Ski Apparel Founder Gets Death Threats for Anti-Environmental Marketing Videos

David Lesh [00:00:00] Sent in the mail, people sent all kinds of crazy hate mail. I've had people spit on my car, they've yelled at me in the streets, you know, I mean, there, there's definite, you know, definite hate. People hate me. They want me to die. They, they want me to die in the avalanches. They want me to get shot in the head. They want my dog to die.

Vance Crowe [00:00:18] I am Caleb Zi, a precision ag specialist living in Aurora, South Dakota, and you are listening to the Vance Crow podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we talk with a man named David Lesh. And if you go look this guy up in the regular popular press, in all of the environmental news, all of the places where people in high society talk about what the goings on are, they think he is a straight up pariah. He has been framed as, you know, a terrible person for the environment, for doing all sorts of awful things. But I would say he's actually an environmental troll, and he is exposing a lot of the hypocrisies that people have that wanna wear around the fancy nice logos on their winter wear. And they wanna be seen as being environmentally conscious and more woke aware than everybody else. And this is a wild interview. He talks about a life that most of us can never imagine having and, and why he does what he does and how he turned his ability to not care what other people think into marketing for a company that basically now runs itself. So this is a very, very interesting interview, and I hope you feel like you get to meet some pretty cool people on this podcast. I was, had David brought to my attention because of the Articulate Ventures network. People say, Hey, this is an interesting person I read about. You ought to interview them.

Vance Crowe [00:01:49] I would love to hear about their inner voice and why they make the decisions that they do. And inside of the Articulate Ventures network, we're always pounding on new ideas and experimenting. And if you're the type of person that wants to have a community of people that are pushing the envelope, that are trying out and experimenting in all kinds of places, tomorrow we're gonna get into virtual reality with a bunch of people from other networks like Jim Rutz, game B Group, and we're just gonna mix up and meet other people and have conversations in virtual reality. So these are the kinds of things that can happen if you join the Articulate Ventures Network. So if you're the type of person that wants to do a little bit of exploring, you want to community, then definitely go to network dot Articulate Ventures to sign up. Also, you will notice in the show link below that we finally have a merch store where you can buy ideas that we talk about on this podcast, everything from Damon to up the graph. And we are excited to share it with you. If you're a person that has wanted to support the podcast, I get requests all the time. But maybe you're thinking the network, you don't want any more social media or distractions in your life, that's okay. You can support the podcast by checking out the link below. So without further ado, let us go to this wild interview with David Lesh. David Lesh, welcome to the podcast.

David Lesh [00:03:10] Thank you for having me.

Vance Crowe [00:03:11] So you came across my radar because a friend of mine sent me a New Yorker article, which the New Yorker very cleverly did not say this themselves. They just quoted somebody else as referring to you as the Rocky Mountain Pariah. And I don't know very many people that have had entire New Yorker articles written about them. How did you feel like that was, was a reflection it really capture who you are or were they unfair to you?

David Lesh [00:03:37] So nothing that he said was unsure or unfair, but it only captures one, you know, aspect of me or one part of my life. One, one part of our marketing, one part of my company. It's, it's relatively one sided. And I think that it had to be one sided. Otherwise he would've lost a little bit of credibility, I think, with his readers. If he was like, oh, hey, you guys have him all wrong. He is acting this really nice guy and he does all this other cool stuff, then the whole article would just be like a fluff piece, and I think would've lost a lot of its validity and weight. And so I think he had to kind of choose a little bit of a, of a harder line. And even e even though the, the kind of the angle that he took, I don't think was like super brutal, you know? So I I, it definitely does not, you know, obviously capture me or my life or who I am or my company or any of that. But, but he, it was fair. I'd say that.

Vance Crowe [00:04:30] So it's interesting whenever you're reading an article that you don't have any control over, like, do you have the sense of, oh shit, as you're reading, like while you're going through and being like, oh man, or no, it doesn't bother you at all?

David Lesh [00:04:43] No, I don't give a fuck. I mean, I, I, I let go of what people think about me a long time ago, and my life improved significantly. When I did, when I first started the company in 2009, I was much more concerned about what people thought about me, my reputation as a pro skier in the industry, what, you know, people said about the company, our marketing, the quality of the products. It really affected me when people would, you know, talk to them, the internet. And after a while the company kept doing well. The more people talk shit, the more our sales increased, the more, you know, we became popular. People heard about us. And so I just realized that the company has momentum and no amount of, you know, kind of shit talking is going to, to affect that. And it's actually quite the opposite, but probably, you know, improve it.

Vance Crowe [00:05:27] I, I'm, I'm glad to hear you say that because that actually opens up a door because there's very few people I think that can legitimately say they do not care what other people think of them. But I think that there is a lot of evidence that would suggest that you do. But before we get into that, like, who are you, you were a former professional skier, you're a photographer, you run like, you know, ski wear apparel company. What else am I missing in that description?

