According to the International Herald Tribune, lots of cool successful biz owners find it’s most fun to not keep “expanding and growing” their businesses. Hurray for neighborhood-based and neighborhood-focused businesses!
Of course, I s’pose in another place and time, the impulse NOT to expand exponentially would actually be the norm. Then again, good companies that play nice AND grow also have the opportunity to spread that goodness and niceness far and wide.
One of these companies: Patagonia, which does all sorts of innovative recycling. All the cotton’s organic! It’s prolly the best place walk-in store you can go to in the LA area for all your workout ‘fit needs.
A lot of Patagonia’s environmental innovation seems fueled by the fact that the company’s stayed private. Unlike monolithic chains that say, open a coffee store a day, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard says his company’s growth is capped at 5%: “a more natural rate — which basically means that only when our customers want something do we make more, but we don’t prime the pump.”
Read the whole interview on Grist. Says Yvon: “the bottom line is that every time I made the decision because it was the right thing to do, I’ve ended up making actually more money.”
Patagonia. Santa Monica: 2936 Main St. 310.314.1776. Pasadena: 47 N. Fair Oaks Ave. 626.795.0319.
Its a great store, not to mention a great company. Just off the Gold Line Memorial Park station, as is all of old Pasadena.
In any case, the key to keeping a company private is that the shareholders are a manageable group who can agree that doing right even if it seems less profitable is ok. Its those public companies with thousands or millions of shareholders that have the real problem — and are some of the worst villains . . .
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — March 15, 2006 @ 3:30 pm
It’s kinda weird though, that companies like Whole Foods are public. I think public companies have more options than they let on –
Comment by Siel — March 16, 2006 @ 5:02 pm