Yvon Chouinard: The billionaire “dirtbag” who's giving it all away

Outdoor-equipment retailer Yvon Chouinard is the latest in a line of rich benefactors to shun personal aggrandisement in favour of worthy causes.

Yvon Chouinard
(Image credit: © Alamy)

When Forbes first included Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard on its list of world billionaires in 2017 he was reportedly “really, really” angry, says The Guardian.

The accolade didn’t sit well with his credentials as an “existential dirtbag”, who founded the cult outdoors brand in 1973 in between climbing mountains and surfing road trips. And it clashed with the sustainability values underpinning the mystique of the world’s

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.