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Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away
Named one of Financial Times’s Best Books of 2025 New York Times reporter and bestselling author David Gelles reveals how Patagonia became a global leader in doing well by doing good and how other companies are adopting its principles. This is the inside story of one of the most extraordinary brands in the corporate world, the rare company that is driven by environmental activism instead of cutthroat capitalism. Founded in 1973, Patagonia has grown into a wildly popular producer of jackets, hats, and fleece vests, with a cultlike following among hardcore alpinists and Wall Street traders alike, posting sales of more than $1 billion a year. But it’s not just the clothes that make Patagonia unique. For decades, the company has distinguished itself as a singular beacon for socially responsible business, the rare company that can legitimately claim to be doing its damnedest to make the world a better place, while also making a profit. From its early efforts to take exemplary care of its employees, to its extensive work trying to clean up its supply chain, to its controversial activism, Patagonia has set itself apart from its peers with one unorthodox decision after another, proving that there is another way to do capitalism. At the heart of the story is Patagonia’s founder, the legendary rock climber Yvon Chouinard. A perennial outsider who forged one of the most impressive resumes in the outdoor world, Chouinard also established himself as a pivotal figure in the history of American business. Guided by his anti-authoritarian streak and his unwavering commitment to preserving the natural world, Patagonia came to exert a powerful influence on other companies, paving the way for a new era of social and environmental responsibility. He started out as a dirtbag—a term affectionately bestowed on poor, itinerant outdoorsmen so uninterested in material possessions they are happy to sleep in the dirt—and he became a billionaire. Chouinard also proved that there was another way to be a philanthropist. In the twilight of his career, he gave away Patagonia, renouncing his wealth and committing all its future profits to fighting the climate crisis. Drawing on exclusive access to Chouinard and the Patagonia team, Dirtbag Billionaire offers new insights into the key moments that informed their priorities, shaped the company, and sent ripples across the corporate world.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 9, 2025
394 people are currently reading
4508 people want to read
About the author
David Gelles
5 books82 followersDavid Gelles is a reporter for the New York Times, covering mergers & acquisitions, corporate governance, and Wall Street. You can find most of his most recent work on DealBook.
Before joining the Times in September 2013, he spent five years with the Financial Times. At the FT, he covered tech, media and M&A in San Francisco and New York. In 2011 he conducted an exclusive jailhouse interview with Bernie Madoff, shedding new light on the $65 billion ponzi scheme.
David is writing a book about mindfulness at work, bringing together his 15 years of meditation practice with his work as a business journalist. ‘Mindful Work’ will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2015, and will explore the growing influence of Eastern wisdom on Western business.
He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.
Before joining the Times in September 2013, he spent five years with the Financial Times. At the FT, he covered tech, media and M&A in San Francisco and New York. In 2011 he conducted an exclusive jailhouse interview with Bernie Madoff, shedding new light on the $65 billion ponzi scheme.
David is writing a book about mindfulness at work, bringing together his 15 years of meditation practice with his work as a business journalist. ‘Mindful Work’ will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2015, and will explore the growing influence of Eastern wisdom on Western business.
He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 136 reviews
October 5, 2025
I’ve gone back and forth on my review because I’m split in how I felt about the book. I really enjoyed the first half. It was fascinating to discover how he personally found the need for a product and then developed it, over and over. It was inspiring to see how his mind worked during the process.
The second half of the book was what left a bad taste in my mouth. I have the utmost respect for him for pulling his top selling product off the shelves since it was damaging the rock faces that he cared so much about. Serious respect for that but so many of the products he manufactured were harmful (and he very readily and openly admitted that) to the very environment that he wanted to protect. The globetrotting and excursions and known environmental pollutants his products were spitting into the atmosphere all contributed to what he was so desperately fighting against, it just came across as hypocritical.
I think it’s wonderful that he “gave his company away” to maintain his vision. Very few people put their money where their mouth is and I have respect for him for that. However, the last few sections of the book, he just came across more as an angry narcissist than a philanthropist. As I read the first few chapters, I expected to walk away from the book feeling inspired and in awe of this man (that I knew absolutely nothing about) but finished feeling pretty disappointed.
This book didn’t make me think he was a god for building a billion dollar company & then giving it away. It made me realize that we are all flawed and all have blindspots when trying to do what we think is right.
The second half of the book was what left a bad taste in my mouth. I have the utmost respect for him for pulling his top selling product off the shelves since it was damaging the rock faces that he cared so much about. Serious respect for that but so many of the products he manufactured were harmful (and he very readily and openly admitted that) to the very environment that he wanted to protect. The globetrotting and excursions and known environmental pollutants his products were spitting into the atmosphere all contributed to what he was so desperately fighting against, it just came across as hypocritical.
I think it’s wonderful that he “gave his company away” to maintain his vision. Very few people put their money where their mouth is and I have respect for him for that. However, the last few sections of the book, he just came across more as an angry narcissist than a philanthropist. As I read the first few chapters, I expected to walk away from the book feeling inspired and in awe of this man (that I knew absolutely nothing about) but finished feeling pretty disappointed.
This book didn’t make me think he was a god for building a billion dollar company & then giving it away. It made me realize that we are all flawed and all have blindspots when trying to do what we think is right.
July 4, 2025
Book Review: Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away by David Gelles
Rating: 4.8/5
Reactions & Emotional Impact
Gelles’ Dirtbag Billionaire is a revelatory deep dive into one of modern capitalism’s most radical experiments—a narrative that left me oscillating between inspiration and righteous indignation. As someone skeptical of corporate purpose-washing, I was stunned by the book’s unvarnished portrayal of Patagonia’s journey: how a scrappy climbing-gear company became a $1B-a-year activist enterprise without sacrificing its soul. The chapters detailing Chouinard’s dirtbag ethos—sleeping in dirt, forging pitons by hand, then later donating his entire company to fight climate change—stirred something primal in me. It’s rare to encounter a business biography that reads like an adventure tale, but Gelles masterfully captures the tension between profit and principle, making Patagonia’s contradictions (selling $400 vests while decrying consumerism) feel like a feature, not a bug.
Strengths
-Exclusive Access: Gelles’ proximity to Chouinard and Patagonia’s inner circle yields gold—like boardroom debates over whether to sue Trump for shrinking national monuments.
-Structural Innovation: The book reframes corporate social responsibility as activism by design, tracing how Patagonia’s 1% Earth Tax (1985) predated ESG by decades.
-Nuanced Critique: Gelles doesn’t shy from paradoxes (e.g., Patagonia’s carbon footprint grew with success), offering a blueprint for imperfect ethical business.
-Narrative Urgency: The prose thrums with the pace of a thriller, especially when chronicling Chouinard’s 2022 decision to transfer ownership to a trust—a mic-drop moment in philanthropy.
Constructive Criticism
-Labor Lens: While environmental heroics dominate, deeper analysis of Patagonia’s unionization tensions (e.g., 2020 Reno warehouse efforts) would round out its social justice portrait.
-Global Ripples: The book focuses heavily on U.S. influence; more on Patagonia’s supply-chain reforms in Global South factories could strengthen its international relevance.
-Comparative Framework: How does Patagonia’s model scale (or not)? A chapter contrasting it with B Corps like Ben & Jerry’s would enrich academic applicability.
Final Thoughts
This isn’t just a corporate biography—it’s a manifesto for rewriting capitalism’s DNA. Gelles proves that Chouinard’s genius wasn’t just giving away Patagonia, but building it as a weapon against extraction from the start. A must-read for business students, climate activists, and anyone who believes profit and planet needn’t be enemies.
Gratitude:
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Edelweiss for the gifted copy—this book arrived as greenwashing proliferates, making its authenticity a clarion call.
Why 4.8?
