Yvon Chouinard Quotes

I took a dozen of our top managers to Argentina, to the windswept mountains of the real Patagonia, for a walkabout. In the course of roaming around those wild lands, we asked ourselves why we were in business and what kind of business we wanted Patagonia to be. A billion-dollar company? Okay, but not if it meant we had to make products we couldn't be proud of. And we discussed what we could do to help stem the environmental harm we caused as a company. We talked about the values we had in common, and the shared culture that had brought everyone to Patagonia, Inc., and not another company.

We are a company that lives and breathes a philosophy that's centered on not only making sound business decisions but also personally and professionally finding ways to contribute to the well being of society. We are also a company that understands community.

A company is only as good as the people it keeps.

I believe our philosophy of conscious capitalism will eventually be widely adopted primarily because it is a better way to do business, and it creates more total value in the world for all of its stakeholders.

Corporate executives and business owners need to realize that there can be no compromise when it comes to ethics, and there are no easy shortcuts to success. Ethics need to be carefully sown into the fabric of their companies.

We need to have business leaders who live by deep, strong principles.

I have a foundational belief that business results start with culture and your people.

When you are led by values, it doesn't cost your business, it helps your business.

Business ethics has always had problems that are distinct from those of other professions, such as medicine, law, engineering, dentistry, or nursing.

In-N-Out Burger has a well-known and long standing reputation as a corporation that is operated with a Christian message and philosophy.

Industry leaders have the power to set standards.

You have to make your company idiot-proof because you may have an idiot running it some day.

None of us believe that in order to run a business, you have to leave your humanity at home.

I want to give businessmen an honorable place but they make crooks out of themselves.

Managing by values - not by profits - is a powerful process that will set your business on the path to becoming what I call a 'Fortunate 500' company.

As far as employees are concerned, clearly I like to communicate with them, since we are more than 40,000 people. I like to communicate either through e-mail or through video conferencing, which we do very often, and stream out videos and interviews. But more than that, I believe in traveling to my branches.

I don't believe in management by fear. I also won't sacrifice the future of a company for a quarter.

I don't want a mercenary management team.

At the end of the day, it's a business about fighters and a business about people. This is our philosophy.

LVMH is not just about numbers. It's about people.

For better or for worse, our company (The News Corporation Ltd.) is a reflection of my thinking, my character, my values.

A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practice it.

Managers have traditionally developed the skills in finance, planning, marketing and production techniques. Too often the relations with their people have been assigned a secondary role. This is too important a subject not to receive first-line attention. In this regard we could learn much from the Japanese. We must reinvest in the human side of management.

Profit has to be a means to other ends rather than an end in itself.

I know different ways of looking at things. I have my stockholders, and I feel a very keen responsibility to the shareholders, but I feel that the main responsibility I have to them is to have the stock appreciate. And you only have it appreciate by reinvesting as much as you can back in the business. And that's what we've done... and that has been my philosophy on running the business.