#60 Yvon Chouinard: What We've Learned from Patagonia's First 40 Years

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories, and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets, they're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso, or four energy drinks before or during the show, so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. When I die and go to hell, the devil is going to make me the marketing director for a cola company. I'll be in charge of trying to sell a product that no one needs, is identical to its competition, and can't be sold on its merits. I'd be competing head on in the cola wars on price, distribution, advertising, and promotion, which would indeed be hell for me.
So that is a quote from the founder that we're going to talk about today, and that's Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, and his book, The Responsible Company, What We've Learned From Patagonia's First 40 Years. So before I get into that, if this is your first time listening to founders, welcome. The concept of this podcast is fairly straightforward. Every week I read a biography or an autobiography or a book about a founder, and then just pull out ideas that are useful for our lives. So after last week when we studied Howard Hughes, I pushed, so I've had The Responsible Company on my bookshelf for a few weeks now, and I knew I was eventually going to read it. And I decided after finishing that Howard Hughes podcast to push this one up to the top of the queue.
And the main reason I did that is because I felt that I learned basically all the things not to do from Howard Hughes. And according to my calculations, I've read 57 different books so far for this podcast. And in my top five easily out of all those 57 books is the book I covered on Founders 18, which was Yvon Chouinard's book about the founding of Patagonia. It's called Let My People Go Surfing, The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. I'd recommend this to any entrepreneur, anybody making anything to definitely read it because I just feel this guy is...
He's basically the opposite of Howard Hughes, where I feel like we can learn everything not to do with Howard Hughes. I feel Yvon's teaching us everything to do. And he's just got a lot of old school knowledge from running a company for 46 years. And I think we can benefit from his experience. So if you haven't listened to that Founders episode, Founders Number 18, I definitely would do so. And then I'd order the book and read it because I think it's fantastic. And before I get into the Responsible Company book, I'm just going to read some quotes from Yvon. And you'll see why. I mean, the quote I just opened the podcast with, why I think you could tell why I love somebody like this, that talks that way and that thinks that way. So these are just some quotes I collected. Just want to read them to you. It says, the hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life. It is so easy to make it complex.
I'm in that same vein. Here's another quote I love. The more you know, the less you need.
And I think this next quote is hugely important and it's part of the reason why I'm doing this podcast. And it says, the secret to happiness is to be working at your passion. If you want to be miserable, lead a desperate life like everybody else, where they drag their asses to work every day because they hate their job.
So this is another quote that I talked about in the first podcast I did, Yvon, which stuck out to my mind even to this day. If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, this sucks, I'm gonna go do my own thing.