Docked slightly for craving more systemic analysis, but Dirtbag Billionaire is a near-perfect case study in principled disruption.
Key Themes for Further Study:
-Anti-capitalist strategies within capitalism
-The paradox of “ethical consumption”
-Founder-legacy challenges in activist enterprises
-Trust-based ownership models vs. traditional philanthropy
-Corporate activism’s legal/political risks
-A game-changing work that will redefine how we measure business “success.”
Rating: 4.8/5
Reactions & Emotional Impact
Gelles’ Dirtbag Billionaire is a revelatory deep dive into one of modern capitalism’s most radical experiments—a narrative that left me oscillating between inspiration and righteous indignation. As someone skeptical of corporate purpose-washing, I was stunned by the book’s unvarnished portrayal of Patagonia’s journey: how a scrappy climbing-gear company became a $1B-a-year activist enterprise without sacrificing its soul. The chapters detailing Chouinard’s dirtbag ethos—sleeping in dirt, forging pitons by hand, then later donating his entire company to fight climate change—stirred something primal in me. It’s rare to encounter a business biography that reads like an adventure tale, but Gelles masterfully captures the tension between profit and principle, making Patagonia’s contradictions (selling $400 vests while decrying consumerism) feel like a feature, not a bug.
Strengths
-Exclusive Access: Gelles’ proximity to Chouinard and Patagonia’s inner circle yields gold—like boardroom debates over whether to sue Trump for shrinking national monuments.
-Structural Innovation: The book reframes corporate social responsibility as activism by design, tracing how Patagonia’s 1% Earth Tax (1985) predated ESG by decades.
-Nuanced Critique: Gelles doesn’t shy from paradoxes (e.g., Patagonia’s carbon footprint grew with success), offering a blueprint for imperfect ethical business.
-Narrative Urgency: The prose thrums with the pace of a thriller, especially when chronicling Chouinard’s 2022 decision to transfer ownership to a trust—a mic-drop moment in philanthropy.
Constructive Criticism
-Labor Lens: While environmental heroics dominate, deeper analysis of Patagonia’s unionization tensions (e.g., 2020 Reno warehouse efforts) would round out its social justice portrait.
-Global Ripples: The book focuses heavily on U.S. influence; more on Patagonia’s supply-chain reforms in Global South factories could strengthen its international relevance.
-Comparative Framework: How does Patagonia’s model scale (or not)? A chapter contrasting it with B Corps like Ben & Jerry’s would enrich academic applicability.
Final Thoughts
This isn’t just a corporate biography—it’s a manifesto for rewriting capitalism’s DNA. Gelles proves that Chouinard’s genius wasn’t just giving away Patagonia, but building it as a weapon against extraction from the start. A must-read for business students, climate activists, and anyone who believes profit and planet needn’t be enemies.
Gratitude:
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Edelweiss for the gifted copy—this book arrived as greenwashing proliferates, making its authenticity a clarion call.
Why 4.8?
Docked slightly for craving more systemic analysis, but Dirtbag Billionaire is a near-perfect case study in principled disruption.
Key Themes for Further Study:
-Anti-capitalist strategies within capitalism
-The paradox of “ethical consumption”
-Founder-legacy challenges in activist enterprises
-Trust-based ownership models vs. traditional philanthropy
-Corporate activism’s legal/political risks
-A game-changing work that will redefine how we measure business “success.”
February 6, 2026
A very interesting look into the man and the philosophies that made Patagonia the company it is.
I struggled with the huge cast of characters and would have appreciated either an index or more reminders of who people were. I also found some of the stories to be unnecessarily repeated.
I struggled with the huge cast of characters and would have appreciated either an index or more reminders of who people were. I also found some of the stories to be unnecessarily repeated.
November 20, 2025
The story of Yvon Chouinard and Patagonia is a winding tale of righteous contradictions. On one hand, he is a shrewd capitalist in one of the most wasteful and cyclically consumptive industries, clothing. On the other, he is a staunch hater against his own success, loathing overconsumption, corporate greed, and his own billionaire status.
At its core, Patagonia is a reflection of Chouinard himself and his perspective on humanity - a flawed approach which can hopefully take one step back and two forward. The staunch love for nature shines clearly through with their humanistic branding and obsession of quality above all else.
The challenges are also not to be understated - a company which limits its own growth yet demands profitability just to donate more is a fascinating contradiction, and in so many ways is the dirtbag mentality Chouinard holds so close. By going so far against the grain, Chouinard has seeked to show both corporations, consumers, and governments alike that there is more than one way to play the game we call capitalism. Chouinard's sacrifices from a business perspective, sheer risks in refusing to bend on values is nothing short of admirable boneheadedness.
On the other hand, it is hard to ignore the fact that the Chouinards themselves treat employees and the environment so well, but insist on keeping equity to themself. Even in succession, the company was donated to a trust which funnels profits to nonprofits, another first-of-its-kind sacrifice, yet time and again there has been a refusal to allow employees to reap the benefits of their sacrifices. In many senses, we have yet another story of a self-aggrandizing entrepreneur who runs his business on his own whims between nature reprieves whilst demanding complete commitment and unattainable standards for those who man the ship.
While I was excited to pick this up, I was quite disappointed in Gelles' telling of the story. Much of the novel felt like exposition, with many missed opportunities to immerse you within Chouinard's fascinating world, especially within his formative nature expeditions. I often felt like I was being told a story from a third-party who deep dove into facts and company documents, as opposed to feeling as immersed in a story Gelles clearly took immense effort in gathering interviews and insights for.
Time will tell about the longevity of Patagonia's clothing business, or ambitions within food, but for now - it is a friendly, yet admittedly trite reminder that quality and doing the right thing are perennial moats in business.
On the whole, Chouinard's story is an important one, but told in a lackluster fashion. The story of a dirtbag billionaire felt, well, polished. It was too put together and sanitized in its writing to hook me in and really nag at some of the existential questions which exist not just within Patagonia, but within us as humans facing a mounting climate crisis.
At its core, Patagonia is a reflection of Chouinard himself and his perspective on humanity - a flawed approach which can hopefully take one step back and two forward. The staunch love for nature shines clearly through with their humanistic branding and obsession of quality above all else.
The challenges are also not to be understated - a company which limits its own growth yet demands profitability just to donate more is a fascinating contradiction, and in so many ways is the dirtbag mentality Chouinard holds so close. By going so far against the grain, Chouinard has seeked to show both corporations, consumers, and governments alike that there is more than one way to play the game we call capitalism. Chouinard's sacrifices from a business perspective, sheer risks in refusing to bend on values is nothing short of admirable boneheadedness.
On the other hand, it is hard to ignore the fact that the Chouinards themselves treat employees and the environment so well, but insist on keeping equity to themself. Even in succession, the company was donated to a trust which funnels profits to nonprofits, another first-of-its-kind sacrifice, yet time and again there has been a refusal to allow employees to reap the benefits of their sacrifices. In many senses, we have yet another story of a self-aggrandizing entrepreneur who runs his business on his own whims between nature reprieves whilst demanding complete commitment and unattainable standards for those who man the ship.
While I was excited to pick this up, I was quite disappointed in Gelles' telling of the story. Much of the novel felt like exposition, with many missed opportunities to immerse you within Chouinard's fascinating world, especially within his formative nature expeditions. I often felt like I was being told a story from a third-party who deep dove into facts and company documents, as opposed to feeling as immersed in a story Gelles clearly took immense effort in gathering interviews and insights for.
Time will tell about the longevity of Patagonia's clothing business, or ambitions within food, but for now - it is a friendly, yet admittedly trite reminder that quality and doing the right thing are perennial moats in business.
