Founders: #18 Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

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What I learned from reading Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard. --- I had always avoided thinking of myself as a businessman. I was a climber, a surfer, a kayaker, a skier, and a blacksmith. We simply enjoyed making good tools and functional clothes. [0:01] One day it dawned on me that I was a businessman and would probably be one for a long time. I knew that I would never be happy playing by the normal rules of business; I wanted to distance myself as far as possible from this pasty-faced corpses in suits I saw in airline magazine ads. If I had to be a businessman, I was going to do it on my own terms. [0:32] One of my favorite sayings about entrepreneurship is: 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. [1:00] Work had to be enjoyable on a daily basis. [1:18] I’ve always thought of myself as an 80 percent. I like to throw myself passionately into an activity until I reach about an 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession and degree of specialization that doesn’t appeal to me. Once I rea

[00:00:00] I had always avoided thinking of myself as a businessman. I was a climber, a surfer, a kayaker, a skier, and a blacksmith. We simply enjoyed making good tools and functional clothes that we and our friends wanted. Melinda and my only personal assets were a beat-up Ford van and a heavily mortgaged, soon-to-be-condemned cabin on the beach. Now we had a heavily leveraged company with employees with families of their own, all depending on our being successful. After we had pondered our responsibilities and financial liabilities, one day it dawned on me that I was a businessman and…

Founders: #18 Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

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