58 pages • 1 hour read
Yvon ChouinardLet My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Pages 105-163Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “History”
Part 1, Pages 105-119 Summary
Chouinard’s idea of a different type of business is of work as an extension of life:
Work had to be enjoyable on a daily basis. We all had to come to work on the balls of our feet and go up the stairs two steps at a time. We needed to be surrounded by friends who could dress whatever way they wanted, even be barefoot. We all needed to have flextime to surf the waves when they were good, or ski the powder after a big snowstorm, or stay home and take care of a sick child. We needed to blur that distinction between work and play and family (105).
However, he doesn’t reject conventional business philosophy out of hand; he reads countless books on business in various countries, searching for a company to emulate. The only company that shares his values is Esprit, owned by his friend Doug Tompkins—who earlier started The North Face in the 1960s. Esprit is further along in its development than Patagonia or Chouinard Equipment and provides a helpful role model to those growing companies.
After solving the rugby-shirt-caused cash-flow crisis by securing a line of credit, Patagonia begins focusing on making multifunctional technical clothing, inspired by Chouinard’s enthusiasm for learning new activities, such as whitewater kayaking. The team looks outside mountaineering for inspiration for clothes that don’t absorb moisture like the cotton, down, and wool used by mountaineers at the time. They create a polyester pile sweater out of material intended for toilet seat covers that insulates well and dries in minutes. They solve the problem of cotton long underwear holding moisture against the skin by thickening and softening the polypropylene fabric a Norwegian company uses for the same purpose, creating a base layer that not only wicks moisture but insulates. The development of these products leads them to the concept of layering: having long underwear to wick moisture away from the skin, keeping it warm; a pile mid-layer for insulation; and an outer shell to keep out wind and water. Patagonia teaches this concept through its catalogs, and soon its synthetic fabrics come to replace natural, moisture-absorbing ones in the outdoors.
Products made with these fabrics sell well, and Patagonia has little competition. Nonetheless, the company invests in its own research and design department so it can further improve its already successful designs. Outside the research department, Chouinard learns of a type of new Capilene polyester used in football jerseys that doesn’t melt in high-temperature dryers or retain odors as the polypropylene does. He decides to introduce both this and Synchilla—a non-pilling pile fabric Patagonia developed—and scrap the older fabrics despite the fact that the products made with those fabrics account for 70% of their sales. His confidence in the product pays off: Sales soar, and other companies are left scrambling to catch up. Later, in the 1980s, Patagonia sets another trend through the introduction of bright colors such as “cobalt, teal, French red, mango, seafoam, and iced mocha” into a market filled with earth tones (119).
Part 1, Pages 120-134 Summary
The new fabrics and colors are immensely popular, especially outside of the small (but growing) climbing community, and sales rise to $100 million in 1990 from $20 million in the mid-1980s. Through the growth the company retains the pioneering, countercultural ethos central to Chouinard’s vision. The team does away with private offices in favor of communal workspace, builds a cafeteria that serves healthy food, and opens an on-site daycare at a time when such facilities are exceedingly rare.
The company nevertheless uses traditional business practices to grow, including “increasing the number of products, opening new dealers and new stores of our own, developing new foreign markets” (129). As Patagonia outgrows its outdoor niche, it is on track to become a billion-dollar company. This level of achievement prompts a philosophical reckoning for Chouinard, who during the travel he’s done as a part of his “MBA” theory of management—management by absence—has seen the outsize impact human beings are having on the planet as populations expand and climate change worsens. He’s seen first-hand the success small, grassroots groups can have in preventing further environmental destruction (falcon regulations). In the early 1970s, he and others at Patagonia join a young surfer, Mark Capelli, in protesting the development of the mouth of the Ventura River, a move that will destroy the estuary and the popular surf point a quarter mile from the Patagonia offices. They defeat that development plan and the ones that follow. They go on to lobby the city council to clean up the polluted river, resulting in a restoration of the riparian habitat and the return of wildlife.
