How I Built This with Guy Raz - Burton Snowboards: Jake Carpenter

Episode Date: October 23, 2017

In 1977, 23-year-old Jake Carpenter set out to design a better version of the Snurfer, a stand-up sled he loved to ride as a teenager. Working by himself in a barn in Londonderry, Vermont, he sanded and whittled stacks of wood, trying to create the perfect ride. He eventually helped launch an entirely new sport, while building the largest snowboard brand in the world. PLUS for our postscript "How You Built That," how Jane Och solved the problem of guacamole turning brown, with a container that removes air pockets, the Guac-Lock. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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walking distance from so much of the city, made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com slash host. I mean, I was like Willie Lohman and I was a traveling salesman and I would load up my car. It was a Volvo wagon at the time. And I remember once going out with 38 snowboards and I drove around New York State and visited a deal. and I went out with 38 and I came home with 40.

40 snowboard. Because one guy had given me two back that he'd bought and said, this is a joke. From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, how Jake Carpenter turned a childhood novelty toy

into one of the biggest winter sports in the world, and from it, built Burton Snowboard. So imagine being on an airplane in 1977. You sit down, you strike up a conversation with the guy sitting next to you, you ask him what he does. And he says something like, I make sleds for the snow, except you stand on them like a skateboard. You would have no idea what he was describing. You couldn't have imagined that within 20 years, snowboarding would become a multi-billion dollar industry. And if that person next to you were Jake Burton Carpenter,

there's no way you'd have predicted that one day, one out of every three snowboards sold worldwide, would be a Burton Snowboard. And not because he invented the sport, he didn't. But there's probably no one on earth who did more to popularize it. And it didn't happen overnight. Ten years after Jake founded Burton Snowboards, fewer than 7% of ski resorts even allowed snowboarding. But today, it's hard to find one that doesn't. And the thing about Burton is it didn't just build snowboards. It built a culture around snowboarding.

It was a culture that was inspired in part by family ski trips to Vermont when Jake was a kid. My dad sort of figured it might be something fun for a family to do when I was around, I guess, seven or eight, and he would take the whole family. I just always had this attachment to snow. I mean, to me it meant no school. And still my favorite thing to do in life is go up to my kids' rooms. And, I mean, those days are behind me, but tell them to get up for school. And then after they get up, tell them it's a snow day. One winter in 1966, there was a brief craze across parts of America for a novelty toy called the Snurfer, as in Snow Plus Surf.

It was basically a stand-up sled that you could ride down a hill. And Jake Carpenter was one of the thousands of kids who bought one for 10 bucks. It was a four-foot-long piece of wood that was about six or seven inches wide, and it had no edges. And you stood on it on these sort of staples that gave you traction, and you had a rope attached to the nose. It was a little bit like you were riding a fucking Bronco just getting down the hill. Wow. But it was fun. And Brunswick made them.

They sold 800,000 or something like that. But it developed this sort of cult in a positive sense of the word. I had friends, and we would do it together. and we would modify them. For me, a snorfer was the opportunity to surf. It was basically surfing on snow. Surfing on snow. Now, in a lot of ways, Jake's childhood was pretty great, even idyllic.

But then, when he was about 13, things started to unravel. Jake's older brother, George, was killed in battle in Vietnam. And a few years later, his mother died as well. And for Jake, it was a pretty tough time. He even ended up getting expelled from his boarding school. I mean, I was a wise ass when I was young and to a fault. And when I got kicked out of Brooks was a school, and I went up to see the headmaster who was a headmaster when my father was there

and when my brother was there. It was brutal. I mean, my dad made me get in the car, go five hours, see this guy, you know, for a five-minute conversation, and then a long drive home. And that is when I decided to turn my life around and start. applying myself to whatever the hell I did. And the way he did apply himself was by figuring out how to take what he was good at and make money out of it.

