Is working employees tirelessly, in a chaotic environment sustainable for 100 years? Of course not. Employee turnover would be constant and company cohesiveness would be routinely interrupted. Patagonia is highly unconventional — in just about everything. So when the talent acquisition team at Patagonia reads a resume, they read them from the bottom up. Environmental stewardship was/is at the forefront of Patagonia’s philosophy on production and strategy. It’s this guiding priority—to respect and preserve our natural resources—that dictated many of Patagonia’s actions and policies. By doing something “right” the first time, we don’t have to worry about expending more effort and energy down the line, for ourselves or the planet.

We are a product-driven company. That means that product comes first and the company exists to create and support our products. In creating new products, Patagonia doesn’t chase fashion or trends. They pay attention to their core customers and focus purely on solving theirproblems and making themsomething useful that will not just look good today, but will look good 10 years from now. I've never respected the profession. It's business that has to take the majority of the blame for being the enemy of nature, for destroying native cultures, for taking from the poor and giving to the rich, and for poisoning the earth with the effluent from its factories. Yet business can produce food, cure disease, control population, employ people, and generally enrich our lives. And it can do these good things and make a profit without losing its soul. Our philosophies aren’t rules; they’re guidelines. They’re the keystone of our approach to any project, and although they are ‘set in stone,’ their applications to a situation isn’t. In every long-lasting business, the methods of conducting business may constantly change, but the values, the culture and the philosophies remain constant.”

Getting Beyond the ‘Buffett Rule’

Awareness and attentiveness to who you are (in this case who your company is) are foundational to operating in a way that’s sustainable and successful. Since there wasn’t much profit at the end of the year, we paid ourselves by the hours worked. None of us saw the business as an end in itself. It was just a way to pay the bills so we could go off on climbing trips.

Thinking these dark thoughts doesn't depress me; in fact, I'm a happy person. I'm a Buddhist about it all. I've accepted the fact that there is a beginning and an end to everything. Maybe the human species has run its course and it's time for us to go away and leave room for other, one hopes, more intelligent and responsible life forms.Often, business people enter into business opportunities purely for the sake of business. They’ll enter into markets and industries they themselves aren’t a part of as customers, and then patch together the needs and interests of the people in that space. With a clear understanding of your core values, principles, and strengths, progress comes with far less resistance. Takeaways When Malinda and I made the decision to stay in business, we faced a personal challenge: Could we run a company that does much good and very little harm? Could we turn the company into a model, capable of effecting reform that we as individuals would be unable to accomplish? Could we actually change the way others treat the natural world?

Is draining the planet of its natural resources at the cost of short-term profits sustainable for 100 years? Of course not! The very materials many companies need to produce their products would be gone. We desperately needed some help, so in early 1990 Malinda and I, along with our CEO, Pat O'Donnell, and CFO, Bill Bussiere, made arrangements to meet with Michael Kami, a well-regarded consultant who had run strategic planning for IBM and helped turn Harley-Davidson around in the eighties. The next thing we knew, we were boarding a Florida-bound plane to see him. I was still wondering why I was really in business when, in 1991, after all those years of 30 to 50 percent compound annual growth, Patagonia hit the wall. The country had entered a recession, and the growth we had always planned on, and bought inventory for, stopped. Patagonia puts quality first, period. A more sales-driven company might sacrifice a degree of quality to achieve on-time delivery, and a mass marketer might sacrifice both quality and on-time delivery to maintain the lowest cost. Yvon developed a clear definition for what “best” looked like for any new product they considered designing. Some of those characteristics included:Despite the challenges involved, we've found that every time we've elected to do the right thing, even when it costs twice as much, it's turned out to be more profitable. This strengthens my confidence that we're headed in the right direction. Our Environmental Assessment Program educates us, and with education we have choices. When we act positively on solving problems instead of trying to find a way around them, we're farther along the path toward sustainability. Plus we're constantly discovering more things we can do, both internally and externally. If you just ask people for help — if you just admit that you don’t know something — they will fall all over themselves trying to help. Entrepreneurialism Even with substantial sales volume, the climbing hardware business was never wildly successful. And ultimately, in the midst of a legal crisis in the late 1980s, where Chouinard Equipment was the target of lawsuits involving improper use of their climbing gear, they had to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. In the version of the book I read, the historic account ends in the mid 2000s, and transitions to a section titled, “Philosophies.”

Perhaps the most evident quality of Yvon’s that shines through in this book is his complete dedication to reflection, remaining self-aware, and thinking deeply about himself and the company he owns. Yvon’s story encourages us to act more like a craftsperson and take care to think with the long view in mind.

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What our employees all share is a passion for something outside themselves, whether for surfing or opera, climbing or gardening, skiing or community activism.