Patagonia ft. Yvon Chouinard

8 principles from the founder who told customers to buy less and still built a $3B company — Yvon Chouinard's philosophy-driven playbook for anti-growth capitalism.

With Yvon Chouinard

"The more you know, the less you need. I've run this company for 60 years by violating every rule in the MBA textbook. Those rules exist to make quarterly numbers look good. They don't exist to make great companies."

Yvon Chouinard, on the episode

Yvon Chouinard is arguably the most unusual founder in business history. A climbing bum who started making pitons out of a forge in his car, he accidentally built Patagonia into a $3B apparel company — while actively trying to slow its growth. He ran a full-page New York Times ad telling customers not to buy his products. He gave the entire company away to fight climate change in 2022. He paid employees to surf during work hours. Every business instinct he ignored turned out to be correct. In this iconic episode, he explains how — and the philosophy that made Patagonia the one company most others secretly wish they could be.