So Jake's first venture was a small landscaping business. And then after college, he went to work for an investor in Manhattan. But in the back of his mind, he never forgot about the snurfer and about its potential to be something much, much bigger. Yeah, I really from the very beginning of some, for me, I saw it as something that could be developed. And I was sure that Brunzick was going to do it or somebody was going to do it. And nothing happened. But, you know, in the back of my mind, I always knew it could be a sport. And I didn't have a business plan per se, but I did the math that if I could

make 50 snowboards a day, I could make $100,000 a year. And that would be awesome. You thought, I'm going to, I can do something. And the thing to do is make a much better snurfer. Yeah, make money on it. So I started the company in 77. And what did you do? Did you, because you were living in Manhattan at the time, right? Yes, and I made my first prototypes in my apartment on the Upper East, you know, up on 86th Street. Did you have like a shop in your apartment and like table saws and stuff?

You know, I was as clueless then as you are now. I did not know how to do it. I was a loser in shop class in school. Like my napkin holder was by far the ugliest or the worst. And so there I was with a saber saw And in my apartment Making them Like out of what?

You buy sheets of wood? Yeah, out of wood The very first I was modifying some snurfers They were around And then I said I got to move to Vermont To start this company We're not going to start a snowboard company And Manhattan

Yeah So I left my job in New York City In like early December And I thought well, well, winter's here You know, I started a landscaping business When it was spring and you start raking new lawns. And I had a car, station wagon,

then I inherited from the family, I had a box of garbage bags and a couple of rakes. That's what I started my landscape business with. Manufacturing is a lot tougher than mowing lawns. But I thought, okay, it's winter. Now's the time to start the company. I almost missed the next winter, literally. It took so long to develop a product.

And by the way, how did you finance it? Where did you get the money? Well, because my mother died at a young age. When my grandmother died, she had some dough, And instead of it going to my mother came to be my two sisters. And so I inherited almost $200,000, and I spent 150 of it developing Burton. So your middle name is Burton. Yes.

But your last name was Carpenter. So why did you call the snowboards or the company Burton? I just always had this interest in the guy I was named after John House Burton. And I thought that Burton was a cooler name. And I wanted to name it Boards. I mean, Boards was part of the name. It was Burton Boards. And then I drove down to Montpelier, Vermont and incorporated, went to the, it was so cool, did all the paperwork and everything.

It was a big moment for me. And it started as the Burton Corporation. Or maybe Burton Boards, I sort of did some form of crude trademark or put DM next to it, even though I didn't have anything official. So you, okay, so you moved to Vermont and then to start this thing. And then what was your next step? Yeah, so I went to this company called Shushin Bent Wood Company, and they made curved wood for people that made furniture out of solid ash. Oh, wow.

So my first prototype was a piece of solid ash that was just put in this thing to curve the nose. And then I just start riding them on hills. And I literally made 100. Wow. But of those 100 prototypes, they weren't all solid wood. I got onto laminated wood, vertically laminated and hard. horizontally laminated like plywood. I went to a friend who lived in California who had a surfboard company,

and they would let me make boards in their factory at night, and I would take a surfboard blank, which is six or seven feet long and maybe three or four inches thick. And by the morning, I'd have whittled a thing down to a snowboard, and these guys were so cool, but they laughed at me. When you went to these factories, and you said, I need you to give me this curved piece of wood or this piece of material, and they would say, what is it for?

What would you tell them? I mean, a snurfer, there was some awareness of it. It had been around. So I was telling them that I was making a modern rendition of that. And I always feared that, like, the minute ski companies caught wind of this, that they would just jump on it and I'd be out of business in no time. But nobody cared? Nobody cared.

And was it just you, like, with this thing, like, messing around on hills? Dude, I was so alone, yeah. Wow. Did you ever come across people like, what is that? What are you doing? Yes, it was to the point, literally, if I was on a plane, somebody would ask me what I did, I would make something up because it was just too embarrassing. Because you couldn't explain what it was. The concept of snowboarding wasn't something that it would be like saying today, yeah, I ride clouds.

Like, that's my job. I make skateboards for cloud skateboarding. Yeah, for sure. Right? It was so weird. So at what point were you able to say, I got it. I've got, this is the one I'm going to make. I hadn't thought about this in a long time,

but I remember that specific moment on Mount Washington in June, and you could hike up Mount, you know, they have... It would have been June of 78. 78, okay. And I'm hiking up there, and Hillman's Highway was the trail, and I had the board where I was testing, the final test, and it was horizontally laminated rock maple, very much like a skateboard, but thinner and more flexible.

