Episode Details

Can capitalism have a conscience? Yvonne Chouinard built Patagonia into a billion-dollar empire while trying to save the planet—then gave it all away rather than be called a billionaire. My guest NYT reporter David Gellis expalins how in an age of Musk and Bezos, Chouinard’s story reveals both the promise and paradox of doing well by doing good. A half-century journey led by a French-Canadian dirtbag who slept in the dirt, managed by absence, and stayed so stubbornly uncommercial that only someone this odd could pull it off. Character—eccentric, contradictory, uncompromising—reshaping what business can mean.