Yvon Chouinard Just Wanted To Be A "Dirtbag" Rock Climber. He Became The World's Most Reluctant Billionaire, So He Gave It All Away!

In the 1960s, Yvon Chouinard spent more than half the year living out of a car, climbing mountains with friends, and surviving on cans of cat food, stale tortillas, and the occasional squirrel. He didn't want money. He didn't want fame. He just wanted to climb.

Decades later, Chouinard was worth more than $2 billion as the founder of Patagonia, one of the most respected apparel companies on Earth. But he never liked being called a billionaire. In fact, he hated it. So in 2022, he did something almost unthinkable: He gave away the entire company.

Not part of it. Not a billion dollars' worth. The whole thing.

Patagonia—valued at more than $3 billion, generating $1 billion in annual revenue and over $100 million in profit—was transferred to a nonprofit trust and a new 501(c)(4) called the Holdfast Collective. From now on, every dollar of profit that isn't reinvested will go toward fighting climate change and preserving wild places. Chouinard didn't even structure the deal for a tax break. "I didn't know what to do with the company," he said, "because I never wanted a company."

Born to Climb

Yvon Chouinard was born in 1938 in Lewiston, Maine. When he was nine, his family moved to Southern California, where he developed a passion for falconry. He began rappelling down cliffs at 14 to reach falcon nests—and fell in love with the climbing more than the birds.

Broke and resourceful, Chouinard taught himself blacksmithing so he could make his own climbing gear. In 1957, he began selling his hand-forged pitons out of the back of his car under the name Chouinard Equipment. He lived on $1,000 a year, crashing outdoors 200 nights annually.

But his values were already forming. Chouinard didn't want to profit at nature's expense. When he realized his pitons were damaging rock faces, he stopped making them, despite their popularity, and pivoted to designing removable climbing tools that left no trace.

A Brand Is Born

In 1970, Chouinard brought back a rugby shirt from Scotland. The tough fabric held up well on climbs and protected his neck from gear slings. Friends loved it. He imported a few to sell. They vanished immediately. So he made more. Soon, Patagonia was born.

From day one, Patagonia was never just a clothing company. Chouinard embedded his anti-corporate, dirtbag ethos into the DNA of the brand. In 1984, he eliminated private offices. In 1986, the company pledged to donate 10% of pre-tax profits to environmental causes. That became 1% of sales, whichever was higher. (Patagonia later co-founded the "1% for the Planet" alliance with Blue Ribbon Flies.)

As Patagonia grew, so did its activism. The company gave office space and financial backing to grad students working to protect nearby rivers. In 1988, Patagonia launched its first major national campaign to halt development in Yosemite Valley. In the 1990s, it led the movement away from conventionally grown cotton after discovering the environmental toll of its own supply chain. Patagonia didn't just make the switch to organic—it taught competitors like Nike and Gap how to do it too.

Staying True Through Success

By the mid-1980s, Patagonia was pulling in $20 million a year. That rose to $100 million by 1990. Along the way, the company nearly collapsed—once because of a batch of defective shirts, and again in the early '90s due to overexpansion. Chouinard refused to borrow from predatory lenders, choosing instead to scale back and focus.

It worked. During the Great Recession of 2008–2009, Patagonia's sales grew 25%. Between 2008 and 2014, profits tripled.

Patagonia's gear—especially its iconic fleece jackets—became a uniform for suburban commuters and Silicon Valley CEOs. But the company never chased mass appeal. It offered free repairs, discouraged excess consumption, and urged customers to buy less. In 2011, Patagonia ran a full-page Black Friday ad in The New York Times with a headline that read: "Don't Buy This Jacket."

Through it all, Chouinard remained proudly unpolished. He wore clothes older than most Patagonia customers. He never owned a cellphone. Never used email. He once said: "The cure for depression is action."

Giving It All Away

By 2022, Chouinard was 83. Patagonia had grown into a company that generated nine-figure profits annually and had become a global leader in sustainable business practices. And yet, he was still searching for a way to make sure the company could live up to its ideals forever.

Going public? Wall Street would erode the mission. Selling it? A private buyer might eventually compromise the values. In the end, Chouinard landed on a novel structure: the voting shares of Patagonia were transferred to a purpose-built trust (the Patagonia Purpose Trust), while 98% of the company's equity went to the Holdfast Collective, a nonprofit able to use the company's profits to support environmental causes and even engage in political advocacy.

In other words, he donated the entire company to charity.

This structure, highly unusual and tax-unfriendly, is expected to send around $100 million annually into climate initiatives. Yvon Chouinard didn't get a massive tax write-off. His family didn't pocket a dime. Instead, they gave up ownership entirely for the planet.

Prior to the donation, wealth estimators like CelebrityNetWorth pegged Yvon's net worth at $2-3 billion. When Yvon heard such estimates or read stories where he was described as a "billionaire," he cringed.

By giving the company away, he solved that problem too.

FYI: Today, we estimate Chouinard's net worth at $100 million, based on the presumed dividends he has earned over the years and various other assets he likely has collected.

Yvon Chouinard's story is unlike any other in modern capitalism. He didn't just talk about saving the planet. He rewired his fortune to try and do it.

The dirtbag rock climber never changed. He just changed the world.