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

A very fast story. It's somewhat interesting, but also a fair bit of marketing for Patagonia clothing. There are enough specifics to keep even those sections engaging. Chouinard is principled, but often in a naive way, e.g., he is against nuclear power. As a billionaire, he also comes across as being a bit out of touch. (He quotes a speech he gave in 1985 predicting the death of the one-stop supermarket.)

Probably one of the most entertaining business books I've ever read. Yvon's insights are thoughtful, funny, spot-on accurate and a delight. I often suggest that every CEO should have a fundamental role model...their ideal leader.

Mine is Yvon Chouinard.

Take, as an example, this piece of pithy brilliance:
"You have to be true to yourself; you have to know your strengths and limitations and live within your means. The same is true for a business. The sooner a company tries to be what it is not, the sooner it tries to 'have it all,' the sooner it will die."

Or this:

"The best-performing firms make a narrow range of products very well. The best firms’ products also use up to 50 percent fewer parts than those made by their less successful show more rivals. Fewer parts mean a faster, simpler (and usually cheaper) manufacturing process. Fewer parts mean less to go wrong; quality comes built in. And although the best companies need fewer workers to look after quality control, they also have fewer defects and generate less waste. In business heaven we shall all have businesses making simple products like WD-40, or bottled water that we could sell for two to four times as much as gasoline."

Would that every technology company could internalize that wisdom...

And this, from a series of ads Patagonia ran in 2004:

"FINANCIAL PHILOSOPHY
Who are businesses really responsible to? Their customers? Shareholders? Employees? We would argue that it’s none of the above. Fundamentally, businesses are responsible to their resource base. Without a healthy environment there are no shareholders, no employees, no customers and no business."

and finally, quoting the great French Romantic writer and politician, Francois Auguste Rene Chateaubriand:

"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both."

I think I'm going to make this required reading for every CEO who wants me to work with them. show less

Stumbled upon this in a pile of books given to me by someone's mother in the hopes that I'd BookCross them. Curious about Patagonia, I gave it a whirl. I went in knowing the company had a good reputation, and that even at my fittest, I wore a size larger than I usually do. The respect for the company has only grown, and the glimpse into this company was an amazing view of shared vision, and of a company that not only has a heart, but has a soul and a conscience. I learned an amazing amount about all sorts of outdoor related, and even chuckled at some of the stories (Like how Chouinard abhorred the idea of computers, but recognized them as a necessary evil. One day, he decided he really needed to actually see this marvelous machine that show more his employees had even given a name. He saw a metal rectangular contraption and stared at it. "Is this [it]", he asked. No, he was told. That's the air conditioner. The computer was on the other side of the room. show less

Not what I'd expected. I'd bought it under the impression that this was a biography, focussing more on the life (and mountaineering exploits) of Chouinard than on his business.
After all, it's more of an economics manual to run a company successfully by being charitable and environmentally friendly and talking about it.
Certainly, his business approach is right and astonishing, but I would have liked to learn more about the wilderness man Chouinard than about the business man.
In the end, is has an aftertaste of an ad. A highly welcome, reasonable and justifiable one, but still an ad.

Part biography, part ecological call-to-arms, part business strategy guidebook, Let My People Go Surfing tells the tale of both Yvon Choinard and the businesses he founded, Patagonia (outdoor clothing) and Choinard equipmet (climbing gear). Choinard's writing is straight-foward and to the point, with none of the self worship or pats on the back common to so many business biographies. Instead, Choinard tells in very simple terms how he started the business, how it progressed, and both how it succeeded and how it has failed. There are several instances where Choinard touts the company's horn about being so far ahead of the game in worker's rights and ecological trends-- Patagonia was one of the first companies to offer maternity leave for show more workers and in-house childcare for famiies; it was also one of the first to go to organic cotton and using recycled plastic in its clothing. Choinard comes to the conclusion that he's in business not to make money-- although the company has certainly done that-- but to set an example for other companies to follow in being as Earth-friendly as possible. It's an inspiring story that begs the question: can other companies follow Patagonia's example? Simple answer: no. But Chouinard explains it's not so much the companies that need a change, it's consumers. Companies will respond to demand, since they are in business to make money. If we as consumers make the changes necessaryto save our planet, businesses will respond. I quite enjoyed this, and am recommending it to business students and those interested in the environment. show less

Inspiring and interesting story about Yvonne Chouinard; a fascinating exposition of the Patagonia company's "philosophies" (very insightful reading about retail selling); and a bit of an environmental rant. That's not to say I disagree with what he says - I don't - it's just that the reading in this section is less interesting.

I greatly respect Chouinard for his stance in civil conduct and in responsible business. I wish our leaders could read this book and live consciously and take strong stances for their values. A much better read than Schultz on Starbucks.