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Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)

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11–20 of 59 posts

Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)

#11

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.”

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.youtube.com/watch?v=AC9k2N9z3SI

Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)

#12
post #11

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.”

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.youtube.com/watch?v=AC9k2N9z3SI

To go along with that recommendation, I'd add Chouinard's book:

https://www.patagonia.com/product/let-my-people-go-surfing-r...

Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)

#14

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.

+1

Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)

#15
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."

Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)

#16

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.”

we don't grow "for the sake of growing", there's plenty of poor people in the world that need that growth. Whether that growth reaches them is another story..

Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)

#17
post #6

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 . 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 thin…

[deleted]

Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)

#18
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the problem with companies offering sales?

No problem with companies putting something on sale. One of their values is that: "We know that our business activity—from lighting stores to dyeing shirts—is part of the problem. We work steadily to change our business practices and share what we’ve learned. But we recognize that this is not enough. We seek not only to do less harm, but more good." Running sales, just generates more impulse purchases and consumerism…

Everything has an impact.

The ultimate act of conservation is suicide. Few are that committed. We are all hypocrites.

Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)

#19

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."

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

Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)

#20
post #11

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.”

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.youtube.com/watch?v=AC9k2N9z3SI

The youtube video is unfortunately unavailable in my country (USA).
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