ThrobbingHood
Breh&Breh Associates™
While many CEOs are shouting about their increased efforts to ramp up diversity across their business one founder is promoting the exact opposite.
Lululemon’s billionaire founder Chip Wilson insists that exclusivity trumps inclusivity while blasting the posh leggings company he stepped down from 10 years ago.
“They’re trying to become like the Gap, everything to everybody,” Wilson, who has an estimated net worth of $8.7 billion, said in an interview with Forbes.
“And I think the definition of a brand is that you’re not everything to everybody… You’ve got to be clear that you don’t want certain customers coming in.”
Still, the activewear giant is clearly onto something: Wilson has added almost $4 billion to his net worth since 2020, nearly all because of the rise in value of his 8% stake in Lululemon stock.
Chip Wilson’s controversial comments aren’t a first
It’s not the first time Wilson has expressed his disdain for his brainchild’s “whole diversity and inclusion thing”, having repeatedly faced backlashfor anti-Asian, sexist, and fatphobic comments.The American-Canadia entrepreneur most infamously insisted that the company’s most popular product, its leggings, are not for everyone—or more specifically, plus-size women—when they came under fire for being see-through.
“They don’t work for some women’s bodies,” he told Bloomberg Television’s Street Smart in 2013, before stepping down as the firm’s CEO and then leaving the board entirely in 2015.
Wilson previously declared that when founding Lululemon back in 1998, he specifically came up with a brand name that has three L’s because the sound does not exist in Japanese phonetics.
“It’s funny to watch them try and say it,” he told Canada’s National Post Business Magazine.
He has also spoken in favor of children working in factories to earn money and avoid poverty, blamed birth control for rising divorce rates, and described plus-size clothing as “a money loser”for businesses.
In a statement provided to Fortune, a Lululemon company spokesperson said that Chip Wilson “does not speak for lululemon, and his comments do not reflect our company views or beliefs. Chip has not been involved with the company since his resignation from the board in 2015 and we are a very different company today.”
I should not laugh but picking a name with 3 Ls because you hate Asians is just ridiculous
