Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard releases revised memoir with Penguin Books

By

Obi Anyanwu

Published
Sep 8, 2016

Penguin Books on Tuesday released a revised and expanded edition of ‘Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman,’ the 2006 memoir from Patagonia founder and owner Yvon Chouinard.

 
‘Let My People Go Surfing’ details Chouinard’s migration from Maine to Southern California as a child, how he advanced climbing forever, his entrepreneurship and Patagonia’s original mission: Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspired and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. The new edition that launched this month explains how Patagonia and environmental views have evolved through global recession and environmental crisis.
 
The memoir also includes a completely rewritten chapter on environmental philosophy where Chouinard expresses deep concerns about the planet’s health, climate change and other threats. He added a new element to his philosophy for responsible business: Do Good. Activist and author Naomi Klein wrote the new foreword for the memoir, “This is the story of an attempt to do more than change a single corporation – it is an attempt to challenge the culture of consumption that is at the heart of the global ecological crisis.”

Since the memoir was first published, Patagonia now approaches $1 billion in annual sales. The company has begun investing heavily in regenerative agriculture to reverse the damage done to Earth. Chouinard writes, “All the work we do at Patagonia to be a more responsible company is for naught unless we can be part of the solution to this problem.”