Patagonia: The Billionaire Who Gave Away his Company (to the earth) 

I'd go one step further and argue that it's far more of a political problem, than an economic one.

@@tomturton it's an economic problem made political by those with a financial stake in it so that they can continue to grow profit.

If they are using the money to lobby for climate causes then the political power is a necessary evil. We have much more money being spent by companies to lobby governments into killing our planet. All in the name of profit.

@@tomturton 100%. I think it's hard to argue that politics isn't the biggest player here. The progress we've seen has been largely in spite of large scale political intervention in many cases

Wish that lobbying didn’t exist for businesses and special interest groups but since it is then it is smart for Patagonia to spend millions to get influence over billions of public spending.

@Adora Tsang but if you can't financially benefit from that influence...

@@jonevansauthor What you mean? Someone could have a deal already to trade resources for the company's influence. It think it's more likely that that isn't the case but who knows.

@@dddmemaybe people are saying it doesn't matter that he's put shares in this foundation, because they still have all the voting power. Thus they're still super wealthy people with all of the money. Except, influence over a company does not equal money. There'd have to be some way for them to extract value, in dividends, or by selling shares, or through salaries. There's not much point selling voting shares if the whole plan is some devious tax avoidance (the legal version) scheme and retain control of the company. Now, would I be surprised if there's some clever way it works that benefits them, no, not really. But it's completely heard of for wealthy philanthropists to give away their fortunes. Not abnormal at all. Thus, I'll wait for genuine experts and history to determine if this was a massive PR/tax thing or an actual act of philanthropy. Until then, I'll take it at face value.

How can we be sure about that, it’s a private entity they can change direction How can this promise of environmental work be verified He could of retained the voting shares and still ensured the direction of the company while donating the value of or the actual non voting shares to experienced charities with a track record and accountability But no he controls it. I don’t blame him I’m arrogant enough to believe I’d do a better job than a government with the money. This is why this loophole must be closed, you don’t know what weird stuff a strange man on the internet might like

Yes, it's not a good look for them, is it?

Free market capitalism is all about facilitating greed at the end of the day. They hate it because this sidesteps that process and makes them less money

tbh, with the way a few rich men are dealing with their business, it's easy to be cynical Though sometimes it's easy to forgot that if all things being equal, all people would at least some moral conscience if Patagonia is in the situation where they can easily act on their conscience (being a private company, having the correct culture) it's hard to see why they would even want to keep that much money, so much money you don't even know how to spend it

He still donated his company to his own non profit company Meaning that he’s paying much less tax than he would if he’d passed it down to his kids like normal people with their inheritance Just another rich man refusing to pay his taxes expecting praise, why should he get a tax cut and be able to influence politics If another rich person did the same thing but opposed womens rights they’d still get the same benefits

@@aronseptianto8142 it’s sensible to be cynical They have teams of accountants whose jobs is ensure efficient management of accounts and reduction of tax obligations These accountants are paid to lessen liabilities I’d be less cynical if they didn’t all donate to themselves, everyone else donates to established charities why can’t they

Well thats pretty much the story of north face. North face and patagonia were founded by 2 friends and the north face guy decided to sell it. It has become a shadow of itself since then, while patagonia has thrived and followed its original path. Yes, north face has become much bigger and more comercialy successful, but at what cost.

If this does start some sort of movement it will be a very good thing

@@mvnkycheez Patagonia partially forced the textile industry to at least act like they care, lest patagonia would be the only one who cared. They are too responsible for sustainable clothes businissess forming. But as far as not taking profits and redistributing them to shareholders? That would be an entirely different story. Sustainability was, in its essence, a marketing move - so no matter how you look at it, it made them more money. Why would others not get inspired by that right? Im afraid thats not going to be the case here though.

yeah, while i think the most PR safe is to relinquish all the power and wealth you have, it's still more morally impressive if they actually wield it for good, it's tricky because power corrupt and so on. and the fact that when you're rich, no matter how benovelent they can be, there will always be hater purely because how imbalance the power dynamic is it's the stuff about great power comes great responsibility kind of stuff, just letting go of the power doesn't somehow lessen the responsibility right?

@@aronseptianto8142 Handing the power you acquired by luck to someone who actually seeks its is perhaps the most irresponsible way to handle it.

Sorry to break it to you but this whole giving away his fortune is a load of shit. Watch ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0Cu6EbELZ6I.html where Adam explains why.

