
Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016) - anonymouslee
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/19/patagonias-philosopher-king
======
spodek
I toured Patagonia's headquarters last year after featuring Vincent Stanley,
who has been with them since 1973, on my podcast
[http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/vincent-
stanley](http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/vincent-stanley). The culture was
amazing -- friendly, productive, supportive.

I asked a random employee to join me for lunch. Whatever I asked about company
vision, culture, etc she knew. When I asked why they did this or that thing a
certain way, she'd say things like "Person A saw a problem with how we were
doing it before, but couldn't solve it. Person B figured out how to solve it
but couldn't implement it. Person C implemented it."

Critical to all their decisions, as I heard, were the environment, employees,
suppliers' employees, and customers.

In most places, Person A's recognition of a problem would lead to everyone
else saying, "Well, what can you do?" and leave it. If by some chance person B
solved it despite the inertia, people would respond, "But what about X or Y"
or some edge case and leave it.

Nearly any company could learn from Patagonia's culture.

~~~
50208
I too was extremely lucky to visit the Ventura headquarters on a random trip
to the area several years ago. I was going to get a "surf lesson" from Chipper
(who I was half-jokingly told was the highest paid receptionist in the world)
but he needed to reschedule. By happenstance, Yvon was there and he was going
to hand forge a piton in the old tin shed ... the piton would be auctioned off
(for the AAC I believe).

Chipper said, "I can't surf right now but you can go watch Yvon make a piton
if you want ... oh here is Yvon right now ... Yvon, meet (my name), (my name),
meet Yvon." So I turn and there he is. He's tiny, he smiles, we shake hands
quickly, and he's out the door. I'm like, hell yeah ... I want to watch him
make a Piton.

Chipper quickly walks me over to the tin shed, opens the door and shoves me
into the standing room only shed filled with Patagonia employees who look at
me like "who is this interloper?" for a split second before returning their
attention to Yvon, who has started doing his thing. Over the next 30 minutes
Yvon narrated as he took a piece of iron, heated it, hammered it, forged it,
bent it, ground it with the original metal working machines (all older than
me). It was as if nothing in the tin shed had changed in decades ... nothing
had been cleaned or moved. It was exactly as it had been. And Yvon busted out
a perfect Angle piton as expertly as if it was 1960-something.

A bit of Tin Shed action can be seen in the awesome movie Mountain of Storms:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ympydy7f1Mg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ympydy7f1Mg)

I look back on it now 12 years later as if it was a dream ... but no, I was
there. Like the author of the article, I am a 90's guy who found my callings
via the Patagonia catalog (I still have my 1st one, Spring 1992). I moved from
Kentucky to the mountain west after high school and over the years became a
climber, ww kayaker, skier, surfer, mtb'er, etc ... just like Yvon, but never
to his level ... dude was an athletic badass before his time. He's also in
reality an avant-garde political, social, business and environmental badass
well beyond our current understandings IMO. I feel very lucky to have met him
and watched him make that piton.

~~~
spodek
I hung out with Chipper too, which was delightful. He took me out for a
surfing lesson, but there were no waves that day. With my background in
ultimate Frisbee and his freestyling, we had a great time tossing the disc
instead.

As it turns out, I had stood next to Yvon in the cafeteria without realizing
it. Chipper told him about me but this was November 2018 and there were huge
nearby wildfires. Yvon said he had to help his community.

Chipper also took me to the tin shed and for the rest of my visit people
treated my visiting it as a sign of honor so I took it that way. Since
visiting it, I've noticed the phrase "tin shed" in a lot of their literature
and now I know why.

Incidentally, I buy clothes almost only from thrift shops, which means no
Patagonia. Their stuff doesn't make it to second-hand, which I conclude is a
mix of their fixing policies and quality of manufacture.

~~~
HelloFellowDevs
> Incidentally, I buy clothes almost only from thrift shops, which means no
> Patagonia.

I don't know if you've heard about this, but Patagonia offers second-hand
buying opportunities. This is the site, more or less refurbished Patagonia
wornwear.patagonia.com

------
splatcollision
One thing that they do fantastically well is the repair program, which is also
good for the world instead of their bottom line.

Even years-old winter coats you can bring into a store and they will send it
off for repair, instead of you having to buy a new one.

~~~
kmundnic
The zipper of a down jacket I bought from them would get stuck. They repaired
it twice for me, and the third time I took it for repair, they gave me a new
one. This was 4 years after I bought it, no receipt needed. I would assume
that the old jacket went into their recycling program.

The new jacket came with a sturdier zipper, so it also showed that they
acknowledged the design flaw. I've been using this jacket for the last 5
years, and it is still holding well (and never again had a problem with the
zipper).