And I rode down, you know, just, hiking up a little bit and riding it's like okay this is it and then I've decided on the construction now so I go out and I rent this place that's going to be this little sort of factory and I hire two relatives and a friend to help me take these pieces of curved wood and shape them drill them paint them put fins on them put mat on them put bindings on them it was a long process and we as I said my original place plan was to make 50 boards a day. That was always sort of my goal. Because you thought that they were just going to, this was going to blow up.

It was, you were going to need to. I didn't, I majored in economics at college. I had classes with Nobel Prize winners, but I don't know if I really understood supply and demand. Did you have a shop? Yes. In Londonderry, Vermont, with Burton boards written on the front of it and big letters. Who are the kinds of people who were coming into your shop in Londonderry, Vermont and saying, Yeah, I'll buy one.

Yeah, it wasn't people out for a walk and buying a snowboard, and we didn't sell any, maybe a few T-shirts. But it was people that found out about us that would come there, and people, we would advertise in the skateboard magazines and a little bit in the ski magazines to spend some money there. I mean, because there were these pockets around the country in Michigan and Arizona, there were these places where people had snuffed and like me, and they'd sort of stuck with it, and they got it.

They understood it. That first year, what kind of feedback were you getting from people who bought them? Did they love it? Were they like, this is going to change the world? Yeah, it was, I mean, I was like Willie Lohman, and I was a traveling salesman, and I would load up my car. It was a Volvo wagon at the time. And I remember once going out with 38 snowboards, and I drove around New York State and visited dealers,

and I went out with 38, and I came home with 40. 40 snowboard? Because one guy had given me two back, that he'd been. bought and said, this is a joke. You would visit ski shops, basically? Ski shops, yeah, that was my first. And then ultimately, you know, some surf shops. And it was in the beginning, skateboard shops, surf shops, ski shops, nobody wanted any part of it.

I mean, were you discouraged at all after that first year? Did you think maybe this isn't not going to work and maybe I should just cut bait? Yeah, I had some, I had a few days. It was tough getting out of bed, just motivating myself. Right. I mean, you were getting rejected all the time. all day long. And you were all by yourself?

Yeah. And I am, like, I'm an emotional guy, you know, having lost people, and always happened. Yeah. So I had to let go of my two relatives and my friend very quickly, and it became back to me in year two, because we made enough boards in that first winter. I don't know whether we made, a thousand or 15, we made. enough for three years. So they're just sitting in your shop? Yeah, they're not fully, fully assembled or boxed. But yeah, they're pretty much done. And so I had one high school kid helping me out part time. And that was it. And how many boards did you guys sell that first year? First year was 300 or 350. Second year was 700. I remember one day in that second winner of selling and packing up the 700th board and thinking, wow, that's, you know, that's over doubling. So what happens between that first year and that second year when you go from 300 to 700. Why?

Why did you double the number of boards? Was it just luck? Exposure. It was just getting out there, word of mouth. I mean, marketing, our, you know, advertising, placing ads in these ski, surf or skateboard mags. I mean, I remember going to check the mailbox because dealers really weren't that interested in, you know, stores. And so we would send out these brochures right from year one. We had brochures.

And we would send them out with a little mail order form in it. And I would go to get the mail every day. And I remember looking at the mailbox and it would be like either nothing or a couple of envelopes. Or some days there'd be five or six envelopes. And then you'd open up the thing and it had this crude little order for them. And you could get it. You'd open up the envelope and it would be, you know, two T-shirts or something. And then you'd open up an envelope and it would be like four snowboards for a family in Connecticut.

I mean, I can remember it so clearly. And where could you actually use them? I'm assuming you couldn't take it to a ski resort. and just go down a mountain? No, but it was presented. I mean, skiing at the time was $20 a day, and it was a lot of money. So this was an opportunity to express yourself and have fun out and do with friends. And it was a cheap way to have a lot of fun winter snow on the ground.

Yeah. You could not go in a resort. And to be honest, I didn't start it as a resort thing. You didn't care. No, that wasn't the intent. It was like a low-cost resort. alternative to skiing. But then these kids who, then I started hiring more kids. This is maybe year three. To do what? To just help assemble these boards, put them in boxes and get them out of the door.