David Lesh [00:05:54] I mean, my life has been interesting. You know, I was born in Chicago, grew up in India until I was six. English was my third language. Just, I was a, you know, blonde hair, blue-eyed white boy in India, running around with all my Indian friends. I was the only white kid in a town of like, few million people. Started going to school like very young, much younger than you know, in America. So by the time I, I moved to America when I was six, I already could read write cursive math, like the whole deal. So for me, like kindergarten was super boring, and of course I was bored and started, you know, causing trouble and making jokes and, and fucking around. So always had like, you know, behavioral issues. I'm sure I'm like a DD to some extent makes me productive and always doing stuff. But, you know, grew up like very broke in Madison, Wisconsin, artist, hippie musician parents. And I wasn't the cool kid. I wasn't, you know, I didn't have the cool clothing at the shoes. I was sort of a reject at school. And that was hard for me just to, to, I really wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be able to go on trips, like the other kids vacation, go to, you know, on ski trips and go to Aspen and the Caribbean and do stuff with the other, you know, kids. I was in a pretty affluent area, so I kind of felt like I was missing out a lot growing up. Had a very, like, tumultuous childhood. My dad was a fucking piece of shit, and my mom was disconnected and it was just a, it was just a messy, messy ordeal. They divorced in middle school. I got into tons of trouble. I had ankle bracelets. I was in and outta jail. I was, you know, on probation. I was stealing cars.

David Lesh [00:07:25] I was just like a hoodlum, hoodlum kid. Moved out on my own in high school, senior year of high school, only one in a high school of 2,500 people to have their own house. So of course it was like the party house. And that year was like, probably one of the better years of my life. I had tons of friends. I was, you know, one of the, the cool kids. I was, you know, working two jobs, selling weed on the side, passing, you know, my, my high school classes. And I was, I was happy, I was free. I was away from my parents. I could do what I wanted to do. I had a little bit of money. And that was like the first I, the first time that I really remember, like, being happy was probably like senior year of high school.

Vance Crowe [00:08:02] The first time you were ever happy.

David Lesh [00:08:04] I mean, I was happy as a kid for sure. I, I think, I think I was happy. I had a very good early childhood. My parents were very loving and creative. I was doing lots of, you know, art and, and music and exploring India with my parents, you know, learning the languages and, and you know, I, America was this unknown place to me. I had no concept of, of America at the time. And my sister was born in India. She's a, she could have dual citizenship if she wants. Anyway, you know, it was a very interesting kind of unique upbringing, which I think has helped made me who I am. But it didn't set me up very well for American culture and American society. And, you know, it just, I, I, I'd never seen a movie. I, we didn't have a television. I didn't listen, you know, there wasn't a radio, I mean, it, we, we had a toilet that was like a hole in the ground, you know, I just was totally disconnected from, from all that. I remember seeing, one of the first movies that I remember seeing was, I'll get, I'll, I'll get back to your, your original question.

Vance Crowe [00:09:00] You can go as long as you want. This is interesting

David Lesh [00:09:02] Going on, going on a tangent here. One of, one of the original movies I remember seeing, and I don't don't remember if it was like first or second grade, but it was the Princess Bride. Did you ever see that movie? Oh,

Vance Crowe [00:09:12] Sure, yeah.

David Lesh [00:09:13] It scared the living shit out of me. I remember seeing that humongous rat. Do you remember there was that humongous rat scene that's like chasing them through the jungle or something? It's been decades since I've seen it, but I remember there was a huge rat. I remember it very vividly. To this day, I haven't seen the movie since I was, whatever, six or seven years old, eight years old. And I was so scared. They showed it, you know, in the classroom, there's, there's, you know, they showed in front of all the kids. I was so scared that I had to leave the classroom. So, you know, I I I, I had not seen movies before. I had not seen, you know, music videos and pop culture and like, you know, it is not, not all of it was totally new to me. So I was totally out. My element where I was in my element was when I was a kid in India running around just with my Indian friends, you know, being a little Indian boy. So from ages, like, you know, whatever, zero to five or six. I was happy. I remember, you know, my parents have audio recordings, pictures from that time. I think I was like a very happy, good little kid. But then when I came to America, it was like total culture shock, didn't fit in, had trouble making friends, was the brokest kid in school. And I think that I just remember being picked on constantly. And I remember being unhappy from, you know, the time we came to America until senior of high school for sure. And there was, you know, some, some gray area there, you know, throughout high school it kind of started to improve a little bit. And I started making a few friends and started, you know, dating a few girls and that kind of thing. But it, I would say senior of high school was the first time I really remember being happy since I was like very young.

Vance Crowe [00:10:48] And then when you were in high school, what are people telling you, you, they think you're gonna become, and what did you imagine you were gonna become?

David Lesh [00:10:55] Oh, I was for sure destined to be a career criminal. All the, the people that I was hanging out with are, you know, to this day, most of 'em are fucking in jail. Some of 'em are dead, none of them, you know, the, the, the kids that I was like doing stuff with, they're not, they're not doing well in life. There's a few people who've kind of pulled themselves out of it and they're, you know, they've got decent jobs or they're doing construction or, you know, something like that. But nobody's like really killing it.

Vance Crowe [00:11:23] And so what did you end up doing then after high school?