If he did the exact same thing but gave his purpose as opposing civil rights would you see differently? I have nothing against him giving his fortune away but he hasn’t done that, he’s shuffled assets around within his own controlled companies in order to save on taxes and allow political influence for generations His family will be able to draw high incomes anyway (even as a non profit) as they will still have control over their own salaries

Sorry to break it to you but this whole giving away his fortune is a load of shit. Watch ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0Cu6EbELZ6I.html where Adam explains why.

@@aye3678 Yeah don't get me wrong I don't think that billionaires should even exist. And I certainly would never have made a post or article sucking the dudes balls for doing arguably less than the bare minimum. But people probably could spend their time better than being mad about a case which (relative to others) will have a more positive outcome. That being said, it's probably important to push back given the amount of breathy and uncritical praise this case received.

I'm sorry, what now? Patagonia's products are nowhere near as green as Tesla's products which have huge environmental benefits which is not surprising given that's the entire point of the company. Apple, obviously not, I'll absolutely grant you that one.

@@jonevansauthor (Sorry for the long comment but summarizing it is really difficult without losing information) Sorry to break your bubble electric cars are NOT environment friendly. They are MUCH more friendly than traditional cars in the long run. Now there comes the second problem electric batteries tend to lose most capacity by the 10th Year. You can't restore/repair batteries because the chemicals inside lose potency. Li-ion batteries contain large amounts of rare-earth materials and they are VERY polluting are resource intensive during extraction. In addition completely destroys local fauna in nearby cause in raw from these materials are toxic. If you have time you can look into a documentary on this topic from a place you trust. So making more cars and replacing battery every 10 years ain't helping, like at all. And on the software front its closed source so making modification "illegal" for something you "bought". If the companies decides it no longer wants to support you device they can just disable functions "completely legally". I have never used Patagonia's products are mostly bio-degradable and of course cars and phones are not , I am just saying general attitudes of the company . Tesla has yet to commit any finances for green projects like Cycling insfrasturce/ walking/Public transport/better Urban-planning which are real "green" options. They don't support or encourage 3rd party repairs. If you enjoy their cars, sure enjoy them, but please don't call them green.

@@zotac1018 also most people can't afford tesla(in developing countries) which neglect it benefit

@@jonevansauthor I'm sorry but converting to expensive electric cars, which most people can't afford, which rely on batteries that are extremely bad for the environment to create, which can literally explode, will NEVER be as good for the environment as using public transport

@@mvnkycheez hahahahaha. Oh, you're serious? I'm afraid you've fallen for FUD if you think batteries are bad for the environment. Maybe you're thinking of lead acid from the last millennium? In theory public transport is great, in practice it's an absolutely nightmare of damage and waste and will only become truly efficient in the future. In no currently available format is public transport the complete solution to human movement. Only self driving vehicles will allow us to actually serve communities efficiently, leaving the less efficient vehicles such as train like vehicles to serve the major routes. That'll most be battery electric vehicles.

Everywhere on RU-vid for the last few days.

I mean, literally just buy solar farms or plant trees would do it. You don't need political power to be honest, but is trying to change the minds of Luddite politicians also part of the solution? Of course it is. I'm not sure if they've announced what the fund will do but people are just sort of assuming the worst case would be that they wield political power for nefarious means. As far as I can tell their plan could be to back renewable energy projects.

Also please note that the majority of tax write-offs simply mean you don’t need to spend taxes on the income you donated. You still lose the rest of the income that you’d otherwise have made in profit. Essentially, a tax-deductible donation is a real donation that gets supported by the government waiving taxes on it. Same with "taking losses" for tax reasons. You’re still worse off than if you made a profit on them and paid taxes, but at least you don’t get taxed for the investment losses.

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That's the point, paying income tax on a small amount of regulated income is still better than paying a lump sum tax on a 3 billion dollar inheritance. Say you're the son of a billionaire, would you rather pay 400.000 dollars of tax on a million dollars a year for the rest of your life. Or an inheritance tax of 1.2 billion dollars at once (40%)?

There is no tax being evaded because a sale was never made. Your hypothetical argument is null.

Yea but maybe you should learn to form your own opinion even after listening to the ones of others. And this is youtube here, do you expect monotone unbiased footage and talking where people are going to fall asleep?