Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
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.
"When I look at my business today, I realize one of the biggest challenges I have is combating complacency. I always say we're running Patagonia as if it's going to b e here a hundred years from now, but that doesn't mean we have a hundred years to get there! Our success and longevity lie in our ability to change quickly. Continuous change and innovation require maintaining a sense of urgency--a tall order, especially in Patagonia's seemingly laid-back corporate culture. In fact, one of the biggest mandates I have for managers at the company is to instigate change. It's the only way we're going to survive in the long run."
Interesting... so which is it? Is the "laid back" thing just marketing and they're running people around just like many other places, or do they things some other way?
What those places have are pictures on their hiring site of people doing fun outdoor stuff or enjoying themselves, and a few stories of what a great culture they have.
But the actual culture is one where it's quite stressful and no one much really does the fun things any more than any other place, because ... "a sense of urgency".
I've heard a lot of good things about Patagonia though, so I think my cynical observations about some other places I've seen above may not be accurate, which makes me curious how things are actually run, day to day. I don't think it's easy to keep that balance, long term.
BTW: sometimes lots of urgency is fine too, but let's all be honest about it.
I would argue that it's necessary to keep a good balance long term. Especially within the outdoor industry, Patagonia isn't going to show up as authentic if their statements about culture are just window dressing. And if people aren't able to pursue their other passions without sacrificing their careers, eventually something will give... And people don't always choose to keep their desk job. So they're either going to lose touch with their consumer and lose their employees... or they're flexible with their hours and let people go surfing. Seems like an easy decision to me.
Part of what made Patagonia as a company different is the no BS mentality instilled within him from his dirt bagging days spent climbing around California, Patagonia, and New Hampshire. There's a wonderful moment in the movie where Jeff Johnson and Yvon are climbing some first ascent and Jeff asks "what should we name it when we're done?" and Yvon replies, "nothing, just climb it, be done, and go home".
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180_Degrees_South%3A_Conqueror...
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
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.
A movie I haven't yet seen mentioned in this thread is 180 Degrees South [0] which looks at a man following in the steps of Yvon, Doug Thompson, Lito Tejada-Flores, and Dick Dorworth who climbed the first American ascent of Fitz Roy after driving to Patagonia from Ventura, CA.
Dorworth is one of my favorite authors who's memoir, titled Night Driving, includes the story of the drive to Patagonia. I have read and re-read Night Driving countless times and I'm sure will continue to do so.
Dorworth's story, Climbing to Freedom [1], fully encompasses everything I love about being in the mountains.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180_Degrees_South:_Conquerors_...
I have never been into an HQ as welcoming as Patagonia's. The cafeteria alone is worth a visit!
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.
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
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.
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).
"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."
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.
“I realized we were just growing for the sake of growing, which is bullshit.”
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1407927/ / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC9k2N9z3SI
https://www.patagonia.com/product/let-my-people-go-surfing-r...
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.
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. If the products they make are truly the best that they can, they wouldn't have the need to clear out stock on a regular basis and to make way for new styles being made all the time.
Furthermore, they love to plaster their branding all over the "Big Oil, Don't Surf" campaigns (of which I do think is a good cause), but it's a little hypocritic when the surf industry wouldn't exist without oil, not to mention that their own wetsuits contain synthetic rubber (derived from oil).
Patagonia has admitted that at the end of the day, they are a company in a capitalist society. They know, and have said many times, it's better to re-use or keep longer what you have than to buy something new. But at the end of the day, do you want to buy from a company that does absolutely nothing for the environment or a company that at least, tries to minimize their impact? They are probably one of the best company out there when it comes to sustainability.
Let's stop trying to bring down the companies that are actually doing better and criticize the companies that do absolutely nothing. Perfect is the enemy of good.
The ultimate act of conservation is suicide. Few are that committed. We are all hypocrites.
You probably didn't hear of their "Don't buy this jacket" campaign: https://www.patagonia.com/blog/2011/11/dont-buy-this-jacket-... They also promote buying used items through their WornWear program.
If people didn't buy from Pata, they'd probably be giving their money to TNF or Columbia or some other company that is far worse for the environment. None of the others are certified B corporations. I'm glad it exists as a better option, even if it's not perfectly zero impact.
But unlike most other companies, Patagonia also plans ahead for some inventory to go at sale prices, in order to serve dirtbag outdoors lifers who would never pay full price... the same sort of people who started Patagonia a long time ago.
This was explained to me by a Patagonia sales rep about 20 years ago when I worked retail. I assume it’s still true because their end of season sales still seem to have prime inventory in them.
Yes-- if Patagonia weren't a capitalist endeavor it would have a smaller impact on the planet. :)
I'd venture to guess that the largest minimization occurs because their customers can wear a large number of their garments for a decade or more before they begin to break down due to normal wear and tear. Moreover, one could send back any garment from any period in their history (barring underwear) and if it's salvageable they'll repair it. Their refurbishing program even supports at least one brick-and-mortar refurbished clothing store that I know of.
Can you imagine the environmental impact if Apple had anything resembling such a program? Or hell, if Apple simply ceased lobbying against the right-to-repair...
“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.”
However, it doesn't align with the current vision of orthodox Western capitalism, so it isn't particularly popular in mainstream media or culture.
Unchecked growth is one of the hallmarks of cancer. Kind of an interesting analogy.
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).
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.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2018/02/06/572558864/patagonia-yvon-chou...