David Lesh [00:11:27] So after high school, I was homeless that whole next summer, that summer after high school, I just like cruised around America, north America, sorry, my dog is barking, cruised around all of North America and lived outta my car. I was hopping freight trains for a few weeks along the west coast. I went to Canada, I went to Mexico. I learned how to surf. I went down south. I went to the East coast in New York. I just was like all over the place. And then after all that, I decided that I was going to move somewhere where I could pursue skiing. And that was near a city. And I wanted to get as far away from, you know, Wisconsin as I possibly could. So I chose Portland, Oregon. There weren't too many options of metropolitan areas that were near skiing. And so I decided, I actually never even been to Portland. I'd like driven past it years before that, and I'd never like actually really been there, packed up my car and just moved, moved to Portland.

Vance Crowe [00:12:25] And so eventually you became a professional skier and, and were pretty successful there, it seems like.

David Lesh [00:12:32] Yeah, I mean, I never made a ton of money. I wasn't ever the best skier. I had never won, you know, the biggest comps or was in the biggest movies. But I was, I was, you know, I, I was, am a very good skier and I was mostly a photo video skier, so shoot for, you know, magazines and for movies and I'd put together, you know, a video part every year and I'd get content for my sponsors. That was kind of my, my gig.

Vance Crowe [00:12:55] And, and then at some point you decided, I don't really like the, the sponsorship deals that I'm getting or the, the way this is all working out. I'm, I'm trying to get you to talk about the part where you kind of separate away from regular culture, but it seems like you maybe never were there.

David Lesh [00:13:10] Yeah, I don't think I was ever a part of a regular culture. I think that I, for, for a period tried to, tried to kind of fit in because that's, I think what I saw that I had to do to sort of, you know, be accepted and, and be happy and make friends and, you know, date girls and whatever. So there was definitely a time where I like really tried hard to, to kind of, you know, fit in. And I think that just kind of as I've, you know, matured and grown up and, you know, become more comfortable with myself and, and my place in the world, and the more successful that I've been doing it, and the less that I care what other people think about it, the more I've kind of just found my own path. And none of it is, is super traditional. Just the way I live my life is, is not traditional in, in any regard. And I think the more that I have seen, you know, me be more happy by departing from that, the more I kind of depart from that where, you know, just your, your whole life, they, they shove this down your throat of what you're supposed to do to be happy. You graduate high school, you go to college for four years, you get an internship, you get a, you know, a decent nine to five job, paying you 40 grand a year. You work your way up, you live in, you know, eventually you, you meet a, a chick and you get engaged, you get married, you buy a house with a white picket fence and a two car garage. You have two and a half kids and you're, you know, your lab dog and you know, that's, that's what you're supposed to, to do to be happy.

David Lesh [00:14:47] You get your two weeks of vacation every year and you go to the fucking Caribbean or Mexico to an all-inclusive five star resort, or you go on some shitty cruise and that's like, that's what's supposed to make you happy. And I think all of that originates from Sears Roebuck when the Sears Roebuck, you know, catalog was in whatever the fifties, sixties, all these World War II vets were coming back from war. And they had, you know, their, their paycheck from the government and nothing really to, to do they, so what, what did they do? Sears Robuck started marketing to these people, get married, find yourself a cute chick, buy one of our little popup Sears Robuck houses where, you know, they would go up in two days or whatever. And that's where these, these subdivisions kind of, you know, started coming from and buy these appliances for your house, you know, the color TV and the microwave and the oven, and you know, the chick buys her fucking hair curlers and all this shit. And if you buy all these things from us and you will be happy. And so they sold, I think, an entire generation on what the definition of happiness is and how to achieve that. And that definitely still lingers to this day. I think it's a, you know, it's a significant part of our culture, what you're supposed to do to be happy. And that is jammed down your fucking throat since you're two years old via television, internet, you know, media, your teachers, your parents who, you know, were of this generation, all this stuff is just sort of, you know, passed, passed down to you. And none of it necessarily is true. It's not, you know, maybe, maybe some people are, are happy by that. And I think I do actually know some people who, who are happy by, by all of that.

David Lesh [00:16:19] But a lot of people aren't. And there's not really another, another avenue that's presented to you besides that, that you know, hey, if you could also maybe do this, or you can maybe do this, maybe this will make you happy, like, try this. It's, it's no, you know, you need to be monogamous. You need to have your two kids, you need to, you know, work your nine to five job and hopefully, you know, work your way up at some point. And, you know, it's just, it's all bullshit.

Vance Crowe [00:16:44] There's a fascinating video. It's a documentary that was made in like the middle 1960s about Webster Grove, which is a town not very far from my house, maybe 20, maybe not 15 minutes from my house. And it's fascinating because they're, they go in and they talk to all these high school kids and they say, what is it that you want? Like, what do you dream of? And they're like, I spend all my money on my car. I wanna live down the street from where I live right now. I wanna have a two story house. Like, and it's interesting, the, the reason that I find it so fascinating is you would never hear a high school kid say that now, like no high school kid that's living in the United States above the poverty line would say, I wanna live down the street and I want X, Y, z. And it reminds me of this, there's a philosopher named,

David Lesh [00:17:31] I think that there are some people who would say that I think that you and I, and educated people, especially in cities wouldn't say that. But if you were to actually talk to people in rural areas, I mean, maybe, I don't know how forthcoming they'd be in admitting that, but most of them are gonna end up moving down the street from their parents living in the same, same little town. And so whether or not that makes them happy, I don't know, but that is what they end up choosing to do.

