Most people who manage to become billionaires probably get that way on purpose, but that wasn’t the case for Yvon Chouinard. Though he founded the iconic outdoor gear and apparel company Patagonia, it wasn’t with the intention of turning a major profit. In fact, over half a century later, he would end up giving the multibillion-dollar business away.
Chouinard got his start as a rock climber at the age of 14 as a member of the Southern California Falconry Club when he learned how to rappel down the cliffs to the falcon aeries. A few years later, in 1957, he started making his own climbing tools after buying some used blacksmithing tools from the junkyard and teaching himself how to use them.
By the early ’60s, the pioneering climber and surfer was selling the handmade equipment out of his car in California’s Yosemite Valley. Unfortunately, he was also living out of his car, subsisting on a diet of cat food, oatmeal, potatoes, poached ground squirrel and porcupines.
From those humble beginnings, however, grew one of the most successful outdoor brands in history. Officially founded in 1973, Patagonia became incredibly profitable, making Chouinard more money than he was comfortable with. That’s why the company started giving away one percent of its sales decades ago, mostly to grass roots environmental activists and organizations.
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Then, in 2022, Chouinard took his philanthropy even further. Instead of selling the company or taking it public, Chouinard, his wife and two adult children transferred their ownership of Patagonia to a set of nonprofit organizations and trusts created to make sure that all of the company’s profits (roughly $100 million a year) to environmental causes worldwide. Patagonia was valued at approximately $3 billion at the time.
“Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn’t end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people,” Chouinard, then 83, told the New York Times. “We are going to give away the maximum amount of money to people who are actively working on saving this planet.”
As Chouinard explained, “I didn’t know what to do with the company because I didn’t ever want a company. I didn’t want to be a businessman. Now I could die tomorrow and the company is going to continue doing the right thing for the next 50 years, and I don’t have to be around.”
According to David Callahan, founder of the website Inside Philanthropy, the Chouinard family “is a way outlier when you consider that most billionaires give only a tiny fraction of their net worth away every year.”
“Even those who have signed the Giving Pledge don’t give away that much, and tend to get richer every year,” he continued (the Giving Pledge is a commitment signed by hundreds of billionaires to give away a large portion of their fortunes).
“I feel a big relief that I’ve put my life in order,” Chouinard said. “For us, this was the ideal solution.”
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