------
snowcrashover
Good profile. I feel like the author was having a lot of fun with his
thesaurus:

"He has a lifelong habit of collecting garrulous friends and yet a tendency to
induce some measure of taciturnity in all but the most voluble of them. His
style of reticence is contagious."

~~~
johncalvinyoung
haha, I guess I'm around a lot of bookish & verbal friends. That sentence
didn't strike me as odd in the slightest.

~~~
mturmon
I'd suggest that it's not so much the particular words, it's that all the
"oddball" words in the sentence are directly Latin-derived -- garrulous,
taciturnity, voluble, reticence. This is what gives the sentence a somewhat
forced tone - perhaps a good Anglo-Saxon term might provide a punch.

Probably the stock phrases, "collecting friends", "some measure of X", "all
but the most", "style is contagious", don't help either.

The quoted words don't seem that well-crafted, but the content of the
observation serves as a good character sketch.

------
JohnJamesRambo
Personal hero of mine. He pops up in lots of mountaineering documentaries. If
only more CEOs were like this.

“I realized we were just growing for the sake of growing, which is bullshit.”

~~~
samvher
Yeah I really recommend the documentary 180° South [1] which has both Yvon
Chouinard (Patagonia) and Doug Tompkins (The North Face) and has them talking
about their philosophy and conservation efforts as well. (A guy retraces a
journey these two made in Patagonia back in the 60s.)

[1]
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1407927/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1407927/)
/
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC9k2N9z3SI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC9k2N9z3SI)

~~~
50208
Watch the original ... 180 South was based on ... Mountain of Storms:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ympydy7f1Mg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ympydy7f1Mg)

~~~
samvher
This is great, thanks! I was wondering where the guy who made the other
documentary got the old footage.

------
icpmacdo
Read this profile a few weeks ago on a flight, what a badass. Patagonia’s
summer sale is currently going on [0]. They seem to be one of the few
companies that actually takes sustainability seriously so I don’t mind the
more premium prices of there garments. There 5" baggie’s shorts are a personal
favorite of mine.

[0] [https://www.patagonia.com/shop/web-
specials](https://www.patagonia.com/shop/web-specials)

------
_kyran
Is Patagonia's marketing at heart not Greenwashing
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing))
?

I get that they source materials ethically and do things way better than 90%
of other clothing companies.

Surely if they truly wanted to minimise their impact on the planet, they would
rid their stores of sales and cut back on the amount of new styles/designs
that they release.

Where I live there are around 3 patagonia outlets that are always promoting
sales of up to 80% off, and that just seems so off compared to what they claim
to stand for.

~~~
nerdb4itwascool
Chouinard is quoted about this in the article:

“But I’ve become cynical about whether we can have any influence,” Chouinard
said. “Everyone’s just greenwashing. The revolution isn’t going to happen with
corporations. The elephant in the room is growth. Growth is the culprit.”

~~~
germinalphrase
Is there any theory/ideas about how a "post-growth" economy would/could
function?

~~~
asdfgasd
There are many, it's a very old, very well thought-out tradition. Try reading
Kropotkin, or from a more modern perspective, Richard Wolff.

However, it doesn't align with the current vision of orthodox Western
capitalism, so it isn't particularly popular in mainstream media or culture.

------
zjaffee
I saw him speak a few years back, and he called for radical ideas, like
suggesting the entire concept of a publicly traded company as we know it
allows companies to throw their hands in the air in regards to their ethics in
regards to the environment. This extends into their repair program, and
various other sustainability focused goals.

Patagonia is certainly one of the rare examples of what a modern ethical
company would look like (however this often includes the fact that their goods
are much higher priced than what you find at walmart).

~~~
amalow
Vote with your wallet, pay for good quality and ethical treatment of
manufacturers.

------
nerdb4itwascool
I've done a lot of work with Patagonia, visited their HQ numerous times, and
have become friends with a handful of their employees. They are not driven by
profit, but by a will to do what is right in the world and for their
customers. This all starts and ends with Yvon. This is how you build a
culture. It should be studied for generations.

I can't express how great they are to work with as a client -- smart people
and everyone's heart is in the right place.

------
jschwartzi
All of the gear I've bought from them has been better than the competition in
some way that matters. For example I have a couple of sun hoodies from
Columbia, and one from Patagonia, and the Patagonia ones cool actively even
when there isn't a breeze while the Columbia ones require a light breeze for
the cooling fabric to work. They're both great products but the Patagonia one
is honestly worth the extra $20.00 or so.

------
jihadjihad
I thoroughly enjoyed the NPR podcast "How I Built This" episode [0] on Yvon,
it was really interesting hearing his story!

[0] [https://www.npr.org/2018/02/06/572558864/patagonia-yvon-
chou...](https://www.npr.org/2018/02/06/572558864/patagonia-yvon-chouinard)