Vance Crowe [00:17:55] Yeah, I to, I, I misspoke because I think there's an idea about anywhere people and somewhere people, so anywhere, people, they have this idea that the, that the, I, I want to go move to the city. I want to be a part of a cosmopolitan life. I'm able to make transactions. If I don't like where I'm at, I can go somewhere else. And there are somewhere people that say, Hey, where I'm living isn't that great. It's not that scenic, but this is everyone that I know and everybody that I care about. But I think that our, our typical, like popular culture in high school is very rare to find that. But I You fair enough? Sure.

David Lesh [00:18:27] I, I think that it is for sure changing, you know, and I mean, I haven't been in high school for whatever, 15 or 20 years, but I think, I think, I'm sure it is changing, but there's still some remnants of that I think that continues to exist in our culture.

Vance Crowe [00:18:40] Yeah. And there's this guy named Renee Gerard, who's a philosopher that says, you know, one of the core problems of being a human being is that we don't actually know what we should want. And so what we do as human beings is just like a chimpanzee. We look to see what are the other chimpanzees looking at. We say, oh, that's, that's the highest thing that they can go towards. So I'm going to want that too. But I'm struck by your situation, because if you are not, if you are able to like break away from this, then you have to be listening to some voice about what, what it is that is happiness or what it is that you want, where what is that voice that you have that tells you which way to go. Then

David Lesh [00:19:20] I think some of it is innate. I think I was, you know, just born who, who I am. I think also some of it comes from having hippie parents, freethinking, non-traditional parents who never chased the money. They were just, you know, broke their whole lives. And who always, who, who always instilled a, a sense of it's better to do the things that you love than the things that make you money. And so that, that sort of mentality of just following your passion, I think is what led me to where I am. Because originally, you know, I just wanted to not be broke, like my parents. That was, that was my only real go in life. And I had no connections. I had no real idea of how to get there. And so my only real successful, you know, male role models in my life that were, that were making money and who were living kind of the life that I thought that I wanted to live were my, my two uncles, my dad's brother, and my mom's brother. My dad's brother is a cardiologist, you know, lifetime of school and fucking kissing ass and studying and just, you know, that whole deal, which was like totally not my, my path there was like, I fucking hated school. I was like trying to, you know, fight my way through four years of college over a period of like eight or 10 years. I mean, it was just not, not the way that I wanted to learn things. So going to school for another however many years to be a doctor was just like, out of the question.

David Lesh [00:20:54] So that was like, okay, no, my, my mother's brother is a, was a business consultant. So that was a little bit more of an attainable path for me. And I was always interested in business and I saw business equating to challenges and freedom and, you know, some making some money and some, you know, success and networking, that kind of thing. So his path was, got his business degree, got his master's in business and Kellogg school in Chicago or whatever, got a job in a consulting firm, worked his way up, eventually made partner, started his own firm, you know, started making whatever, at least a few hundred grand a year, got a wife, kids, like, had a dope, dope setup, you know, the nice house in the suburbs with the Beamer and the, you know, the, the hot wife and the two kids. And I was like, okay, that's, that's pretty good. Like maybe I could can do that. So my general path in life until I had started my company was trying to fight my way through college. And then I was, I, at the time, I wasn't accepted to the business school in Boulder, so I was technically an art major business minor. They wouldn't let me into business school 'cause my grades weren't good enough or whatever. And so my plan was to graduate with an art degree and then maybe try to get like a master's in business at some point. In the meantime, I was following my dream in life, which was to be a pro skier. And I knew I was never gonna make any money doing it, but it was like a dream come true. I was traveling around the world on somebody else's dime, going to all these incredible places, you know, making really amazing friends. And you know, I was in great shape.

David Lesh [00:22:25] I was, I was skiing all over the world. I was pushing myself, I was learning things. It was, it was great. I was also helping with marketing, I was taking photos, I was, you know, shooting video, editing video. So I was able to kind of, you know, express myself creatively while also, you know, making a, a very shitty living. And so I think that me following my passion rather than the money is what led me to where I am. I was 18 or 19 at the time, living in Oregon, and I remember a very, very clear choice. So I had interviewed for a bunch of nine to five jobs. One of them was managing a warehouse. And this job, I remember they were gonna pay me like, I don't know, 35 grand a year or something like that. 30, 35 grand a year. And it was like, I mean, it was just stupid money, you know, I, I had never made more than 12 or 15 grand a year in my entire life. This was just gonna like change my, my entire, you know, quality of life. And, but it would've been a nine to five job and I was wanting to see, you know, five, six days a week. So I would've tossed my, my ski career in the tracks. There's, there's no way I was gonna be able to ski on weekends, Saturdays, and Sundays and fight the traffic, driving up the hood to, you know, try to be, to try to be a, a pro sponsored skier.