Because you were still doing all the assembly in that place in Vermont. Yes. By hand. Totally. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, they would just help me get the boards out the door. This one resort, Bromley, you could drive up to this village that was quarter of the way up the mountain. So we would pile into the car, drive up to the village. Everybody would, If there were four of us, one guy would stay in the car, the other three would snowboard down the hill. And then we'd meet at the bottom and do it again and again. And then ultimately, snow cat drivers would give us rides. And we bribe snow cat drivers, a six-back or something.

And they would drive you up to a point. At the top of the mountain. But it was so challenging to ride those boards. People now, they have these vintage races and they get on old snowboards. And I, for the life of me, don't get it. I mean, it's hard. But it was just these young rebellious. I mean, what snowboarding and Burton did is we revolutionized winter life.

And this was the beginning of it. So do you remember a moment when, like in those early years, when this thing really started to take off? Well, I mean, in terms of the sport or my company, I mean, it was nothing. I think now in the context of starting a business, people think of internet companies. It just exploded in day one. And there just was not a defining moment in the context of this sport blowing up. I mean, there were big milestones along the way. And I think time was called it the worst new sport.

Do you remember when that was? It was in the 80s? Yeah, that would have been early 80s. And part of that time thing, the worst new sport was they said it was more about raging hormones. And this was these rebellious young men that were. making it happen. And then some cool girls, very courageous, women got into it and started doing it. And I realized, okay, we're not going to lose any more money. We might not make money, but I can, you know, manage this financially. So it just grew and grew and grew, but at a

manageable pace. Why didn't ski resorts allow snowboarders in the beginning? Well, it was, there was actually a famous case at Stratton, which was a resort, one of the first resorts to let us on where this guy had... Where Stratton? It's in southern Vermont. And this guy had broken his leg because of some sign or something, skiing. And he sued the mountain, and I think he tried to get half a million, and he got a million dollars. So there was this liability.

There's this just paranoia about getting sued. Yeah. And so that was their fear. But they ultimately would give us a chance. And we would lobby with them. and their kids sometimes helped. And we would lobby resorts. And then if a big resort, like, we got on Stratt,

and then Bromley had to come along in Magic Mountain, and it took years. But it was, there was no stopping it. Did you at that point also, I guess, start to identify people who are really good snowboarders and sponsor them? Yeah, well, for a minute there, these kids that had worked for me just happened to be the best. And then there was a rider, Craig Kelly,

who actually rode for this company, Sims, who started making snowboards after we did, but they were a pretty well-known skateboard company. And this guy, Craig Kelly, wrote for them. But we were good friends, and I'd always told Craig, if he ever had the opportunity, we would love for him to ride for us. And then Sims ultimately sold his company to a bigger skateboard company. And so we cut a deal, and he rode for me,

and I paid him $17,000 a year. And this guy was, Craig Kelly was a godsend. And he always used burden snowboards. He was burden. So Burton was all over his body. Yes. So having him represent Burton, that must have been pretty transformational.

It was beyond transformational. Yeah. Because you're all of a sudden not only give this advertisement, but you've got the coolest and the best guy who can do all this cool stuff. And you've got kids seeing this and they're like, well, I want to try this. And I guess Burton's the way to go because this guy uses Burton? Yes. You know what? That's pretty much it. Craig made the sport cool and the brand cool. When did, I mean, as snowboarding started to get bigger, the ski companies must have thought, well, there's money to be made here, right? Like K2 and Rossignolle, didn't they start to make snowboards?

It's just so funny that the ski companies were so oblivious to what was going on in front of their eyes. I mean, talk about close-minded, you know. Because they could have cried. You crashed you early on, right? It could have destroyed us. And there were all these rumors that some ski company is going to start making it. And they, we went from flying the windshield of the ski industry to all of a sudden we became a threat. In just a minute, how Jake dealt with the competitors who now wanted a piece of the action. Stay with this.