This belief in the efficacy of grassroots efforts leads Chouinard to donate 1% of Patagonia’s sales or 10% of pretax profits—whichever is greater—to small groups fighting to save natural habitat.
Chouinard also looks within the company to make change. In 1988, Patagonia launches a national campaign to de-urbanize the Yosemite Valley. It subsequently initiates a number of national and international environmental campaigns, using its catalog and stores to spread its message. On the product side, it develops a recycled polyester with a clothing mill for use in its Synchilla fleece and begins using partially recycled paper for its catalog.
Part 1, Pages 135-141 Summary
In the late 1980s, Patagonia’s growth seems endless, but there are also legal and expansion-related problems. A number of people who’ve been injured using Chouinard Equipment products (the tool company still owned by Patagonia) for uses other than climbing sue. They claim the company didn’t properly warn them of risk (the products in question were not faulty). The suits are settled out of court, and Chouinard Equipment files for Chapter 11 so that its employees can secure capital for a buyout. They succeed, move the company to Utah, and rename it Black Diamond Ltd. Chouinard is no longer tied to the original company he started.
As Patagonia expands to Europe and Japan, it is plagued by loss and poor management. The CEO, Kris McDivitt, realizes she is unequipped to oversee the company’s increasingly complicated operations, so she steps down to manage brand and image and is replaced by someone with business experience. The new, experienced leadership is unable to remedy the company’s convoluted operating structure, and the company undergoes restructuring five times in five years.
Chouinard decides they need on outsider’s perspective, so he, his wife, the CEO, and the CFO visit Dr. Michael Kami, a well-regarded corporate consultant. Before giving his advice, Dr. Kami asks why the Chouinards are in business. Yvon responds that despite dreaming of retiring to the South Seas, they haven’t sold out because he worries what the company would become if he did, and because they feel a sense of duty to help the planet. Dr. Kami responds that if that were really true, they’d sell the company for $100 million, invest the money under a foundation, and give away 6% to 8% a year. Chouinard leaves the meeting confused: “It was as if the Zen master had hit us over the head with a stick, but instead of finding enlightenment we walked away more confused than ever” (140).
Before Chouinard has a chance to figure out the real reason he stays with Patagonia, the 1991 recession hits. The company goes into crisis, despite having a 20% increase in sales, because it had planned for growth more than double that. The team takes measures to reduce overhead, including laying off 20% of the workforce, in what Chouinard calls the worst day in Patagonia’s history.
Part 1, Pages 141-163 Summary
Reflecting back, Chouinard sees a parallel between Patagonia’s unsustainable growth and that of the global economy. As he sees it, unfettered growth resulted in financial and environmental crises: “Our own company had exceeded its resources and limitations; we had become dependent, like the world economy, on growth we could not sustain. But as a small company we couldn’t ignore the problem and wish it away. We were forced to rethink our priorities and institute new practices. We had to start breaking the rules” (141-42).
Chouinard retreats to the mountains of the real Patagonia for a company soul searching with his top managers. They talk about making products they can be proud of and trying to mitigate the environmental harm Patagonia causes.
When they return, Chouinard composes his first board of directors from trusted advisers and friends. One of them, ecologist Jerry Mander, drafts a document that becomes Patagonia’s mission statement. Mander frames the company’s values in the context of the global environmental crisis. He identifies the cause of this crisis as primary focus on expansion and short-term profit. Patagonia, on the other hand, will seek to change this focus, to “reorder the hierarchy of corporate values, while producing products that enhance both human and environmental conditions” (148). In this quest, the company will adhere to a set of agreed-upon values. These values, all of which they consider equally important, can be summarized as:
- We value profit; however, we don’t value growth for growth’s sake.
- The company operates within the context of environmental crisis. If possible, company decisions should mitigate this crisis.
- Product quality—defined as durability, multi-functionality, non-obsolescence, and lowest possible environmental footprint—drives product development.