On the whole, Chouinard's story is an important one, but told in a lackluster fashion. The story of a dirtbag billionaire felt, well, polished. It was too put together and sanitized in its writing to hook me in and really nag at some of the existential questions which exist not just within Patagonia, but within us as humans facing a mounting climate crisis.
October 1, 2025
As a former Patagonia employee in the 80’s, I found this really interesting. The author really captured what it is like to work there, and everything rang true to me. It was fascinating to read about the progression of this truly unique company.
January 12, 2026
The point of Patagonia [as a business model] is to prove that capitalism doesn’t have to be horrible. Overall, this book was a truly intriguing glimpse into oxymoron of building a successful business fast and environmental concerns that are unavoidably tied to scaling a company.
Enjoyed reading this book in concurrence with my climbing journey. I don’t own any Patagonia apparel, but have purchased a lot from black diamond in the last yearish. So Chouinard equipment becomes Patagonia. Later Patagonia became apparel and black diamond was for hardware equipment. Interesting reading about the origins and split.
Was reading about their first time climbs of routes, crazy to think about how before freeze dried food and jet boils they had to pack out bread cheese fruit salami and that shit must have been heavy. Really put into perspective how quickly the sport of climbing has advanced in the last several decades, with black diamond/ Patagonia specifically which started with Chouinard dirt bagging and selling out of his car.
Not from this book but fitting quote:
“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.” —Erich Fromm
Contradiction that is Patagonia: a consumer good company trying to save the planet. A business that celebrated its people, led by a founder that is never satisfied.
No business can ever truly be sustainable because no matter how much you mitigate you will always cause more damage than you repair.
Chouinard wanted workers to be happy but also hard charging.
He wanted to be generous but also stay in control.
He wanted Patagonia to be lean but also abundant.
He wanted the company to be profitable but also charitable.
He wanted a small business with a big impact.
In trying to run a small company, he created an unsolvable paradox.
One funny part of the book to me was when Chouinard as CEO goes on vacation/climbing and comes back to his business and finds papers/orders thrown away because employee said “order was too big to fill” 😂😭😭
I was surprised to read one point, Patagonia produced for military use at Mountain Warfare Training center Bridgeport. “If you make clothes for killing people, sooner or later your logo is going to show up on the chest of some of the worst people in the world.” —James Staut
War has human and environmental costs that can’t be offset by using recycled materials or giving money to charity
Chouinard also served in the Army he was drafted. He drank a bunch of soy sauce before his medical evaluation for the draft to spike his cholesterol or blood pressure so that he could get out of serving. 😭🤣🤣 it didnt work
Enjoyed reading this book in concurrence with my climbing journey. I don’t own any Patagonia apparel, but have purchased a lot from black diamond in the last yearish. So Chouinard equipment becomes Patagonia. Later Patagonia became apparel and black diamond was for hardware equipment. Interesting reading about the origins and split.
Was reading about their first time climbs of routes, crazy to think about how before freeze dried food and jet boils they had to pack out bread cheese fruit salami and that shit must have been heavy. Really put into perspective how quickly the sport of climbing has advanced in the last several decades, with black diamond/ Patagonia specifically which started with Chouinard dirt bagging and selling out of his car.
Not from this book but fitting quote:
“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.” —Erich Fromm
Contradiction that is Patagonia: a consumer good company trying to save the planet. A business that celebrated its people, led by a founder that is never satisfied.
No business can ever truly be sustainable because no matter how much you mitigate you will always cause more damage than you repair.
Chouinard wanted workers to be happy but also hard charging.
He wanted to be generous but also stay in control.
He wanted Patagonia to be lean but also abundant.
He wanted the company to be profitable but also charitable.
He wanted a small business with a big impact.
In trying to run a small company, he created an unsolvable paradox.
One funny part of the book to me was when Chouinard as CEO goes on vacation/climbing and comes back to his business and finds papers/orders thrown away because employee said “order was too big to fill” 😂😭😭
I was surprised to read one point, Patagonia produced for military use at Mountain Warfare Training center Bridgeport. “If you make clothes for killing people, sooner or later your logo is going to show up on the chest of some of the worst people in the world.” —James Staut
War has human and environmental costs that can’t be offset by using recycled materials or giving money to charity
Chouinard also served in the Army he was drafted. He drank a bunch of soy sauce before his medical evaluation for the draft to spike his cholesterol or blood pressure so that he could get out of serving. 😭🤣🤣 it didnt work
November 6, 2025
This is an outstanding biography of a man with an unconventional philosophy for how business should be run. In an era when billionaires often make headlines for the wrong reasons, Chouinard is a breath of fresh air. One of my favorite stories from the book describes a North Face party where the Grateful Dead (an up-and-coming band!) played, Joan Baez mingled in the crowd, and the Hells Angels served as security. It perfectly captured the wild, countercultural spirit of the time. The audiobook, narrated by author David Gelles, is among the best I’ve heard—his delivery brings both the man and his mission vividly to life.
November 16, 2025
Very cool. Fascinating story and contradiction, and overall insightful.
January 10, 2026
Easy to read and very entertaining if you like the subject. Amazingly good insights, it is the best book to contextualize Patagonia and understand its history as well as that of Chouinard, way better at that than Let My People Go Surf. I would highly recommend this one over the latter for any Patagonia fan or interested in the company.
December 25, 2025
It’s rare to find corporate owners that consider their company as much as a “tool” as the Chouinards. And that are willing to make decisions that place their company in jeopardy in order to follow their own principles of quality and environmental responsibility. While I generally take the stance that companies ought to stay out of politics and instead focus on the products/services that make them exceptional, this book shows an intriguing look at a different approach.
Read
February 5, 2026The following reviews have been shared by Text Publishing, publisher of Dirtbag Billionnaire.
‘An intriguing read.’
Conversation
‘Highly entertaining.’
Harry Wallop Times
‘A riveting behind-the-scenes look at Patagonia—and how the trailblazing company redefined business and purpose….Essential reading.’
Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of Supercommunicators and The Power of Habit
‘Chouinard’s fascinating, daring and contradictory life is unique in the annals of modern business, and Gelles shows us why in vivid, sympathetic detail.’
John Vaillant, bestselling author of Fire Weather
‘You will want to read David Gelles’s outstanding saga in one sitting. Yvon has made an extraordinary contribution to humankind.’
Paul Hawken, author of Carbon
‘An intriguing read.’
Conversation
‘Highly entertaining.’
Harry Wallop Times
‘A riveting behind-the-scenes look at Patagonia—and how the trailblazing company redefined business and purpose….Essential reading.’
Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of Supercommunicators and The Power of Habit
‘Chouinard’s fascinating, daring and contradictory life is unique in the annals of modern business, and Gelles shows us why in vivid, sympathetic detail.’
John Vaillant, bestselling author of Fire Weather
‘You will want to read David Gelles’s outstanding saga in one sitting. Yvon has made an extraordinary contribution to humankind.’
Paul Hawken, author of Carbon
October 4, 2025
Not so much of a biography of Yvon Chouinard, as it is a history of Patagonia
I really wanted to learn the origin story of “When everything goes wrong, that’s when the adventure starts” is a favorite quote, along with “The more you know, the less you need”
Also, it could have used photos - I was constantly going to google to see what the pitons looked like (before & after), what the ice axe looked like (before & after), what the people he's talking about looked like, where those places were, and so on
I really wanted to learn the origin story of “When everything goes wrong, that’s when the adventure starts” is a favorite quote, along with “The more you know, the less you need”
Also, it could have used photos - I was constantly going to google to see what the pitons looked like (before & after), what the ice axe looked like (before & after), what the people he's talking about looked like, where those places were, and so on
September 28, 2025
Chouinard is a unique individual amongst business leaders.