Vance Crowe [00:23:47] You gotta quit banging the table, dude. Your microphone.

David Lesh [00:23:49] Oh shit. I'm sorry. Sorry.

Vance Crowe [00:23:51] Keep going. This is great.

David Lesh [00:23:53] And so I, so I just kind of like, I, I had a choice to make and it was either, you know, make all this incredible money 35 grand a year or to continue working. My odd part-time job, I was a mechanic. I was working in a ski shop, I was a part-time security guard at one point, and just, you know, continue kind of like being a bum. I was driving weed back from Oregon, Wisconsin. I'd drive like once a month, you know, whatever, five, 10 pounds of weed back. So I was making some money doing that. And so I, I was faced with a, a choice and I, I remember just, just thinking to myself, you know, I'm too, too young to sell down. I can't, I can't do this. And I turned down the job. And so that was a, an early example of being faced with money or do something you love that doesn't make money. And I chose the path of, of, you know, skiing and having, you know, a little bit more flexible freedom and ability to take time off and go other places, other states and ski and that kind of thing. So I, I went that direction. And so that, that direction eventually led to me being a pro skier. It led to me developing contacts in the ski industry. It led, you know, to me having some experience getting involved in some of these companies that I rode for and in their marketing and, you know, media and that kinda stuff. And then I was getting more and more hungry for business. And these sponsors that I was riding for these outwear sponsors, they just weren't letting me, they weren't letting me get involved.

David Lesh [00:25:25] I wanted to invest, I wanted to help design stuff. I wanted to, you know, get a percentage of equity I wanted to, to, to have some involvement in, in the business of running that company. And none of them wanted anything to do with it. And it really is amazing to me because I think back on it and, you know, I was a, a smart little fucking kid and I was super motivated. I had time, I had ideas that ended up making me a lot of money. And I just wonder what would've happened if one of them had been like, okay, like let's give it a go because I may have gone down a whole another path like, you know, you know, working with for some other company or giving some minor bullshit. I mean, maybe eventually it would've just not worked out and I would've started my own thing anyway, who knows. But they all told me to go fuck myself. And so I did it, did it myself, and somehow did it with no money and own the company a hundred percent of my, you know, myself. I don't have to check in with anyone about any decision I make. I can do any kind of crazy marketing, any kind of whatever I want, and all the money goes in my pocket.

Vance Crowe [00:26:38] Well, your marketing is interesting, right? Like, whereas almost everybody else in the skiing world is they wanna portray their, their clothing line as luxurious as you're at the top of the world, that you're in sync with the environment that you have, like special care in some way. And yours is like taking the entire environmental movement and putting a minus sign in front of it and saying like, something about the opposite. And I don't mean that you're like degrading the environment, I just mean that you don't place it in this level of holiness that you then try and stand underneath in the halo of.

David Lesh [00:27:15] So I think that's just total fucking bullshit marketing. I think it is the most unethical, you know, counterproductive, phony marketing that you can have creating, you know, clothing and outerwear is one of the worst things that you can ever do for the environment. If you wanna do something good for the environment, you'd go to Goodwill. You'd buy a piece of shit onesie from the eighties that's used and you'd wear that for the rest of your life. Buying clothing of any kind is just awful, awful, awful for the environment, environment, especially when you are looking at like petroleum based outerwear and all these coatings and fabrics and it's just, you know, plastic zippers and all this stuff. It is not good for the environment. And these companies that, you know, paint this picture that, you know, they're this magical company and you know, it is just, it's nonsense. There are companies that I think do try to source, you know, more bamboo fabrics and more recyclable, this, that and the other. And there are companies out there, but at the end of the day, I mean, it, it's clothing. You're, you're, you're, you're disposable. You're going through it, you're destroying it, you're remaking it, you're buying new shit every year or whatever it is. It's not good for the environment.

Vance Crowe [00:28:20] So when you put that forward as an idea, like to the marketplace, how did they respond to you?

David Lesh [00:28:27] I mean, I never was anti-environment. I'm actually extremely environmental. I don't drive a big diesel truck. I, you know, don't use disposable silverware or napkins. I, you know, I don't use paper plates. I, I've got, you know, washable hand towels right here. I'm not using straws, I'm not using, I'm just, you know, I'm actually relatively environmentally conscious when it comes to my day-to-day life. You know, I recycle and I try not to print a bunch of stuff and excess paper and, you know, I, I actually do think about this stuff probably more than most people, but to, to have the same marketing for my company of, of all these other companies, I think it's phony and it's just not interesting. It's just, it's the same as, as all these other companies. So I, you know, I I I, I just never went down that path. I mean, you, when you're a small company and nobody's ever heard of you, you have to do something different. You have to do something interesting and unique, and we try to offer extremely high quality products at a very competitive price with features that nobody else, you know, has in the world. And we're only able to offer it at that price because we sell direct and we have a different, you know, business model than most companies. But at the end of the day, you have to do something that sets you apart. And so, you know, I've kind of been the crazy guy my whole life. I'm always doing crazy extreme stuff. So I got friends who are, you know, doing equally crazy stuff.