I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So in the early days for Jake Carpenter, building Burton and at the same time trying to build the whole sport of snowboarding was sometimes lonely. But because he stuck with it and because the sport caught on, the big ski companies, as you can imagine, started to notice. And all of a sudden, the market for snowboards wasn't so lonely anymore. Okay, so when the big ski company started to make snowboards, what happened to you guys? Well, by the time they started making them, we were maybe on a third of the resorts,

and they didn't want the sport to happen, right? I mean, these ski companies did not want snowboarding to succeed. So snowboarders didn't like ski companies. I mean, people did perceive them as not being the real deal. And we didn't keep that a secret. I mean, we made it pretty damn clear that we were the real deal. But they did have manufacturing ability, and some of those French and Austrian companies were subsidized by their governments to keep their factories going.

So from a cost perspective, they were lower cost producers for a minute there. But it was just they were too late. They missed the boat. Did you ever have, as snowboarding really began to take off in the early 90s, did you ever face serious threats from competitors, either big or small? Well, it was always, like in the early days, it was a rivalry between Bird and Simpson. but we were, we've doubled the number of snowboards sold for the first 20 years, I think, of the company. So Sims was a threat at one point. K2 was somewhat of a threat.

They got more aggressive earlier on. But no, we've been, we've been the number one manufacturer of snowboards since the day I, you know. Did you, you know, I mean, even though you had this market share and you had this loyal customer base, I mean, a lot of these companies had a lot more money to work with. And you were, your money was coming from sales. Yeah, and ultimately we were borrowing money from banks, but it was very secured. And then we would get bigger and bigger. And obviously we're doubling our sales, so we're doubling the money that we need from the bank.

And you needed the money. You needed the money for marketing and for what? We needed the money to make the snowboards because in this industry and skiing, we didn't start this. But you shipped them the stuff in whatever, August, September. and then you'll get paid until December or January. So it was always working capital. We've never needed long-term debt, but we've always had this need for working capital.

And so we would work with these Vermont banks, and we'd get up to a certain level. This happened like three times. And then we'd get to a certain level and they say, you know, this is maybe a fad. We're going to bail. And never because we were late on a payment. I mean, we were religious about paying people money that we owed them.

But they just sort of figured, you know, this has been a good ride. We're going to bail. And then we go to a bigger bank, and then a bigger bank, and then we borrow, we still borrow some working capital, but it has become less and less. At any point did you think about going public, doing an IPO, seeking, you know, venture capital, outside investors, anything like that? Yeah, interestingly, there was this one company called Ride, and they started out, and then a guy that worked for us went to work for them, and he was sort of a mid-level manager for us. It was a competing snowboarding company? competing snowboarding company.

He went to work for them, and then they went public, and they had a very low price. And the stock went up to, it split, and then went up to $35. So it was up to $70 on a non-splittance. So their valuation was huge. It was huge. And this kid was a millionaire all of a sudden, and I felt this enormous amount of pressure, like I'm taking care of my people. Yeah, I bet. And like, just am I doing the right thing here?

And so I went and I met with a couple of big New York. investment banking firms, and I just couldn't deal the vibe. It just was like, this isn't us. And then all of a sudden, ride stock, which was at 35 bucks at the time, went down to two bucks because they had these expectations that, like Wall Street, just they take things and they project unrealistic expectations. So ultimately, people have realized working for a privately held company has many, many advantages. I guess it was in like 98 that snowboarding became an Olympic sport. That must have been crazy.

I mean, I know that you don't like to say this and you deny it, but you are widely credited as the guy who really made snowboarding what it is. And this became an Olympic sport. What did you think when that happened? That must have been a pretty amazing moment. It was not a cool moment at all. Wow, I was not expecting that answer at all. That was not the answer.

I was expecting what happened? Well, FIS, which is an international ski federation. It's a Swiss, you know, whatever, governmental body. And they controlled the scene. And then they started having snowboard competitions. When they just had, aside from their ski races, and we were wondering what they were up to. and then they just arbitrarily decided,

okay, snowboard's going to be in Olympics. I mean, they didn't even give me a phone call. They never told us anything. I will take credit for pioneering a sport. And you would think that you might pick up the phone and tell that person what you're up to or how do you think we should do this. None of that.

They just arbitrarily, it's like the baseball player that finds out he's traded when he reads in the newspaper. And then I go to the Olympics. We've got our team there, and I get to the venue, and they've got snowboarding misspelled at the venue. How they spell it? Well, you spell it with a W snowboarding, but they had S&O-hyphen boarding.