The story of his founding of Patagonia is fascinating in so many ways. From the low start up cost, manufacturing in his back yard, to passing over running of the company and how he retained a 100% ownership stake to ensure Patagonia followed his mission.
Chouinard to the perfect example of not letting idealism get in the way of making a difference. He is a devote environmentalist with a love for everything outdoors. Yet he runs a company that damages the planet through its success. He is completely aware of this contradiction, but understands things won’t get better unless business make strides to improve their practices. He’s not trying to tear the system down and only offer criticism. He is working within reality, and doing his best to make the least impact and funnel his resources into making change. Something that I think is lost in many who care deeply about challenges we as humanity face.
I normally idolise the subject of a biography and believe their flaws are justified by their actions. However I was surprised about Chouinard. The way he was portrayed was as an angry man, unaware of how his situation was different to everyone else. On one side I love his passion for nature, and I think his contribution to sustainable business and preserving nature are world class. This speaks to me on so many levels about how I would love to live my life. On the other hand, I found him cheap in not wanting to share profits of Patagonia with his staff and condescending as he got frustrated with others not doing enough for the planet.
Worrying about sustainability is really easy from a position like his. He has his beautiful houses around the world and spends months every year on wild life expeditions around the globe. He has none of the pressure that occupy 99% of the consciousness of the masses. Pat on the back I suppose for not buying a yacht, but I feel no sympathy as he stops around the Patagonia campus complaining that he is a billionaire. It’s admirable his kids didn’t squabble over the fortune unlike some of his peers, although again, this is just how I would expect normal humans to behave. So really, I’m not that impressed and mostly just frustrated and bored about this section.
The final structure of Patagonia is interesting and innovative for how a company may be restructured to do good. Chouinard wanted to influence other business leaders through leading by example. There is no way you can take this away from him so hats off here.
Overall amazing impact, just a couple of smaller things that irked my NPC brain.
The story of his founding of Patagonia is fascinating in so many ways. From the low start up cost, manufacturing in his back yard, to passing over running of the company and how he retained a 100% ownership stake to ensure Patagonia followed his mission.
Chouinard to the perfect example of not letting idealism get in the way of making a difference. He is a devote environmentalist with a love for everything outdoors. Yet he runs a company that damages the planet through its success. He is completely aware of this contradiction, but understands things won’t get better unless business make strides to improve their practices. He’s not trying to tear the system down and only offer criticism. He is working within reality, and doing his best to make the least impact and funnel his resources into making change. Something that I think is lost in many who care deeply about challenges we as humanity face.
I normally idolise the subject of a biography and believe their flaws are justified by their actions. However I was surprised about Chouinard. The way he was portrayed was as an angry man, unaware of how his situation was different to everyone else. On one side I love his passion for nature, and I think his contribution to sustainable business and preserving nature are world class. This speaks to me on so many levels about how I would love to live my life. On the other hand, I found him cheap in not wanting to share profits of Patagonia with his staff and condescending as he got frustrated with others not doing enough for the planet.
Worrying about sustainability is really easy from a position like his. He has his beautiful houses around the world and spends months every year on wild life expeditions around the globe. He has none of the pressure that occupy 99% of the consciousness of the masses. Pat on the back I suppose for not buying a yacht, but I feel no sympathy as he stops around the Patagonia campus complaining that he is a billionaire. It’s admirable his kids didn’t squabble over the fortune unlike some of his peers, although again, this is just how I would expect normal humans to behave. So really, I’m not that impressed and mostly just frustrated and bored about this section.
The final structure of Patagonia is interesting and innovative for how a company may be restructured to do good. Chouinard wanted to influence other business leaders through leading by example. There is no way you can take this away from him so hats off here.
Overall amazing impact, just a couple of smaller things that irked my NPC brain.
December 22, 2025
“Wearing jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, Chouinard reflected on his career, and the significance of the moment. ‘By turning over the ownership of the corporation to our home planet, we are now reinventing capitalism,’ he said. ‘I believe we will not only survive but thrive because of this new structure. It does two of the most important things. It locks in our values, and it gives away more money to the environmental crisis.’ As he concluded his remarks, Chouinard teared up. ‘I never cry at funerals,’ he said. ‘I only cry at rodeos and days like this.’”
Everyone should read this book and buy (sparingly) from Patagonia. If you’re not an environmentalist, this book will make you one. If you’re already fighting for the Earth, this book will be an inspiring source of comfort and encourage you to persevere.
Everyone should read this book and buy (sparingly) from Patagonia. If you’re not an environmentalist, this book will make you one. If you’re already fighting for the Earth, this book will be an inspiring source of comfort and encourage you to persevere.
January 31, 2026
What is a good book for me? It could be fiction or nonfiction. It causes me to look at the world in a different way; sometimes it inspires. Sometimes it delights or connects to my lived experience in some way.
All of this was true for this book about Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, and environmental activist. Like Steve Jobs, he looked to make quality products and his view of the world was askew when compared to most other people. David Gelles, a climate writer for the New York Times, wrote a very readable story; I enjoyed it very much—and it was almost a rare five stars! Recommended.
All of this was true for this book about Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, and environmental activist. Like Steve Jobs, he looked to make quality products and his view of the world was askew when compared to most other people. David Gelles, a climate writer for the New York Times, wrote a very readable story; I enjoyed it very much—and it was almost a rare five stars! Recommended.
November 18, 2025
I think the failure here is that the author just isn't that good (Which is probably why most not great books fail). The story and subject matter is fairly engaging. There is certainly a problem with a lack of specificity simply because the records of Patagonia from the 1980's just don't exist any more. But the book was repetitive and vague, not great for storytelling. Another friend also read this book and his review was "Eh, I skimmed a lot of it." I also thought the writing was the problem with the authors other book on Jack Welch.
October 17, 2025
4.5. I really enjoyed this read. Highly recommend for those who want to be more conscious consumers.
November 3, 2025
This was alright. Not a favorite, but interesting to learn about. I had higher hopes. First half of the books was good but the second half was a bit dry and negative.
December 23, 2025
airplane read quite good enjoyed it!
January 11, 2026
Wow. Sign me up for this dude's fan club!
January 26, 2026
Enjoyed this so much and was not familiar with the story of Patagonia or their influence on the world and providing an alternative way of business for corporations. I like this as an example that outcomes cant always be 100% pure but with conviction in intentions or a plan for the right thing, good can be an outcome! Safe to say I am a stan now and we shall all connect with nature more.
January 28, 2026
Long live Yvon Chouinard’s philosophy though I wish this book was more succinctly written.
September 21, 2025
David Gelles writes with passion, the love of poetic word choices, and soulful empathy. That would be reason enough to read this book, but in these troubled times, it is a pleasure to read about a principled human. It gives us courage to know that both cantankerous individuals (Yvon Chouinard the founder of Patagonia) who break the capitalist mold for good and NYT journalists ( David Gelles) can bring us joy in reading. This non-fiction tome is a good place to find inspiration when your spirits need boosting.
October 9, 2025
Chouinard was on the fringes of society, and he loved it. He embraced the life of the dirtbag, reveling in the knowledge that the activity he found most fulfilling—climbing up granite walls—had no social or economic value. Climbing was an act of rebellion as he saw it, from a conventional life and from society at large. While other young adults were headed off to work, Chouinard determined that his time was better spent in the woods.
Despite the shredded fingertips, throbbing muscles, and strained joints, he missed the transcendent experience of being on the wall. And while it took him three years to fully regain his confidence, he was soon at it again, this time going even higher. In climbing, Chouinard had found not just a hobby but an identity. It was more than a sport, it was a puzzle, a community, and a grueling physical challenge. It was a way of life, and it would eventually become his livelihood.
