Downhill All the Way

Inc., March, 2006 by Athena Schindelheim

1968 Fourteen-year-old Jake Burton Carpenter falls in love with Sherman Poppen's Snurfer, the precursor to the modern snowboard. He breaks a finger riding one.

1976 As a senior at New York University, Burton becomes an assistant to Victor Niederhoffer, a hedge fund manager who sells privately owned companies to big corporations. He hates it but is inspired to start a business. Niederhoffer gives Burton money to help.

1977 Burton builds his first boards. None sell.

1979 Burton sells his 700th snowboard. He's $100,000 in the hole, but on the plus side he wins the World Snurfing Championship.

1982 Jake meets his future wife while making a snowboard.

1984 Burton has its first million-dollar year.

1988 A million...

Premium Content Partnership | MyWire provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works. MyWire

 

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Please add your comment:

  1. You are currently: a Guest |
  2.  

Basic HTML tags that work in comments are: bold (<b></b>), italic (<i></i>), underline (<u></u>), and hyperlink (<a href></a)

advertisement
advertisement
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
advertisement