false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167341797m/22155.jpg 22155 4 Like the carefully engineered dies which created his company's first products--steel pitons and carabiners which climbing enthusiasts would recognize as primitive forerunners of today's sleeker gear--Yvon Chouinard is if nothing else an original. How many other shy French-Canadian boys become surf-and-climbing bums, then blacksmiths forging their own play tools, and eventually founders of world-renowned sports equipment and apparel companies like Patagonia? How many other heads of multi-million dollar enterprises open their memoirs by stating bluntly, "The Lee Iacoccas, Donald Trumps, and Jack Welches of the business world are heroes to no one except other businessmen with similar values. I wanted to be a fur trapper when I grew up." The proverbial mold from which Chouinard was cast got broken.<p> In <I>Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman</I>, readers get a fascinating look inside the history and philosophy of both Patagonia and its irascible, opinionated founder. From its beginning, the book shares a sense of Chouinard's strong-willed personality and his love of the outdoors. He recounts a mostly happy childhood spent in a still-unspoiled southern California, climbing, diving, fishing, and surfing. The narrative soon moves into Chouinard's early entrepreneurial efforts, which were less focused on market-share domination than on earning a basic living to finance his own sporting habits. As his company's first catalog noted, delivery could be slow in the summer months, when Chouinard typically left the "office"--a dilapidated shack converted into an ironworks--for climbing adventures across the American West.<p> Eventually, though, the story settles into a pattern familiar to business audiences: Patagonia grows rapidly, takes on more employees and product lines to sustain hungry demand from customers, but overreaches with over-ambitious expansion plans and suffers a hiccup in its adolescence. This make-or-break juncture of a business's development often contains the most interesting material, and here Chouinard and his beloved company are no exception. He describes a series of wrenching decisions through which he and Patagonia management team navigated in 1991, as sales growth stalled while capital and operational expenses sprinted ahead. From this crisis emerged Patagonia's first-ever layoffs, affecting a hefty 20% of the workforce, and a serious re-examination of the business's core principles and methods.<p> The historical part of Chouinard's book largely ends at this point, and gives way to an exposition of philosophies which emerged at Patagonia during its dark moments in the early 1990s. The rest of the book serves as a kind of primer to business, the Patagonia way: one chapter each on product design philosophy, production philosophy, distribution philosophy, image philosophy, financial philosophy, human resource philosophy, and so on. Fans of Patagonia can revel in the company's working details, as can those who support or want to build businesses with self-consciously cultivated soulfulness. Readers who enjoyed Gary Erickson's story about Clif Bar, for example, should definitely find this a welcome addition to their bookshelves. <I>--Peter Han</I> 23218 2005 Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman total:401|5:139|4:146|3:95|2:17|1:4| 401 1602 607 105 4 2 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Feb 03 11:12:45 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 03 11:14:01 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Tue May 20 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 19 06:57:52 -0700 2008 Tue May 20 13:54:00 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 23 12:05:54 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 23 12:17:54 -0800 2009 Many of Patagonia's workplace rules and benefits are not appli...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 27 15:38:05 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 27 15:38:50 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 true false Sat Jul 05 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 07 06:45:35 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 07 06:48:29 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jun 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 15:49:21 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 24 12:47:03 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Tue Jun 10 15:27:01 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 10 15:38:02 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Oct 30 09:36:56 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 30 09:59:16 -0700 2007

BOOK REVIEW: Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard

In his book, Let My People Go Surfing: the education of a reluctant busine...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jun 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 19 14:51:19 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 21 05:45:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Oct 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 21 01:13:01 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 21 01:29:37 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Feb 13 12:53:14 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 13 13:23:16 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Nov 21 09:20:07 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 21 09:23:36 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jan 08 13:10:13 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 08 13:16:49 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Feb 22 07:36:58 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 10 13:19:28 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 10 13:32:34 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 10 15:15:41 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 10 15:18:24 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Aug 26 17:45:37 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 26 17:47:04 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 14 07:18:39 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 14 07:22:22 -0700 2009 1 4 0 false false Tue Aug 25 20:31:28 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 25 20:33:50 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Jul 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 04 10:07:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 05 09:26:37 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat May 26 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri May 09 08:00:01 -0700 2008 Fri May 09 08:00:12 -0700 2008 I knew that Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard had written a book a couple of years ago, but hadn't seen it until it came into our library in a pile of donations. Our branch didn't own a copy, so I added it to the library system, promptly checked it out and read it. Let My People Go Surfing: The...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=22155