Quote

At Patagonia, making a profit is not the goal because the Zen master would say profits happen 'when you do everything else right'.

Yvon Chouinard

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Yvon Chouinard
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: November 9
Businessperson
Environmentalist
Mountaineer
Rock Climber
Lewiston
Maine
Happen
Goal
Making
Else
Patagonia
Happens
Profits
Everything
Profit
Right
Master
Would
Masters

More quotes by Yvon Chouinard

Image
I purposely try to hire people who are really self-motivated and good at what they do, and then I just leave them alone.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
Remember: if you take bivouac equipment along, you will bivouac.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
Hiring people with diverse backgrounds brings in a flexibility of thought and openness to new ways of doing things, as opposed to hiring clones from business schools who have been taught a codified way of doing business.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
You ask me about the past, you ask me about the future, the only way to be happy is to be living right now.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
The climbing as a whole is not very esthetic or enjoyable it is merely difficult.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
I believe the accepted model of capitalism that demands endless growth deserves the blame for the destruction of nature, and it should be displaced. Failing that, I try to work with those companies and help them change the way they think about our resources.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
I wanted to distance myself from those pasty faced corpses in suits I saw in airline magazine ads. If I was going to become a businessman, I was going to do it on my own terms.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
Growth isn't central at all, because I'm trying to run this company as if it's going to be here a hundred years from now. And if you take where we are today and add 15% growth, like public companies need to have for their stock to stay up in value, I'd be a multi-trillion-dollar company in 40 years. Which is impossible, of course.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
We're a part of nature. As we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves. It's a selfish thing to want to protect nature.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
It's not an adventure until something goes wrong.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
Is climbing, as a passion and as a sport, better off now than it was in the past? We can do harder climbs now in faster times - techniques are more refined and equipement more sophisticated - but are we really any better off?
Yvon Chouinard
Image
Real adventure is defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive, and certainly not as the same person.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
Personally, I would rather climb in the high mountains. I have always abhorred the tremendous heat, the dirt-filled cracks, the ant-covered foul-smelling trees and bushes which cover the cliffs, the filth and noise of Camp 4 (the climbers' campground), and worst of all, the multitudes of tourists which abound during the weekends and summer months.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
Most of the damage we cause to the planet is the result of our own ignorance.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
I think risk is important. I don't care if it's a great financial risk or a physical risk. You only get out of something what you put into it and the fact that you are willing to risk something means that you are going to get a lot more out of it.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
Yeah, leading an examined life, I always say, is a pain in the ass. It adds an element of complexity to business that most businessmen don't want to hear about. They just want to call a fabric manufacturer, and say, Hey, give us 10,000 yards of shirting.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
The solution may be for a lot of the world's problems is to turn around and take a forward step. You can't just keep trying to make a flawed system work.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
But I'm really trying to run this company like it is going to be here a hundred years from now. That's what's important.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
I live for the moment. I'm basically a Buddhist-type person. I'm just here right now, and I don't think about what's going to happen a hundred years from now. I try to concentrate on what's going on right now. But I'm really trying to run this company like it is going to be here a hundred years from now. That's what's important.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
I drive old cars, all my Patagonia clothes are years and years old, I hardly have anything new. I try to lead a very simple life. I am not a consumer of anything. And I much prefer sleeping on somebody's floor than in a motel room.
Yvon Chouinard