Rating: 5/5
Researching Patagonia was also an opportunity to test my conviction that business can be a force for good. It’s easy to be cynical about our highly unequal economy, and it’s vital—especially as a journalist—to be critical of for-profit corporations. But it’s just as important to shine a light on what’s working. Without stories that provide some glimmer of hope, we forfeit the possibility of being inspired. Without good role models, we’re left without a playbook for effecting positive change in the world. Not every company can be Patagonia, and no one can re-create Chouinard’s wildly abundant life. Yet all businesses and everyone who works has much to learn from the way the Patagonia team forged a new path through the wilds of late capitalism.
Many books offer pat lessons and actionable strategies for getting ahead in business. This narrative doesn’t lend itself to that sort of tidy analysis. The story of Patagonia isn’t a self-help treatise. It’s more like a Zen koan. And at the center of the story is a man who was a revolutionary three times over: in sports, commerce, and charity.
His whole life had led to this moment. A man who could have had anything, who walked away from billions of dollars, who scaled mountains, lost friends, and built empires, Chouinard, in the twilight of his life, wanted nothing more than to be alone on a river, rod and reel in hand, immersed in the beauty of the natural world.
In the wilderness, Chouinard hunted and ate porcupines, grouse, and squirrels. To supplement his meager diet, he turned to fishing, finding utility in his boyhood hobby. He often made do on 50 cents to $1 a day, eating little more than potatoes or oatmeal. Once, on his way to the Rockies, he and his friend Ken Weeks bought a case of dented cans of cat food, five cents apiece, and ate them over the course of a summer. Another time, he absconded to Mexico for a month, sustaining himself on tropical fruit and fish, chasing away scorpions, and using votive candles from the nearby church to wax his surfboard. “I was a dirtbag climber,” he said. “I had no money whatsoever. I was eating cat food, ground squirrels. I would sneak into yards to steal fruit.”
“He taught me that when you buy a tool, you buy the absolute best tool you can get and keep it for the rest of your life,” Chouinard said. “That’s much better than buying a cheap tool and having it break, buying another one, having that break.”
They soon came back with a postage stamp–sized piton they had fashioned by taking a power hacksaw blade, breaking off the end, and fitting their sling into the blade’s hole. They made it most of the way up, but as Chouinard attempted to hammer the blade into a crack near the top, it shattered into pieces, forcing them to abort the climb again. The failure offered an additional insight: this piton needed to be made not of the everyday steel Chouinard usually used, but of an exceptionally durable alloy. That led Chouinard and Frost to collaborate and design an entirely new piece of gear. Just half an inch long, composed of chrome-nickel steel, and the width of a razor blade, they called it the Realized Ultimate Reality Piton, or RURP, and put it into production.
As the seasons passed and he kept putting up new routes, Chouinard became a fixture at Camp 4 in Yosemite National Park, the epicenter of the climbing subculture. Yet even there, he was an outsider among outsiders. While others paid the requisite fees to pitch their tents at the prepared campsites, Chouinard and his friends slept among the boulders in the woods after they had overstayed their two-week permit, calling themselves the Valley Cong, a reference to the rebel Viet Cong forces in Vietnam.
All the while, Tompkins and Chouinard egged each other on, testing out new ideas and pushing their physical limits. While their values were deeply aligned, they had profoundly different views about how to run a business and how to spend their winnings. Tompkins was a maximalist, looking to grow his companies, make a killing, and live like a king. Chouinard was a minimalist, opting to refrain from excessive growth, proceed cautiously when it came to financial matters, and live like a pauper. It was a friendship that made a dent in the universe, and to fully understand the story of Chouinard and Patagonia, it’s essential to understand the story of Tompkins and Esprit.
In long talks on these day trips, they shared a foundational epiphany that would shape both their lives. Humans, they realized, were messing up the environment. With overdevelopment, industry, and the mundane but resource-intensive work of simply getting by, everyone on Earth was playing a role in the ecosystem’s destruction, and everyone, Chouinard and Tompkins came to believe, had a responsibility to make things better. “Early on, we recognized that we humans were destroying our home planet,” Chouinard said, “and that each of us, in our own way, was responsible to protect and restore the wild nature that we loved.”
With his move from pitons to chocks, Chouinard had overhauled his product lineup in order to take better care of the planet. Now he was using the power of his purse to support grassroots environmental activists, taking the first step on a philanthropic journey that would shape his career, and the world.
During one of his extended stays at Camp 4 in Yosemite, Chouinard witnessed an altercation between an unruly driver and a plucky young woman that would change his life. As a car passed through the camp, the driver tossed an empty beer can out the window. The woman chased down the car and told the driver to pick the can up. A passenger in the car offered a middle finger in return, prompting the now irate woman to rip off the car’s license plate with her bare hands and turn it over to a park ranger.
On a wall in the office, a quote attributed to Henry David Thoreau provided inspiration: “Simplification of means and elevation of ends is the goal.” A key to the office was hidden under a rock, allowing workers to come and go as they pleased, with some eccentric craftsmen hammering away in the middle of the night if they chose. A couple black Labs were always lurking around. Climbers would drop by, sometimes earning a bit of money packing boxes or helping sort inventory. The parking lot was still a party. The place still cleared out when the waves got going. “The people working with him were a box full of misfit toys,” said Hall Stratton, who worked in the shop.
As a blacksmith, Chouinard had developed an elegant touchmark—the small design element, often engraved in a metal object, that identified its craftsman. It was a simple diamond with the letter C inside. That touchmark appeared on most Chouinard Equipment products, and a version of it is still in use today, as the logo for Black Diamond. But by the early ’70s, Chouinard needed another distinctive visual flourish, in this case, a logo for Patagonia.
Chouinard asked two local freelance artists to come up with dueling versions of a design. Jocelyn Slack was one of those who got the assignment. Looking for inspiration, she leafed through a guidebook that described climbing in the region and came across an image of Fitz Roy, which the Fun Hogs had summitted eight years earlier. Studying the routes, Slack used a pencil to rough out a silhouette of the peaks. Eventually, going back and forth with Chouinard, she added some color to her simple mountain range. The company’s name was set in lowercase letters below the mountains, and the company had its logo.
Chouinard was never the most methodical leader. He didn’t lay out a grand strategy and diligently execute it with precision. Forethought was never Chouinard’s forte. Instead, his genius came in bursts of spontaneity, a dynamic that calls to mind his performance on the rock walls he scaled as a climber. Just as he would have to make split-second decisions while hanging hundreds of feet above the Yosemite Valley floor, leaping for the next crag and holding on with his fingertips, so too would he redirect Patagonia in an instant when he sensed something was off. And as was the case when he was a climber, he usually made the right move.
Then Chouinard would begin the lesson: “Quality is objective,” he would say, arguing that the coffee beans either were or weren’t excellent. There was no in between. That would get folks going. “Quality is not objective,” some would protest. “It’s a matter of taste.”
The same year “Reality Check” published, Patagonia and Smith & Hawken, another American clothing company, agreed to buy 1 million buttons made from the tagua nut, a type of seed that grows on palm trees in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Polished tagua nuts resemble ivory and were a popular material for buttons before plastic became ubiquitous. Conservation International helped broker the deal, and Patagonia paid a premium for the nut buttons, accepting the extra cost as a worthwhile trade for using fewer petroleum products. The experiment lasted just a year. By 1992, the buttons were cracking, and Patagonia recalled the items that featured tagua. It turned out there was a reason plastic buttons had become the norm.
Another time, after a trip to Japan, Chouinard demanded that the company begin stocking a type of eco-friendly Japanese fishing shoe called Reef Walkers. McDivitt protested, arguing that they would never sell. Chouinard pulled rank and demanded that she place an order. McDivitt relented, but before doing so took out a black marker and wrote, in graffiti on the rafters above her desk, “My boss made me buy 20,000 pairs of Reef Walkers.” Then she made Chouinard sign it. Chouinard got his way, and Patagonia ordered the Reef Walkers. But McDivitt was right: the shoes didn’t sell. (The graffiti is still there.)