David Lesh [00:29:58] And so I figured why not just video the stuff that we kind of do on a day-to-day basis anyway, and put it out there? And, and that's what we did. And in our, our first real provocative marketing were the Friday videos last Friday, this Friday, next Friday in the apology video. And nobody had ever made a video like that in the ski industry. You know, it just wasn't, it had never been done. I mean, the, I think part of it is nobody had the balls to do it, but also the people at these companies, they weren't out there living that lifestyle. They're sitting in an office somewhere, you know, doing emails and, and, and running their business, you know, 12 hours a day. They weren't out there living that life. And so I thought that there was something, something marketable about, about kind of promoting and marketing that lifestyle. And, you know, I was young, I was 23 when I started, the company turned 24 that summer, and we were partying, we were doing drugs, we were, you know, going all over the world. We were, I was, you know, getting my pilot's license, buying airplanes, and going to, you know, The Bahamas and renting houses and boats and doing, you know, just, we were just, we were, you know, living life to the fullest. And so I figured that there was something marketable about that lifestyle.

Vance Crowe [00:31:13] You know, when you say that the, the people that were making the marketing decisions were really far away, I was, I, I actually have this hypothesis that the world is actually run largely by college party girls that got done with partying in college and then took the safe job. And the only person that a, a chief executive or a marketing person knows that seems young and cool, is this person that partied for a little while. And now all they do is they're on Instagram and they're telling you what's going on in their safe bubble. And so if you go to a corporation of any kind, no matter how much they want to change or how much they want to be connected, the farthest that they can see is as far as the, as the girl that got a, a communications degree and partied her way through school.

David Lesh [00:31:59] Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I, it's all just the same boring crap, you know, it's just not, it's not interesting.

Vance Crowe [00:32:06] So your Friday videos would never make mustard past any normal corporation? I could try and describe them, but I would probably,

David Lesh [00:32:15] I mean, can you imagine if, if they had a, a board meeting, you know, with, with 10 people and they said, alright, I got this idea, Jim. Alright, my idea is we're gonna have these naked girls with their tits out, we're gonna be pouring milk on them with their bouncing boobs and slow motion, and then we're gonna have some explosions with machine guns. We're gonna flip a car and jump outta an airplane and then tow somebody on a snowmobile, and then we're gonna go to a lake and there's gonna be more tits out at the lake. And don't

Vance Crowe [00:32:45] Forget the gun shooting. We're gonna shoot guns out the window too.

David Lesh [00:32:48] Yeah. We're gonna shoot guns out of the window. And, you know, I mean, that would not make it very far in a board meeting. They just be, oh my God. Like, and because, you know, if you, if you are a huge company and you're having to market to the masses, you're gonna, you're gonna turn a lot of people off by, by that kind of marketing. When you're a small company, you are not accessing that, that big part of the market. You're not, they're not, they don't know who you are. They're not seeing anything. So if you come out with some crazy shit and you get a bunch of people talking about it, well, yeah, there's gonna be a bunch of people who aren't super stoked on it, but they're talking about it to their whole circle of friends. They're posting it to their social media and out of their 3000 followers on Instagram or Facebook, maybe half of 'em like it and think it's funny and half of 'em don't like it. The ones who don't like it don't have to buy it. The ones who do like it, some of them buy it. So it's sort of, you know, you do create some, you know, some people who aren't stoked on it, but those people talking about it eventually ends up helping you in the long run.

Vance Crowe [00:33:43] Yeah, I mean, it struck me as kind of the Marilyn Manson strategy, right? Where there was a group of people that were never gonna be around in regular upper middle class, high school society, and a guy came along and said, Hey, I've got a different way for you and we're just not gonna have anything to do with that culture. Yeah.

David Lesh [00:34:01] And

Vance Crowe [00:34:01] The people, people wanted it, right? Like, because it was an answer to a problem that they had that that regular corporate America wasn't answering.

David Lesh [00:34:09] Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think, you know, I've always been just kind of out there in counterculture, and so it'd be hard for, you know, I run the, the company, I make marketing decisions. It'd be hard for me to have different marketing, you know, I could try to kind of fake it, but it just wouldn't, it, it just wouldn't be right. It wouldn't seem genuine.

Vance Crowe [00:34:29] But it's funny because as while I was watching that for the first time and having a great time, like I don't think I've ever watched as many marketing videos as I watched of yours. I, it struck me that it wasn't unlike, I had a commercial sex worker on named Ayella Girl. And I, I remember asking her the question, like, the first time you get on camera and you know, you're doing your Cam girl thing, there's no going back to the moment before that. Right? Right. Like, you've pulled the trigger, there's no putting the bullet back in there. Yeah. Did you have a hesitation there of like, I'm gonna pull this trigger?

David Lesh [00:35:03] No, I never had any hesitation, and I didn't really, you know, I didn't think much of it. We were just videoing the shit that we were doing, and we were so used to doing it that it didn't, it didn't strike me as really that crazy, honestly, because we were just, that's just what we, I, I've been doing that for decades. I've been, you know, just doing stupid hoodlum shit and stupid stunts in my whole life. I didn't, it didn't really occur to me. And when the backlash from that first last Friday video happened, I was like very surprised. You know? I got, I got lost.