This is in Nagano, Japan. I was like, not a good sign, right? And then they proceeded to have the racing thing was hard conditions, and they decide. It was a driving rainstorm, and they say, okay, we can't have the men's down. We would never have this prestigious ski event in a rainstorm. But no, the snowboarders, they can go. They can get risk life and limb and not be wearing goggles. It's raining so hard.

And so, but nonetheless, they've gotten better, and they're doing it better and better job. And the American arm, it's a form of national associations. They care about the sport, and they've got some people that care about the sport, and they're trying to do better. But the last two Olympics, the venues, for the freestyle stuff, which is what people care about. For the half-pipe and slope style, the venues have been really sketchy.

As your company grew, describe the culture of the company. Was it, I mean, I'm looking at you right now, and I cannot imagine you ever wearing a suit and tie and being like a boardroom boss. Like, for example, like, where do you have your meetings with your top team and stuff? Like, how do you... Well, our meetings, you know, you look at my office. It's three sofas and two chairs and a coffee table and there's no desk. and our senior conference room where we have our board meetings at sofas. You can throw your feet up and bring your dog to work.

And we've been 132 registered dogs. We sort of keep track of the number. And it resembles snowboarding lifestyle. And we're a tribe. And we are so focused on the sport, everybody in that company, you know, damn near everybody in that company snowboards. And because that's our source of energy. That's where you recharge your batteries.

And what if somebody was like, Jake, I'm going to be in late today because I'm going snowboarding? It's pretty much the drill. I mean, if it snows over two feet, it's an automatic day off for the whole company. Nice. And last year, there were three of those days, which is almost too nice. I mean, I like people to work, too. But people come in late and work late. You know, people work hard there.

So that's as long as people are, again. giving us a solid effort. I get it if they want to get up there and catch a few runs on a great day. So your wife, Donna, she actually at some point became, took over as the company's CEO, right? Yeah. And how did that happen? What's the story there? Well, she came and went, and then she was in CFO for a while.

This is in the early days. And then when we had kids, she backed off some. She wasn't working as much then. And then when the financial crisis hit, which was really rugged. Which one? The big one. The 2000. Lehmann Brothers, all that crap.

Yeah, how did that hit you guys? Well, the bank charged us $4 million to change one paragraph in our loan agreement, which was called a covenant. When you're borrowing money, your earnings had to represent a certain ratio compared to how much money you were borrowing. And we slipped on that one because it was a very tough year. And we weren't losing money. We were making money. But literally they said, oh, well, you broke this covenant. So you're going to pay a $4 million fee.

And that, boy, I mean, we had to lay people off. We weren't making the money that we had been. Because people weren't buying snowboards because of the recession? Yes, exactly. You know, it's always been a youth-driven market. It's kids. I mean, people would buy two or three snowboards a year. Then you look at Italy or Spain, two very big ones.

markets for us and the unemployment rate amongst people under 20. It was 50%. Yeah. It was a very tough, tough time. And through this process of this crisis, and I think it's not unique to Burton, our company culture kind of got destroyed. What happened? Well, I think a lot of people would blame other people for things, negative things that were happening. And there would be finger pointing and the culture at our company was messed up. And at the same time, I felt there were no women in our top management. And that just felt wrong to me. So I got in there and I, and Donna came along with me. And at that level, we were running the company. And I brought her and sort of specifically to help with the culture and get more women in leadership positions at Burton.

When you say the culture, I mean, I'm just trying to get. through the innuendo. Was it like broish? Was it like male sort of macho? Was it like, I mean, what was the thing you wanted to change? Well, I mean, you're not happy when you're being managed by fear or you instill fear in yourself that you're going to lose your job. It's just you need to make people, people have to understand when and why.

stuff happens. Were you responsible for any of that? For any of that fear-based stuff? Well, I think I hired many of the people that were in and around it. And I think that we were all responsible to a certain extent. I mean, I don't think that's ever been a tactic that I've used, hopefully. But I certainly let it happen under my nose. Do you think that you have a hard time with criticism?