In the end, the lesson was clear. If a product doesn’t work and needs to be replaced right away, there’s no way it can be considered good for the environment; if it doesn’t last, there’s no way it can be sustainable. “Durability and high quality are key elements to environmental responsibility,” Stanley said. “The world doesn’t need a lot more crappy products.” But before Chouinard could double down on Patagonia’s quality, he would have to let go of the business that got him started.
Chouinard would dig in his heels. “No,” he would say. “It’s about consistency. It’s about a product fulfilling its function.” He pressed his students, challenging them to define a perfect shirt. If someone suggested it was a custom-tailored, Italian dress shirt made from the finest cotton, Chouinard would scoff. How would that shirt hold up in a washing machine? How long would it last? A delicate shirt couldn’t be considered quality. These lessons divided the staff—designers who obsessed over every stitch appreciated Chouinard’s unwavering stance, while executives who saw the world in units sold thought he was being too aspirational. But with the esoteric lessons, Chouinard was trying to transmit to his employees the same fixation on quality that had for so long animated him. Unless Patagonia’s jackets and shorts and pants and fleeces worked perfectly, the company might as well not make them at all.
The gamble quickly paid off. Customers bought into the environmental messaging, and within a few months, Patagonia was able to raise the prices of the organic garments to cover all its additional costs. One of Chouinard’s core beliefs—that consumers would pay for quality—had been validated at the very moment it mattered most. And in doing so, Patagonia had made a statement to the industry: conventional cotton, despite being cheap and easy to procure, was a poisonous fabric that could be abandoned without imperiling the business. “The difference between an organic cotton field and a conventional cotton field is night and day, life and death,” Olsen said.
Patagonia’s efforts to remake its supply chain in a more environmentally friendly manner culminated in 1997, when the company hosted its first-ever conference for suppliers in Ventura. Flying in farmers, spinners, ginners, dyers, and stitchers from around the globe, the company spent days schooling its network of commercial partners on its unorthodox philosophy and drilling into them the idea that for Patagonia, preserving the natural world was a core value. That alone was a revolutionary assertion. For most suppliers, their primary value was profits—they were in business to get paid; not much more, not much less. Inasmuch as any of them thought of an end customer, it was perhaps Patagonia the company or maybe Patagonia’s customers. None of them thought it was the planet.
For days, Patagonia executives challenged the company’s suppliers, pressing them to think more expansively about their role. Between surf breaks and barbecues, suppliers were presented with detailed assessments of how their individual industries were polluting the environment and then sorted into breakout groups to brainstorm ways they might improve their processes. “We’ve spent the last ten or fifteen years with all of you talking about quality,” Sweeney, who was instrumental in organizing the event, told the suppliers. “We now need to talk about the quality of life on Earth.”
The complaints didn’t bother Chouinard. The company wasn’t making weapons or ammunition, he reasoned. It was simply making clothing. “Bras don’t kill people,” Chouinard said. “People kill people.” Besides, he was a veteran himself, having served in Korea. He could sympathize with the plight of the grunt who already had to endure the petty indignities and grueling monotony of army life. That was bad enough; why not at least make him comfortable? As a seasoned mountaineer, he also knew how important it was to have the right kind of clothes in foul weather environments. And while he had grown up speaking French, he was a lifelong American and a patriot, grateful to have the freedom to be an outsider—and a successful one at that—in a country where even a blacksmith without a college degree could make a fortune. “I had no qualms about any of that,” he said. “I want our troops to be comfortable, and we make the most comfortable clothing for hot and cold conditions. So that was it.”
It was just the four of them. Yvon and Malinda Chouinard. Doug and Kris Tompkins. As the calendar flipped from ’03 to ’04, they roamed the Chacabuco Valley in the Chilean backcountry, piloting a four-wheel drive truck through alien terrain marked by geothermal springs, red rivers, and black lakes. This was land that the Tompkinses were angling to buy. A 173,000-acre parcel virtually untouched by humans was on the market, and they knew that securing it could help fulfill what had become their overarching dream: creating a national park that would protect one of the greatest landscapes in South America.
And when it comes to fossil fuels, Patagonia limits the use of single-use plastics when it can, but there is no way to ship its wares around the world without burning huge amounts of jet fuel, shipping fuel, and gasoline. Its factories also continue to wrap many items in individual plastic bags. The company has made great strides since it began its environmental journey so many years ago, and yet with every step it takes forward, it finds new problems it must address. Even after a half century’s work, Chouinard understood that the elusive goal of a business that was actually good for the planet remained out of reach. “Patagonia is not a sustainable company,” he said. “There’s no such thing. I look at our philanthropy as not charity but as the cost of doing business.”
Was Chouinard satisfied? After so many years, so many close calls, so much gained and so much lost, so much given away, was he at peace? “I feel like I could die tomorrow, and the company is going to continue for the next 50 years, and it’s going to continue doing the right thing, and I don’t have to be around,” he said. “I’ve never been a micromanager. I’m the company philosopher. I’m the entrepreneur that comes up with crazy ideas. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t. But I feel a big relief that I’ve put my life in order. And now I’m going to work on making everything simpler and simpler for myself.”
Those intertwined benefits—good for farmers, good for the planet—explain why Lightfoot is one of the country’s biggest champions of kernza, using it in the beers and pastas sold under the Patagonia Provisions brand. “The mission of Patagonia is to save our home planet, which is a beautifully simple mission,” he said as we sipped a kernza lager under the stars. “And if you think about all the different ways that the business can help fulfill that mission, food is the most important lever that Patagonia can pull.”
And yes, the company needed to be profitable. On this front, Patagonia was set up for success. It had no long-term debt, no antsy investors, no greedy shareholders. Customers were more stoked about the brand than ever, thanks in part to Chouinard’s own story and the activism and the conservation. It just had to keep hitting those roughly 10 percent margins and there would be ample resources for Holdfast each year.
Quality was the tough one. Chouinard wanted the company to double down on its craftsmanship. Not just the stitching and the blend of its fabrics, but the sustainability of its materials, the ethics of its suppliers, all of it. Unless Patagonia kept pushing itself to be more responsible, what was the point? “We’re not a perfect company,” he said. “But at least we’re recognizing it, and we’re doing something about it.”
And it was undeniable that with its focus on sustainable business, the activism, and the coalition building, Patagonia had made an impact well beyond Ventura. The company may not be able to singlehandedly change capitalism, but Chouinard’s fingerprints are all over the business world. When companies take better care of their employees, when they provide childcare, when they let employees be themselves in the office, that is the legacy of Patagonia. When corporations push their vendors to treat their workers well, when they try to root out toxic materials in the supply chain, when they do the right thing even when it costs a bit more, there, too, is the legacy of Chouinard. When CEOs take a stand, talk back to the president, and encourage customers to vote, that’s in part Patagonia’s doing, too. And then there were the national parks in Chile and Argentina, all the sustainability groups Patagonia had cofounded, the 1% for the Planet grants, the ownership change, and now the money flowing from Holdfast.
Despite the shredded fingertips, throbbing muscles, and strained joints, he missed the transcendent experience of being on the wall. And while it took him three years to fully regain his confidence, he was soon at it again, this time going even higher. In climbing, Chouinard had found not just a hobby but an identity. It was more than a sport, it was a puzzle, a community, and a grueling physical challenge. It was a way of life, and it would eventually become his livelihood.
