes his special business tick and his unwavering commitment to his environmental principles. This title nicely counterbalances the classic slash-and-burn approach to business success found in Sumner Redstone's A Passion To Win and Jack Welch's Winning. Highly recommended for larger public libraries and for university libraries supporting business curricula.-Dale Farris, Groves, TX Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Patagonia, Inc. founder and president Chouinard traces his evolution from single-minded rock-climber to international business owner, sharing the philosophies that have guided his company's growth and operations. Get this straight: The author is no latter-day, tree-hugging yuppie. He's an old-fashioned outdoorsman, with toughness bred in the bone. Proof: The author's father, who makes a walk-on appearance in the very beginning of the book, is a French-Canadian carpenter who pulled his own teeth rather than pay a dentist. Young Yvon never liked school, preferring to surf and climb mountains, so after a couple of years of community college and a short stint in the army, he started supporting himself-barely-by selling the climbing gear he'd begun creating some years earlier. From these bare-bones beginnings, the Patagonia empire was born; today, it's an outdoor-gear and -clothing company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year in worldwide sales. Chouinard discusses the challenges of growing such a business and running an environmentally conscious firm (the only kind he could ever bear to run), devoting the lion's share of the book to a discussion of Patagonia's many company guidelines. More a set of practical considerations than a set of motivational mantras, Chouinard's philosophies are tailored for every department, from product designers to human resources. The author cheerfully admits that he still spends much of the year off site, camping, climbing and surfing, and he encourages his employees to do the same-as long as their work gets done. The author isn't living in a utopia-he shakes his head at the number of environmentally unfriendly SUVs in Patagonia's parking lot-but hedoes seem committed to making the effort. An appealingly practical guide to encourage capitalism and ethics to play nice together.

What People Are Saying

Ray Anderson
"Yvon Chouinard is a mountain climber in both the literal sense and the metaphorical sense, and no mountain he ever climbed literally was more daunting or important than the one he is climbing in his business: ' Mount Sustainability'. Here he tells the story of that climb, not only the what and how of it, but also the why. What an important and inspiring read! Thank you, Yvon, for your story."
—Chairman, Interface, Inc.

Jared Diamond
"Here are three wonderful books rolled into one: a moving autobiography, the story of a unique business, and a detailed blueprint for hope."
—Professor of Geography at UCLA, author of the books "Guns, Germs, and Steel" and "Collapse," and winner of a 1998 Pulitzer Prize.

Dave Foreman
"Yvon Chouinard is far more than a world-class mountaineer and brilliant outdoors haberdasher. He stands out as a mountain himself-a mountain of integrity, responsibility, courage, and vision. No matter what you do, you will find essential guidance and inspiration in Let My People Go Surfing. I probably wouldn't be here without Yvon's support over the years; his book now gives me more strength to carry on."
—The Rewilding Institute

Anita Roddick
"At last Yvon Chouinard has taken time to write his story, and some of us, in the progressive business world have waited decades for his wisdom to be penned. This is a wonderful, wonderful book. 200 odd pages of truth telling, consciousness raising and ballsy bravery. His company created an awareness of the environmental issues linked to corporate behavior, product development and company action when others were just tinkering at the edges. Every wannabe entrepreneur, every school teaching a course on "business" and every MBA program should buy this book. This book has to be a best seller. Yvon, thank you, thank you!"
—founder and owner of The Body Shop

Product Details

• ISBN: 0641873468
  
• ISBN-13: 9780641873461
• Format: Hardcover, 272pp
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
• Pub. Date: October 2005
• Edition Description: Bargain
• Sales Rank: 2,568

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents