Yvon Chouinard
Yvon Chouinard
Yvon Chouinard is a rock climber, environmentalist and outdoor industry businessman. His company, Patagonia, is known for its environmental focus...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth9 November 1938
CountryUnited States of America
Yvon Chouinard quotes about
environmental done way
Everything we personally own that’s made, sold, shipped, stored, cleaned, and ultimately thrown away does some environmental harm every step of the way, harm that we’re either directly responsible for or is done on our behalf.
differences way hopeless
There's no difference between a pessimist who says, "Oh it's hopeless, so don't bother doing anything." and an optimist who says, "Don't bother doing anything, it's going to turn out fine anyways. Either way, nothing happens."
entrepreneur want action
If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, ‘This sucks, I’m going to do my own thing.’
positivity mountain important
How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top
adventure
It's not an adventure until something goes wrong.
healthy arguing environment
Who are businesses really responsible to? Their customers? Shareholders? Employees? We would argue that it’s none of the above. Fundamentally, businesses are responsible to their resource base. Without a healthy environment there are no shareholders, no employees, no customers and no business.
citizens denial faces
We're not citizens anymore. We're consumers. That's what we're called. It's just like being an alcoholic and being in denial that you're an alcoholic. We're in denial that each and every one of us is the problem. And until we face up to that, nothing's going to happen.
nature long lasts
Everything we make pollutes. The most responsible thing we can do is to make each product as well as we know how so it lasts as long as possible.
sports adventure climbing
Surfing and climbing are both useless sports. You get to be conquistadors of the useless. You climb to the summit and there is nothing there. And you could hike to the top from another direction. How you get there is the important part. It's the same with surfing.
sports successful clothes
I've always thought of myself as an 80 percenter. I like to throw myself passionately into a sport or activity until I reach about an 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession that doesn't appeal to me. Once I reach 80 percent level I like to go off and do something totally different; that probably explains the diversity of the Patagonia product like - and why our versatile, multifaceted clothes are the most successful.
adventure
True adventure begins when everything goes wrong.
adventure patagonia overused
The word adventure has gotten overused. For me, when everything goes wrong - that's when adventure starts
technology thinking climbing
The rules of the game must be constantly updated to keep up with the expanding technology. Otherwise we overkill the classic climbs and delude ourselves into thinking we are better climbers than the pioneers.
religious attitude athlete
I say the last 10 percent of the way to perfection takes so much of your life that it isn't worth the effort. This overzealous attitude is what creates religious fanatics, body Nazis, and athletes who are exceedingly dull to converse with.