Rating: 5/5
Researching Patagonia was also an opportunity to test my conviction that business can be a force for good. It’s easy to be cynical about our highly unequal economy, and it’s vital—especially as a journalist—to be critical of for-profit corporations. But it’s just as important to shine a light on what’s working. Without stories that provide some glimmer of hope, we forfeit the possibility of being inspired. Without good role models, we’re left without a playbook for effecting positive change in the world. Not every company can be Patagonia, and no one can re-create Chouinard’s wildly abundant life. Yet all businesses and everyone who works has much to learn from the way the Patagonia team forged a new path through the wilds of late capitalism.
Many books offer pat lessons and actionable strategies for getting ahead in business. This narrative doesn’t lend itself to that sort of tidy analysis. The story of Patagonia isn’t a self-help treatise. It’s more like a Zen koan. And at the center of the story is a man who was a revolutionary three times over: in sports, commerce, and charity.
His whole life had led to this moment. A man who could have had anything, who walked away from billions of dollars, who scaled mountains, lost friends, and built empires, Chouinard, in the twilight of his life, wanted nothing more than to be alone on a river, rod and reel in hand, immersed in the beauty of the natural world.
In the wilderness, Chouinard hunted and ate porcupines, grouse, and squirrels. To supplement his meager diet, he turned to fishing, finding utility in his boyhood hobby. He often made do on 50 cents to $1 a day, eating little more than potatoes or oatmeal. Once, on his way to the Rockies, he and his friend Ken Weeks bought a case of dented cans of cat food, five cents apiece, and ate them over the course of a summer. Another time, he absconded to Mexico for a month, sustaining himself on tropical fruit and fish, chasing away scorpions, and using votive candles from the nearby church to wax his surfboard. “I was a dirtbag climber,” he said. “I had no money whatsoever. I was eating cat food, ground squirrels. I would sneak into yards to steal fruit.”
“He taught me that when you buy a tool, you buy the absolute best tool you can get and keep it for the rest of your life,” Chouinard said. “That’s much better than buying a cheap tool and having it break, buying another one, having that break.”
They soon came back with a postage stamp–sized piton they had fashioned by taking a power hacksaw blade, breaking off the end, and fitting their sling into the blade’s hole. They made it most of the way up, but as Chouinard attempted to hammer the blade into a crack near the top, it shattered into pieces, forcing them to abort the climb again. The failure offered an additional insight: this piton needed to be made not of the everyday steel Chouinard usually used, but of an exceptionally durable alloy. That led Chouinard and Frost to collaborate and design an entirely new piece of gear. Just half an inch long, composed of chrome-nickel steel, and the width of a razor blade, they called it the Realized Ultimate Reality Piton, or RURP, and put it into production.
As the seasons passed and he kept putting up new routes, Chouinard became a fixture at Camp 4 in Yosemite National Park, the epicenter of the climbing subculture. Yet even there, he was an outsider among outsiders. While others paid the requisite fees to pitch their tents at the prepared campsites, Chouinard and his friends slept among the boulders in the woods after they had overstayed their two-week permit, calling themselves the Valley Cong, a reference to the rebel Viet Cong forces in Vietnam.
All the while, Tompkins and Chouinard egged each other on, testing out new ideas and pushing their physical limits. While their values were deeply aligned, they had profoundly different views about how to run a business and how to spend their winnings. Tompkins was a maximalist, looking to grow his companies, make a killing, and live like a king. Chouinard was a minimalist, opting to refrain from excessive growth, proceed cautiously when it came to financial matters, and live like a pauper. It was a friendship that made a dent in the universe, and to fully understand the story of Chouinard and Patagonia, it’s essential to understand the story of Tompkins and Esprit.
In long talks on these day trips, they shared a foundational epiphany that would shape both their lives. Humans, they realized, were messing up the environment. With overdevelopment, industry, and the mundane but resource-intensive work of simply getting by, everyone on Earth was playing a role in the ecosystem’s destruction, and everyone, Chouinard and Tompkins came to believe, had a responsibility to make things better. “Early on, we recognized that we humans were destroying our home planet,” Chouinard said, “and that each of us, in our own way, was responsible to protect and restore the wild nature that we loved.”
With his move from pitons to chocks, Chouinard had overhauled his product lineup in order to take better care of the planet. Now he was using the power of his purse to support grassroots environmental activists, taking the first step on a philanthropic journey that would shape his career, and the world.
During one of his extended stays at Camp 4 in Yosemite, Chouinard witnessed an altercation between an unruly driver and a plucky young woman that would change his life. As a car passed through the camp, the driver tossed an empty beer can out the window. The woman chased down the car and told the driver to pick the can up. A passenger in the car offered a middle finger in return, prompting the now irate woman to rip off the car’s license plate with her bare hands and turn it over to a park ranger.
On a wall in the office, a quote attributed to Henry David Thoreau provided inspiration: “Simplification of means and elevation of ends is the goal.” A key to the office was hidden under a rock, allowing workers to come and go as they pleased, with some eccentric craftsmen hammering away in the middle of the night if they chose. A couple black Labs were always lurking around. Climbers would drop by, sometimes earning a bit of money packing boxes or helping sort inventory. The parking lot was still a party. The place still cleared out when the waves got going. “The people working with him were a box full of misfit toys,” said Hall Stratton, who worked in the shop.
As a blacksmith, Chouinard had developed an elegant touchmark—the small design element, often engraved in a metal object, that identified its craftsman. It was a simple diamond with the letter C inside. That touchmark appeared on most Chouinard Equipment products, and a version of it is still in use today, as the logo for Black Diamond. But by the early ’70s, Chouinard needed another distinctive visual flourish, in this case, a logo for Patagonia.
Chouinard asked two local freelance artists to come up with dueling versions of a design. Jocelyn Slack was one of those who got the assignment. Looking for inspiration, she leafed through a guidebook that described climbing in the region and came across an image of Fitz Roy, which the Fun Hogs had summitted eight years earlier. Studying the routes, Slack used a pencil to rough out a silhouette of the peaks. Eventually, going back and forth with Chouinard, she added some color to her simple mountain range. The company’s name was set in lowercase letters below the mountains, and the company had its logo.
Chouinard was never the most methodical leader. He didn’t lay out a grand strategy and diligently execute it with precision. Forethought was never Chouinard’s forte. Instead, his genius came in bursts of spontaneity, a dynamic that calls to mind his performance on the rock walls he scaled as a climber. Just as he would have to make split-second decisions while hanging hundreds of feet above the Yosemite Valley floor, leaping for the next crag and holding on with his fingertips, so too would he redirect Patagonia in an instant when he sensed something was off. And as was the case when he was a climber, he usually made the right move.
Then Chouinard would begin the lesson: “Quality is objective,” he would say, arguing that the coffee beans either were or weren’t excellent. There was no in between. That would get folks going. “Quality is not objective,” some would protest. “It’s a matter of taste.”
The same year “Reality Check” published, Patagonia and Smith & Hawken, another American clothing company, agreed to buy 1 million buttons made from the tagua nut, a type of seed that grows on palm trees in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Polished tagua nuts resemble ivory and were a popular material for buttons before plastic became ubiquitous. Conservation International helped broker the deal, and Patagonia paid a premium for the nut buttons, accepting the extra cost as a worthwhile trade for using fewer petroleum products. The experiment lasted just a year. By 1992, the buttons were cracking, and Patagonia recalled the items that featured tagua. It turned out there was a reason plastic buttons had become the norm.
Another time, after a trip to Japan, Chouinard demanded that the company begin stocking a type of eco-friendly Japanese fishing shoe called Reef Walkers. McDivitt protested, arguing that they would never sell. Chouinard pulled rank and demanded that she place an order. McDivitt relented, but before doing so took out a black marker and wrote, in graffiti on the rafters above her desk, “My boss made me buy 20,000 pairs of Reef Walkers.” Then she made Chouinard sign it. Chouinard got his way, and Patagonia ordered the Reef Walkers. But McDivitt was right: the shoes didn’t sell. (The graffiti is still there.)
