134 Quotes by Yvon Chouinard

We grow by letting the customer tell us. So when the customer tells us that they're frustrated, that they just got their catalogue and we're already out of a product they wanted, then it tells me that we're not making enough. We let the customer tell us instead of creating an artificial demand for our products. Any time you're making products that people don't need, you're at the mercy of the economy, you're at the mercy of whatever is going on. So we tried to avoid that situation.

The most important thing is to get the fish in quickly and leave it in the water. Forget the hero pose.

Hiring people with diverse backgrounds brings in a flexibility of thought and openness to new ways of doing things, as opposed to hiring clones from business schools who have been taught a codified way of doing business.

The whole purpose of climbing something like Everest is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain. But if you compromise the process you’re an asshole when you start out and an asshole when you get back.

True adventure begins when everything goes wrong.

Nature doesn't like empires. It doesn't like accumulation in one place, it doesn't like monoculture. It's always trying to make diverse species. It wants to spread everything out. And we're constantly trying to hold everything in.

The reason it was so scary was that there was only one climber capable of rescuing us, and that was Layton Kor, and he was in Colorado.

...it's the same with business. If you focus on the goal and not the process, you inevitably compromise. Businessmen who focus on profits wind up in the hole. For me, profit is what happens when you do everything else right.

I'm the company philosopher and the burr in the saddle. I'm the one who says we need to try harder, improve the quality of our products, become a part of the political process, help elect people who are good for the environment.