Vance Crowe [00:35:36] What was the backlash? What, yeah, what happened?

David Lesh [00:35:38] Oh, I mean, it was, it was crazy. There were people calling in from all over the world. I got pulled over five times in three days. They were trying to press all kinds of federal charges on me. I got fired from my coaching job, I got banned from the resorts. I was not allowed on campus. I got tons of hate mail. And I was like, I was like, whoa, you know, like it, I, I was totally taken back by it. Like, I had no, I had no idea that it was gonna be like that kind of a backlash. I just thought some kids would be like, oh yeah, like, that's tight. You guys are, you know, killing it. Like I just, I I didn't think that it was gonna have this reaction. And so when it did have that reaction, I, I remember like being faced with a choice and it, I was faced with a very clear choice actually. And the choice was like, you know, I was employed, I've been coaching the CU freestyle ski team for like, over a decade. And they said, you know, I, I can save your coaching job, but this video has to come down like today. And I remember being like, okay, so like this is, you know, this is not going well. This, there's a lot of people, you know, angry about this video, but there's also a lot of people that aren't, do I want to take this down, apologize and tuck tail, or do I want to stand behind it? And I don't think it took me more than two seconds to think about it.

David Lesh [00:37:11] And I said, that's fine. You can fire me from the coaching job if you want. The video's not coming down. And so I said, you know, you guys can fuck yourself if you don't like the video, don't buy my shit. I don't care. And to kind of drive that point home, you know, I made the apology video, which of course didn't apologize for anything. It was a spoof on the, you know, LeBron James, Nike, Nike commercial. And so I just, you know, I just decided to kind of stand my ground and then, you know, whatever the next year or two years later we came out with this Friday, we just went like times 10 instead of, you know, me waking up in bed with two naked chicks, I'm waking up under a pile of naked girls and like, we're doing drugs and we're fucking, you know, skydiving. Like, just everything was like times 10. And so I think at some point I just, I just kind of realized that I, I realized that it's better to, to just own it. If, if you, you know, the, the whole like kind of cancel culture if people sense any kind of weakness, they just, it's like, you know, wolves descending upon you. And so I think you just have to stay strong and people realize that they're just not gonna get very far. They're not gonna hurt my feelings. I'm not gonna, you know, cry about it. I'm not gonna take down the video. I'm not gonna apologize. You know, it's just, it's not gonna have, have the effect that they want it to have it. They, so I take their, their power away from them, their, their, you know, their cancel culture power. So I think that was around the time when I realized that, you know, just do stuff, be smart about it, stand behind it, and hopefully, you know, it gets people talking.

Vance Crowe [00:38:51] You know, it's funny, I think that the, the role that you play in culture probably is archetypal in some way. Because if you're watching cancel culture, go on, you figure like, who will stand up to this? How will this stop? And I found myself after watching your videos, I get on Twitter and I'm like, I wanna go start, I'm gonna go poke some people like that are causing problems. Like, you're telling me, I, I really, really dislike mask mandates and for whatever reason, me saying that brings people out of the woodwork to come after me to be like, you have to change your opinion, but they say it in the most like, egregious, you're awful, you're killing grandmother, blah, blah, blah. And like, you get to a point where you're saying like, the only way that I can respond to you is, is to somehow like bring myself down to your level. And so you're doing something that's really different. You're very forward leaning in that way, where you're not waiting to get down to somebody's level. You're just playing the game in a different way.

David Lesh [00:39:46] Yeah. I think that, you know, I don't want to get into a whole thing on politics, but I think that that is why Trump won the first time is because he was much more unapologetic about who he was, take it or leave it kind of a thing. And I think, you know, where things have gone with the, with how PC you have to be and how you have to tiptoe around everything and there's only certain words you can use, and it's just gone way too far. And I think that that's why Trump originally was elected because he was just, you know, not a politician. He was not trying to, you know, say and do exactly the right things. He was just being himself and was relatively unapologetic about it. I'm not looking to get elected so I can be, you know, even more unapologetic about, about whatever it is that I do.

Vance Crowe [00:40:32] So this, the strategy that you're using works, unless the wave crashes all the way over and cancel culture gets, you know, all the power. Are you worried about that?

David Lesh [00:40:41] No, not at all. The more, you know, the, the more the, the whole COVID thing is, I think also kind of uncovered, you know, two very different groups of people with the mask and no mask thing and just that whole, the whole deal. And I think that there will always be freethinking people that refuse to, you know, sort of like get in line and do what they're, they're, you know, supposed to do, you know, what the media is telling them to do, what, you know, the politicians or whoever it is or whatever they're telling them, they have a a little bit of a mind of their own and they think for themselves. And there's also just people out there who don't care. You know, I'm not, I'm not out there, you know, clubbing, baby seals to death and, you know, smothering children. Like my marketing is like making funny videos where we don't really take ourselves seriously. And like standing on a, on a fucking log in a protected lake that was photoshopped and, you know, pooping in a, in a lake that was photo, because I'm not out there like killing people. It's like all relatively, you know, minor stuff. So people, but

