The Daily Populous Tuesday September 23rd, 2025 evening edition
Authored by finance.yahoo.com and submitted by yahoonews

For many business leaders, joining the billionaires club is the ultimate badge of success—placing them among the ranks of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos.

However, for Yvon Chouinard, the founder of the outdoor apparel company Patagonia, being highlighted as a member of the ultrawealthy was “one of the worst days of his life.”

“It really, really pissed me off,” he said upon being placed on Forbes 2017 billionaire list, according to excerpts from Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away by David Gelles.

“I don’t have $1 billion in the bank. You know, I don’t drive Lexuses.”

A lifelong rock climber, Chouinard spent years sleeping in his car or on dirt floors in the wilderness, surviving on just $1 a day and even eating dented cans of cat food. That scrappy existence makes his billionaire milestone all the more remarkable—especially as a pioneer in the climbing world.

However, the now 86-year-old did not believe being a billionaire was something to tout. Instead, he viewed it as a “policy failure” due to the growing divide between the rich and poor and demanded his staff get him off the list—but selling the $3 billion company or going public was off the table.

How Patagonia’s founder got his name off the list of the world’s richest

Selling the company would make Chouinard go from asset-rich to having actual billions in the bank—defeating the purpose of the exercise.

And he refused to IPO. “I don’t respect the stock market at all,” Chouinard said according to Gelles’ new book. “Once you’re public, you’ve lost control over the company, and you have to maximize profits for the shareholder. You lose all control, and then you become one of these irresponsible companies.”

So in 2022, Chouinard and his family decided to transfer their ownership in Patagonia to a trust and a nonprofit organization that ensured the company’s $100 million a year in profits were used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land.

“Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn’t end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people,” Chouinard told The New York Times at the time of the announcement. “We are going to give away the maximum amount of money to people who are actively working on saving this planet.”

And while the move was also a way to avoid paying significant taxes from just letting Patagonia shift to Chouinard’s heirs, he said it was the ideal solution to escaping billionaire status.

Four new billionaires are minted every week

Chouinard is not alone in his feelings that wealth inequality is a growing concern. Over a quarter of U.S. adults across political affiliations say it’s a bad thing that some people have personal fortunes of a billion dollars or more, according to Pew Research Center.

mangomangosteen on September 23rd, 2025 at 15:30 UTC »

yahoonews acount is allowed to post on this sub?

JefferyTheQuaxly on September 23rd, 2025 at 15:23 UTC »

this is complete PR for him and his family and his company. several things to note about the deal:

he specifically only gave away 98% of his shares worth around $3 billion to a nonprofit 501 c(4) foundation. but he specifically left around 2% of his shares in a trust fund managed by his family. specifically despite those shares only equalling around 2% of the total shares of the company, they were almost all the company's ownership shares meaning the control of the company is still entirely in the control of a trust fund owned by his family. meanwhile he saved around $1.2 billion dollars in taxes from giving the shares to his nonprofit.

but notice that i said his shares were transfered to a 501 c (4) foundation. that is important because a 501 c (4) is explicitly allowed to use funds to donate to political candidates.

but wait it also gets worse. The foundation that currently controls patagonia: almost nothing is known about them. they do not have a website. They do not report what donations theyve made. we dont know the leadership structure. they could spend all $100 million a year funding political lobbyists and we wouldnt know. meanwhile his family still controls 2% of patagonia while having 100% control of how the company operates and is able to profit from tax free growth for their family and nonprofit. he did have to pay about $17 million in gift and estate taxes in order to give his family that 2% of patagonia, but $17 million is barely a rounding error compared to $1.2 billion in taxes he was facing, again while still basically giving his family complete say in how all the profits are spent.

punkrox_08 on September 23rd, 2025 at 14:57 UTC »

It was just a tax advantaged way to pass the company onto his heirs and retain control in the meantime. One does not become a billionaire accidentally.