And I ask that because, you know, it can be really. really problematic, right? If you're unwilling to listen to somebody that says, listen, I know you built this thing, but I'm trying to make it better listen to me. You know, that couldn't be more true, but less and less and less every year. I mean, I did every job in that company. I mean, I made the first board. And for a while there, I mean, we might have had 50 employees. And I was convinced not in a bragging way, but I could do anybody's job better than they could. But that's not the case anymore. You know, we've got engineers now that I don't even have a hard time having a conversation with them. But I got better at it. And I had the sense to surround myself

with people that were better at things than I am that I'm not good at. That's been good. And I've learned to delegate. That's not an easy thing to learn how to do, especially when you're detailed-oriented, to learn to let go like that. You have to trust people. Beyond trusting, you have to let them screw up. and live with it and live through mistakes. And if they repeat the mistakes, then that's not a good sign. Burton's made every mistake in the book, but I don't think we've made too many twice. Why didn't – I mean, I'm sure at certain points you were offered money to buy your company.

I just didn't take those phone calls. Yeah, but I mean, you could have sold this company, you know, been like a philanthropist and, I don't know. I'm not seeing this a better life, but it sounds pretty cool. It sounds like a pretty great life. Well, I, for a long time, if people would ask me that question, I would say, well, I think I'd become a couch potato and just eat chips and watch Sports Center, you know? And so, you know, and snowboard plenty. But, I mean, it's the best job in the world. Why would I ever walk away from it?

That's selfishly, admittedly, that's always been part of it. And I think that we're doing a great job and we're humming along. If we were really struggling, it might be more appropriate for me to look at that more seriously. How important is money to you? Like, how important is being rich to you? Well, to be brutally honest, I mean, I enjoy having, you know, the ability financially to... We're going surfing for a week in the Maldives next week, my whole family. And we're going to have a speedboat that's going to take us to the lineup.

and it's going to be epic, and this stuff's not cheap. So I love that, and I would be a liar if I told you I didn't, but it's not the most important thing in life. Yeah. You had a really tough couple of years, and you're just now experiencing the recovery of it. You had knee surgery, I guess, in 2015, right? Yeah.

And then before that, you had to have heart surgery. Right. And then you had old cancer, testicular cancer. Yeah. Yeah, and I dealt with the whole process of chemotherapy, which is dreadful. And in the tail end of that, I was in a plane, and I had a pulmonary embolism, which really still affects me. And then I came down with that Miller Fisher, that form of Gamboray. Let me ask you about Miller Fisher because probably not a lot of people know about this, but it's, I guess it's an autoimmune disease that can make you temporarily paralyzed.

So, like, what was that, what was going on? Like, how did you even discover what was going on? Well, I'd gotten the knee replacement. And then I got home and I was with the doctor the next day. And I started seeing double. And I told him about it. He's like, well, check it out, see if it might just go away. And the next day I was seeing double.

And I felt really lousy. And I waited until Donna went to work. I didn't, she'd been through so much with me. And I was just like, and so I went to Dartmouth Hitchcock, and they very quickly analyzed what was going on. And within 24 hours of meeting, being there, they said, if you have what we think you have, tomorrow you won't be able to swallow. The next day you won't be able to open your eyes and the next day you won't be able to breathe. And were they right? Yeah, that's how it went down.

That's it. You get to the hospital and you are convinced. fine to the bed. I'm in an ICU for six weeks. Wow. You couldn't move your body. Yeah. And then people, you know, the ICU people go for hours or days.

And I was there for over six weeks. You're like a prisoner in your own body. Yeah, very much so. I think it's like ALS just condensed into a couple of weeks. So, first of all, how did you breathe? Through a ventilator. and the ventilator was behind me. I could hear it, but I couldn't see it.

Did you have feeling in your body? Yeah. Yeah, my wife would stretch me every night, and I could certainly feel that. And how did you eat? Through a feeding tube. Did you think you were going to die? For sure, for a minute.

And then, you know, my wife did. You know, she told me I was getting better, and eventually I would see these little hints of improvement. What did you start to notice? You know, that I could open my eyes and that I could, I was so into physical therapy right from the get-go, and then I could do something a little better than the day before. And once you get to that point, then it's game on, then it's up to you.

