There's a movement for simplifying your life: purchase less stuff, own a few things that are very high quality that last a long time, and that are multifunctional.

I wanted to distance myself from those pasty faced corpses in suits I saw in airline magazine ads. If I was going to become a businessman, I was going to do it on my own terms.

Everything we personally own that’s made, sold, shipped, stored, cleaned, and ultimately thrown away does some environmental harm every step of the way, harm that we’re either directly responsible for or is done on our behalf.

I think risk is important. I don't care if it's a great financial risk or a physical risk. You only get out of something what you put into it and the fact that you are willing to risk something means that you are going to get a lot more out of it.

While our managers debated what steps to take to address the sales and cash-flow crisis, I began to lead week-long employee seminars in what we called Philosophies. We'd take a busload at a time to places like Yosemite or the Marin Headlands above San Francisco, camp out, and gather under the trees to talk. The goal was to teach every employee in the company our business and environmental ethics and values.

During the sixties, all the risk-type sports were very popular, because everybody was rebelling against their parents, or rebelling against the whole system. But those days are over. This is the day of conservatism.

There's a movement for simplifying your life: purchase less stuff, own a few things that are very high quality that last a long time, and that are multifunctional.