Founder Doctrine · People & Control
'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder': How Patagonia's Founder Made His Values Impossible to Undo
In 2022, Yvon Chouinard gave away a $3 billion company - not to charity in the usual sense, but into a structure engineered so that no future owner, heir, or executive could ever betray its mission. It's the most radical founder doctrine in modern business: values enforced not by culture, but by the cap table.
8 min