Product Description

In his long-awaited memoir, Yvon Chouinard—legendary climber, businessman, environmentalist, and founder of Patagonia, Inc.—shares the persistence and courage that have gone into being head of one of the most respected and environmentally responsible companies on earth. From his youth as the son of a French Canadian blacksmith to the thrilling, ambitious climbing expeditions that inspired his innovative designs for the sport’s equipment, Let My People Go Surfing is the story of a man who brought doing good and having grand adventures into the heart of his business life—a book that will deeply affect entrepreneurs and outdoor enthusiasts alike.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13020 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.com Review
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.

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

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.

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. --Peter Han

From Publishers Weekly
Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia Inc., presents his philosophy for a "new style of responsible business" along with a chronicle of his personal and company history in this sincere if self-congratulatory creed. A Californian of French-Canadian descent, Chouinard started forging climbing hardware and selling it out of his car in 1957 and published his first catalogue, a one-page mimeographed sheet, in 1964. Today, his sporting goods company has annual revenues of $230 million, but he nonetheless identifies himself as more of "a climber, a surfer, a kayaker, a skier and a blacksmith" than a CEO. In this vein, he lays out his alternative vision of business, detailing eco- and people-conscious philosophies on aspects of the supply chain from product design and production to human resources and management. Chouinard has backed up his rhetoric with action: Patagonia pursues sustainability, gives 1% of annual net sales to environmental groups and has set benchmarks with its employee-friendly policies. Patagoniacs and socially conscious businesspeople may appreciate this account despite its wooden writing, especially as an antidote to headlines of corporate fraud. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
Inspiring. -- Ray Anderson, Chairman, Interface, Inc.

No matter what you do, you will find essential guidance and inspiration in Let My People Go Surfing. -- Dave Foreman, The Rewilding Institute

Wonderful... a moving autobiography, the story of a unique business, and a detailed blueprint for hope. -- Jared Diamond, author of Collapse

Customer Reviews

A fun, unique, and compelling biz book
This book will appeal to 2 types of reader (and I trend to both categories):

1. The hardcore, outdoor purist (and core Patagonia dirtbag customer) who is interested in how Chouinard turned his passion into a thriving business;

2. The socially responsible businessperson who is curious about the inner workings of a successful values led business, particularly how one balances the sometimes contradictory goals of growth and authenticity/values

Readers that fall into the 1st category above will find Part 1 of the book more interesting, whereas readers in the 2nd category will probably read Part 2 with the most interest.

More than most biz books, this one conveys some useful info for both camps. It's interesting to me how, maybe unbeknownst to Chouinard, he puts into practice such hot management practices like "demand planning" and "lean operations" as a natural extension of his focus on quality and authenticity. It's heartening to learn that a company like this stands more than a fighting chance in this world where it seems that success ultimately boils down to scale and slick advertising.

It helps that Chouinard is such a crotchety iconoclast, of course! As any one who has worked with an entrepeneur knows, strong opinions are an essential part of their character. This is what in my opinion adds to the charm-- he is definitely a what you see is what you get kinda guy.

Got my fingers crossed for this company that it might in fact last "one hundred years" and beyond.

The Ultimate Company to work for
Yvon Chouinard began his foray into business as a way to create a product for himself and his climbing colleagues. His desire to life an unconventional lifestyle, along with his mother's philanthropic influence, led him to create what Patagonia is today: a socially responsible business that makes high quality products while tending to the environment and its employees. Chouinard believes in his people and they in turn trust him.

Author, "Trust is Everything: Become the leader others will follow"

best business book in years
this is the best business book i've read in a long time, hands down. and, that's a bit strange, in many ways. because it's not a pure business book -- let's call it a business memoir. chuoinard tells his own life story, including a detailed telling of the creation of chouinard equipment, and then patagonia. he's sometimes-arrogant, he often unfairly generalizes, he occasionally overstates his case. he's overly proud of this "i did it my way" path.

but... it works. and there are nuggets in here that are so wonderfullly different than what one would read in other business books. in a sense, this is a "life book" -- it's about leading a company who is voraciosly and unflinchingly committed to its mission and values, even when those are contrary to profit. it's about a company or an organization being about something other, something more, than revenue and profit. and, really, it's about being the kind of person who knows herself, knows his values, knows her strengths, knows his commitments, and works ruthlessly to keep them. for chouinard, those values are all about the environment. so the book is packed with both the theoretical and the practical when it comes to environmental issues (including lots of side stories).

personally, i found the environmental stuff really helpful. we (ys) aren't patagonia (either in their singular commitment to environmental issues, or in many other ways). but we are trying to become more green. but the environmental passion of patagonia transfers, conceptually, to what other organizations could be passionate about (assuming that something is outside of themselves).

so...
1/3 personal and organizational memoir
1/3 environmental manifesto and practical organizational guide
1/3 business book on passionate commitment to internally and externally focused organizational mission and values

i'm going to buy a case lot of these (really), and give them to the ys exec team, the ys green team (a group of ys staff working on ways to help ys be more environmentally friendly), and some on the zondervan leadership team.