The sleepless nights, the lost money

The Snowboard community has lost a great Visionary: Jake Burton Carpenter, founder of the Snowboard brand Burton, has died in Burlington in the US state of Vermont. He died at the age of 65 of cancer.

In June 2018, the Journalist Thomas Wyss led to this newspaper an Interview with Burton that we publish here excerpts again.

Why are you leaving the USA?
Because it's there currently for a liberal people to which we belong, is really little more bearable. To live In a country that someone like Trump that is fucking crazy, it feels offense. Add to this that my wife Donna, who serves as CEO, would like to transfer the Management responsibility. So this is also a kind of test run (laughs).

And why Zurich?
We love Austria, we have spent a lot of time, even for business reasons. That's why we want to now something else. Zurich is connected by the international airport, great snowboard areas in a reasonable time, it has a picturesque lake, whose water is so good that you can drink it... it All fits, this city is for us the right Vibe at the right time.

Burton in June 2018 at the Matterhorn. Photo: Reto Oeschger

you Are already able to find?
yesterday I my in Zermatt, 100. Day snowboarding completed, today we came to Zurich to give us the one or the other view. It is important that the future housing will be in the vicinity of the Opera house.

Tell us: How was it like back then... Did you know right away what it takes to make a Snowboard work?
Had I known, I would have saves me a lot of sleepless nights and even more lost money. No, it is the typical "Trial and Error", and we have made dozens of disabled prototypes.

Nevertheless, you have managed. What made them better than the various failed competitors?
My Pioneering work was that I was able to establish Snowboarding as a Sport and Lifestyle. Did that when I gave up the Plan to earn in a short period of time quite a lot of money. After that, I wanted to prove that it works, because I saw that everything was there, so that it can work. It was probably this passion... And that I don't have anyone like shit!

the Sport in the right direction?
It is still a white Sport; to me, ethnic diversity is lacking, in the US there are hardly any young Black or Hispanic Americans, the boarding, because it is too expensive.

I actually wanted to appeal more to the "No limits"Thinking.
Our driver Kevin Pearce suffered in 2009, when a botched Trick bad brain injury. I believed that after this accident, the quest for even crazier numbers would stop, but that didn't happen.

In the Special responsibility also Shaun White and Iouri Podlatschikov are. How do you see the bitter rivalry between the two?
So hard and you can't for a long time, there's a lot of respect, but also a lot of Show. We understand us perfectly, Iouri wore the Goldrun in Sochi even my old gloves. We met at a race prior to Olympia, he found the cool, so I gave it to him.

Created: 22.11.2019, 08:00 PM