In the end, the lesson was clear. If a product doesn’t work and needs to be replaced right away, there’s no way it can be considered good for the environment; if it doesn’t last, there’s no way it can be sustainable. “Durability and high quality are key elements to environmental responsibility,” Stanley said. “The world doesn’t need a lot more crappy products.” But before Chouinard could double down on Patagonia’s quality, he would have to let go of the business that got him started.
Chouinard would dig in his heels. “No,” he would say. “It’s about consistency. It’s about a product fulfilling its function.” He pressed his students, challenging them to define a perfect shirt. If someone suggested it was a custom-tailored, Italian dress shirt made from the finest cotton, Chouinard would scoff. How would that shirt hold up in a washing machine? How long would it last? A delicate shirt couldn’t be considered quality. These lessons divided the staff—designers who obsessed over every stitch appreciated Chouinard’s unwavering stance, while executives who saw the world in units sold thought he was being too aspirational. But with the esoteric lessons, Chouinard was trying to transmit to his employees the same fixation on quality that had for so long animated him. Unless Patagonia’s jackets and shorts and pants and fleeces worked perfectly, the company might as well not make them at all.
The gamble quickly paid off. Customers bought into the environmental messaging, and within a few months, Patagonia was able to raise the prices of the organic garments to cover all its additional costs. One of Chouinard’s core beliefs—that consumers would pay for quality—had been validated at the very moment it mattered most. And in doing so, Patagonia had made a statement to the industry: conventional cotton, despite being cheap and easy to procure, was a poisonous fabric that could be abandoned without imperiling the business. “The difference between an organic cotton field and a conventional cotton field is night and day, life and death,” Olsen said.
Patagonia’s efforts to remake its supply chain in a more environmentally friendly manner culminated in 1997, when the company hosted its first-ever conference for suppliers in Ventura. Flying in farmers, spinners, ginners, dyers, and stitchers from around the globe, the company spent days schooling its network of commercial partners on its unorthodox philosophy and drilling into them the idea that for Patagonia, preserving the natural world was a core value. That alone was a revolutionary assertion. For most suppliers, their primary value was profits—they were in business to get paid; not much more, not much less. Inasmuch as any of them thought of an end customer, it was perhaps Patagonia the company or maybe Patagonia’s customers. None of them thought it was the planet.
For days, Patagonia executives challenged the company’s suppliers, pressing them to think more expansively about their role. Between surf breaks and barbecues, suppliers were presented with detailed assessments of how their individual industries were polluting the environment and then sorted into breakout groups to brainstorm ways they might improve their processes. “We’ve spent the last ten or fifteen years with all of you talking about quality,” Sweeney, who was instrumental in organizing the event, told the suppliers. “We now need to talk about the quality of life on Earth.”
The complaints didn’t bother Chouinard. The company wasn’t making weapons or ammunition, he reasoned. It was simply making clothing. “Bras don’t kill people,” Chouinard said. “People kill people.” Besides, he was a veteran himself, having served in Korea. He could sympathize with the plight of the grunt who already had to endure the petty indignities and grueling monotony of army life. That was bad enough; why not at least make him comfortable? As a seasoned mountaineer, he also knew how important it was to have the right kind of clothes in foul weather environments. And while he had grown up speaking French, he was a lifelong American and a patriot, grateful to have the freedom to be an outsider—and a successful one at that—in a country where even a blacksmith without a college degree could make a fortune. “I had no qualms about any of that,” he said. “I want our troops to be comfortable, and we make the most comfortable clothing for hot and cold conditions. So that was it.”
It was just the four of them. Yvon and Malinda Chouinard. Doug and Kris Tompkins. As the calendar flipped from ’03 to ’04, they roamed the Chacabuco Valley in the Chilean backcountry, piloting a four-wheel drive truck through alien terrain marked by geothermal springs, red rivers, and black lakes. This was land that the Tompkinses were angling to buy. A 173,000-acre parcel virtually untouched by humans was on the market, and they knew that securing it could help fulfill what had become their overarching dream: creating a national park that would protect one of the greatest landscapes in South America.
And when it comes to fossil fuels, Patagonia limits the use of single-use plastics when it can, but there is no way to ship its wares around the world without burning huge amounts of jet fuel, shipping fuel, and gasoline. Its factories also continue to wrap many items in individual plastic bags. The company has made great strides since it began its environmental journey so many years ago, and yet with every step it takes forward, it finds new problems it must address. Even after a half century’s work, Chouinard understood that the elusive goal of a business that was actually good for the planet remained out of reach. “Patagonia is not a sustainable company,” he said. “There’s no such thing. I look at our philanthropy as not charity but as the cost of doing business.”
Was Chouinard satisfied? After so many years, so many close calls, so much gained and so much lost, so much given away, was he at peace? “I feel like I could die tomorrow, and the company is going to continue for the next 50 years, and it’s going to continue doing the right thing, and I don’t have to be around,” he said. “I’ve never been a micromanager. I’m the company philosopher. I’m the entrepreneur that comes up with crazy ideas. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t. But I feel a big relief that I’ve put my life in order. And now I’m going to work on making everything simpler and simpler for myself.”
Those intertwined benefits—good for farmers, good for the planet—explain why Lightfoot is one of the country’s biggest champions of kernza, using it in the beers and pastas sold under the Patagonia Provisions brand. “The mission of Patagonia is to save our home planet, which is a beautifully simple mission,” he said as we sipped a kernza lager under the stars. “And if you think about all the different ways that the business can help fulfill that mission, food is the most important lever that Patagonia can pull.”
And yes, the company needed to be profitable. On this front, Patagonia was set up for success. It had no long-term debt, no antsy investors, no greedy shareholders. Customers were more stoked about the brand than ever, thanks in part to Chouinard’s own story and the activism and the conservation. It just had to keep hitting those roughly 10 percent margins and there would be ample resources for Holdfast each year.
Quality was the tough one. Chouinard wanted the company to double down on its craftsmanship. Not just the stitching and the blend of its fabrics, but the sustainability of its materials, the ethics of its suppliers, all of it. Unless Patagonia kept pushing itself to be more responsible, what was the point? “We’re not a perfect company,” he said. “But at least we’re recognizing it, and we’re doing something about it.”
And it was undeniable that with its focus on sustainable business, the activism, and the coalition building, Patagonia had made an impact well beyond Ventura. The company may not be able to singlehandedly change capitalism, but Chouinard’s fingerprints are all over the business world. When companies take better care of their employees, when they provide childcare, when they let employees be themselves in the office, that is the legacy of Patagonia. When corporations push their vendors to treat their workers well, when they try to root out toxic materials in the supply chain, when they do the right thing even when it costs a bit more, there, too, is the legacy of Chouinard. When CEOs take a stand, talk back to the president, and encourage customers to vote, that’s in part Patagonia’s doing, too. And then there were the national parks in Chile and Argentina, all the sustainability groups Patagonia had cofounded, the 1% for the Planet grants, the ownership change, and now the money flowing from Holdfast.
November 20, 2025
I wanted to read this so bad and then I couldn’t wait for it to end. Literally took me a whole month because I never wanted to pick it up. So boring.
October 6, 2025
Well-written and fascinating. Makes me want to be a better person
October 21, 2025
3.75 stars-if you have already read Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard, you can jump to about the 60% mark for new information about the Patagonia company.
December 31, 2025
Quick, easy, and enlightening read.
September 17, 2025
This is SUCH a great read and such an interesting story. I really like Patagonia as a company and now I know why. And it's so good to hear about this kind of CEO when there are so many greedy, evil ones. Glad I'm reading this. Recommend!
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