- The company exists in a community constituted by employees, customers, suppliers, and the people in communities surrounding Patagonia’s offices. The company operates with all of these people’s benefit in mind.
- We will donate 1% of gross sales or 10% of profits—whichever is greater—to causes that benefit the environment.
- We expect every member of this company to embody and advocate for Patagonia’s environmental values.
- Within the company, management will operate with the most transparency possible under typical restrictions of personal privacy and trade secrecy. We encourage open communication and a collaborative atmosphere at all levels of the company (148-49).
As Chouinard’s managers steer Patagonia through recession, Chouinard begins leading seminars for his employees to instill this newly established corporate philosophy. During this time, he realizes the reason he stayed in business: Just as his improved pitons were a model for other equipment manufacturers, he hopes his improved, environmentally conscious business model will serve as an example for other companies.
Looking back, Chouinard credits Patagonia’s survival of the 1991 recession to following the mission statement Jerry Mander created. Management fixes the convoluted operations by creating four partially independent sports product teams that share an inventory instead of managing their own. The company flourishes, and it is frequently listed as one of the best companies to work for. In 1994, the team completes an internal assessment of their environmental impact and subsequently focuses on making their supply chain greener. From 1985 to 2016, the company donates $79 million to conservation activists.
Part 1, Pages 105-163 Analysis
From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, Patagonia experiences growing pains, conducts some soul searching, and develops into a mature business.
After accepting that he is, in fact, a businessman, Chouinard comes to view entrepreneurship as a way to create the world one wants to live in. He’s always wanted work to be a continuation of his life, so he hires people who feel the same way and establishes a workplace that encourages comradery and provides flexibility. In an era when the suit and tie is the uniform of the office and work dominates life, Patagonia employees come to work barefoot, drop their kids at the on-site daycare, share a communal workplace, eat healthy food at the company cafeteria, and surf in the afternoon. This progressive, bohemian ethos signals that Patagonia does business differently and distinguishes it as an early adopter of the casual workplace and progressive perquisites.
After the success of the “Clean Climbing” essay in the Patagonia catalog as a dual environmental and marketing message, Patagonia continues blending business and activism under Chouinard’s directive. Its environmental campaigns in its catalogs, its commitment of 1% of sales to grassroots nonprofits, and upper management’s personal involvement in activism all authenticate the company’s environmentally conscious image to a market with such concerns. Even the introduction of the concept of layering burnishes Patagonia’s core brand, demonstrating its commitment to educating the outdoor community on improving its clothing’s functionality. That the educational message is also advertising the company’s new long underwear doesn’t ring as disingenuous because the company is taking a risk replacing fabrics that account for 70% of its sales with the new ones used in the long underwear.
Chouinard is responsible for both this risk and realizing the outdoor potential for Capilene, a material he sees used in football jerseys that the company later uses for its new long underwear. His eye for clothes and fabrics from other areas that can be repurposed goes on to inform Patagonia’s design principle of innovation as borrowing and re-optimizing for a material’s new purpose. That Chouinard’s confidence in the new fabrics is borne out in the results—soaring sales and lapping the competition—reaffirms his belief in the primacy of quality. Beyond this, the sales increase also shows that it is profitable to prioritize quality.
Chouinard’s belief that choosing the better option—whether that means higher quality or more environmentally or socially responsible—is not just moral but also business smart, a point that is further borne out in Patagonia’s survival of the financial crisis of 1991. The company’s rapid growth in the 1980s has begun distorting Chouinard’s original vision. The financial crisis kills this growth bug that had infected the company and allows the Chouinards to step back and assess what they want Patagonia to be. The product of this soul searching—the mission statement that balances profit with design integrity and environmental responsibility—resets the company onto a sustainable path, guiding management through the crisis. Patagonia’s subsequent sustained success gives Chouinard’s alternative model of environmental business mainstream credibility. This status enables Chouinard to realize his goal for Patagonia: that it become a paragon of environmental business.