How does that experience change the way you live your life? life and you interact with the people you love? Well, I sure don't take my family for granted anymore. And I do live life for the moment. I mean, much more than ever. I mean, I think it happens through something like that. I don't know why or how, but it does. Or it did to me.

It must put into perspective all your success and wealth and the thing that you built. Like, obviously that stuff matters, but like in the context of your life, nothing else really matters. Yeah, yeah, that stuff couldn't have been further from my mind. I think it is now, though. Now I'm, like, prepared to die. Really? Yeah, I am much more so.

I could die, get hit by a bus walking out of your studio, and I still think I'm luckiest guy in the world. Because of the life you've had? Yes. Could you ever have imagined when you were in that first year and you had to fire your employees and, I don't know, that you would have built something this big? I had no idea that what would happen with snowboarding.

I mean, I saw a sport, but I did not see Sean White on the cover of Rolling Stone twice or snowboarding being in the Olympics or the stuff that's happened. And it's been the athletes that have made it happen, and we've facilitated it. But it's been exceeded. I wouldn't even say dreams because I never dreamt anything on the level that we're on now. Jake Burton Carpenter. By the way, Burton just celebrated 40 years in business since Jake built that first snowboard in a barn in Londonderry, Vermont back in 1977.

And despite his health issues, Jake still snowboards 100 days a year, and always when there's fresh powder. And please do stick around because in just a moment, we're going to hear from you about the things you're building. Hey, thanks for sticking around because it's time now for how you built. So my name is Jane Ok. I'm from Scarsdale, New York. And one day, I was just so sick of opening my refrigerator and seeing brown guacamole. Brown guacamole. We've all been there, right? You scoop out the soft avocado flesh, you mash in some onions, salt, lime, maybe some cilantro, you stick it in the fridge. And then a couple of hours later, that bright green dip looks kind of gross. This is absolutely a problem that people have. And I say to them, would you like you like to you?

a container that prevents your guacamole from turning brown and they're like oh my god so anyway about four years ago Jane started to experiment in her kitchen she made a lot of guacamole and she just started to observe that guacamole change color if I make some and put it in a bowl with saran wrap it turns brown but if there was some way that I could eliminate that air and that space then maybe I could solve that age-old problem so recruited her step-sister to help out. They found a designer, and together they came up with a plastic container with kind of a

little elevator underneath it that pushes the guacamole to the very top, so there is no space between your guac and the lid. And then you simply close the tab to cover the airhole, put it in the refrigerator, forget about it, literally forget about it, I mean, a week. However long you're going to eat your guacamole, it will not turn brown. Okay, so they had the right design, but for two years, they ran into one problem after another. They were using the wrong materials or the little elevator thing wasn't fitting properly. But finally, last year, they got it out of the factory and into the market, and they called it the guac-lock.

You can lock anything up. So tuna fish, egg salad, you know, chopped vegetables, pesto, hummus. And the more you can smush it and remove the air holes, the better it's going to save. So Jane, this is not my main problem with guacamole because when I first heard the name guaclock, I thought it was to lock your kids out of the guacamole so they don't eat it all before your guests come. No, it is not, but you're right. That's a good idea. That is a problem in my house. That's our problem. I get into the kitchen and I just see like green guacamole around the mouths of my children.

I feel your pain. That could be the next iteration of the guaclock lock. You could add a combination lock. Like a child lock or something. Yeah, exactly. Well, actually, it's very funny that you said that because a lot of people say, I never have a leftover guacamole. So why would I need this?

And what I always say to them is now you can make it in advance. Jaynock is the co-founder of the Gwocklock. It's now for sale on Amazon and Bedbath and Beyond and at Whole Foods. And you can find out more about the Gwocklock at our Facebook page. And, of course, if you want to tell us your story, go to build.npr.org. We love hearing what you're up to. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you want to find out more or hear previous episodes,

you can go to how I built this.npr.org. You can also download our podcast at Apple Podcasts or however you get your podcasts. You can write us. Our email address is H-I-B-T at npr.org. And if you want to send us a tweet, it's at How I Built This. Our show is produced this week by Casey Herman

with original music composed by Rumtin Arablui. Thanks also to Niva Grant, Sanaz-Meshkampur, Claire Breen, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Diana Mustak. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.