Remembering Jake Burton Carpenter

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2019

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The founder of Burton Snowboards, Jake Burton Carpenter, has died. He was 65 years old. We are grateful that Jake shared his story with us in 2017 and we are republishing it as a tribute to his life and career in which he elevated snowboarding into an international sport. 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. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.
0:13.0	As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.
0:17.0	So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.
0:24.0	Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.
0:27.0	Hey, it's Guy here. So by now you might have heard that Jake Burton Carpenter, the founder of Burton Snowboards, died this past week.
0:35.0	Jake was 65.
0:37.0	And in his honor, we thought we would re-release this interview I did with him back in July of 2017.
0:43.0	It was actually an incredible experience. Jake flew down from Vermont for this interview and he brought me a bottle of Vermont maple syrup.
0:49.0	But what he really brought was himself. And as you can hear in this interview, he was really vulnerable and really human.
0:58.0	And this is a guy who helped to elevate snowboarding and turn it into an international sport.
1:03.0	Anyway, all of us who got a chance to meet him feel really lucky that we did.
1:07.0	And if you haven't heard this interview or even if you have, it's really worth hearing.
1:12.0	So take a listen in honor of Jake.
1:15.0	I mean, I was like Willie Lohman and I was a traveling salesman and I would load up my car.
1:24.0	It was a Volvo wagon at the time.
1:26.0	And I remember once going out with 38 snowboards and I drove around New York State and visited dealers.
1:32.0	And I went out with 38 and I came home with 40.
1:34.0	40 snowboards?
1:36.0	Because one guy had given me two back that he'd bought and said, this is a joke.
1:41.0	From NPR, it's how I built this.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Guy Raz | Wondery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Guy Raz | Wondery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.