Vance Crowe [00:41:46] Your marketing requires that you be comfortable with people literally hating you or, or as close to hating as they can of a

David Lesh [00:41:55] Person they know, oh, they hate. I have people, you know, protesting in front of my warehouse, chocolate dicks in the mail. I got poop sent in the mail. People sent all kinds of crazy hate mail. I've had people spit on my car, they've yelled at me in the streets, you know, I mean, there, there's definite, you know, definite hate. People hate me. They want me to die. They, they want me to die in the avalanche. They want me to get shot in the head. They want my dog to die. You know, they, they, they want me to die. What I've realized is, yes, I've taken it to, you know, definitely another level, but people are gonna hate you no matter what. The more successful you are, the more well known you are, the more fun you have in your life. And other people, you know, see that as you throwing that in their, their faces, they're miserable in their, their parents' basement. They haven't gotten laid in three months or three years, they're broke. And you know, you're out there living this amazing life, doing all these things that they only wish that they could do. They're gonna, a lot of 'em are gonna hate you. It's people who are secure and happy in their lives who don't, you know, who don't care about this shit. They're like, oh, this is cool. So I think it is, it just depends on a person's perspective, but no matter what, there's gonna be people that hate you. And so I just had to get comfortable with that. You know, probably about whatever, when I started the company, it was probably like whatever, 11, 12 years ago, I started having to get comfortable with the fact that people are not going to like me, and the better that I do, and the more that I succeed, the more those people there will be out there.

Vance Crowe [00:43:26] I think you create more people that are like that, because I think that people just need to see how it's done and then it empowers them in some way. You know, I'm, I'm, when I was reading about you and you were talking about from one zero to six, you lived in India, you were with hippie parents. It, it makes me think like you were probably not around the kind of religious mimetic Christian culture that happens in the US Yeah. That I think a lot of people, at least the anywhere people, they grew up as like a Christian family, or at least the last remnants of it. Yeah. And then when they got older, they didn't have that, and so they turned that religion into environmentalism. Are you partly inoculated from that because you didn't have the Christian tradition that you were throwing off?

David Lesh [00:44:12] I mean, I don't know if that's true or not. I think, I think that that's a bit of a stretch. I think that saying that religious people turned that, you know, that energy into environmentalism is, I, I don't know if that's that's true or not. I feel like that's a bit of a, you know, a bit of a stretch and, and, and, you know, maybe sometimes it's true, maybe not. But I definitely was not, you know, I, I've never been to church. I've never, never, you know, my parents were, I, I'm technically half Jewish, but I've never been to, you know, temple or anything. I grew up celebrating Jewish holidays, but was definitely not religious in, in any real sense.

Vance Crowe [00:44:51] So when you think about happiness and fun and getting older, what do you think happens like in your forties, fifties? How, how do you, how do you, do you keep this life? Do you trans change up what you want?

David Lesh [00:45:03] That's, that's something that I think about like almost every day. And the answer is, I don't know. Right now I'm very happy not having kids, not having a wife being, you know, free and I can just do whatever I want. I've got an airplane, I can, you know, I've got the means to go wherever I want in the world on any given day, at any moment I can leave my business. I, I mean, it is like total freedom. And I think the more money I make in life, the more that freedom will, will even increase. And the lifestyle, you know, the, the quality of life of that freedom will increase. But does it get old at some point? I don't know. I've, you know, been to most places in the world, the, there are still, you know, a lot of places that I want to go to. But what happens after you go to all those places? Maybe traveling isn't as appealing anymore. Maybe you're sick of, you know, fucking hundreds of chicks and partying and doing the whole thing. I mean, I like don't do any drugs anymore. I don't drink, so that's already kind of like, you know, behind me. It's just not, not interesting.

Vance Crowe [00:46:20] Was it difficult for you to quit that?

David Lesh [00:46:22] Oh, no. No. I mean, I was a pothead when I was a kid, and then I had a few experiences where I got like, way too high on a gravity bong and just like ruined it for me. And I never smoked weed again. And then I was like totally sober from like, I partied in high school and then from like 18 to 24 I was like completely sober because I was broke. I couldn't afford to go to bars, I couldn't afford to buy alcohol, drinks, drugs. Like, there was no way I, when I was, when I was transporting weed across the country, I did not smoke weed. It was strictly a business thing. I literally did not, you know, smoke at all. So from 1824, I couldn't afford to do any of those things. I was like, not in the budget. Then when I started my company, that was like the first time where I like had a little bit of disp, you know, disposable income. And so we started, you know, we started doing a lot of ecstasy probably twice a week, twice, three times a week, even ecstasy for like two years, which were probably the best two years of my life. And, you know, I was productive. I was killing it. I was buying like six grand worth of Molly at a time, 98% pure Molly, and giving it out to all of my friends. And we were, you know, renting houses and taping blankets over the windows and renting speakers and lights. And we were just like, you know, there, there was some good times for sure. I think those helped, those times helped make me kind of who, who I am. But after a year or two of that, you know, your tolerance builds up, you start having to do so much drugs and you just, you just know it's not good for you. And so I just, one day I was just like, ah, I'm over this. And I basically never did Molly again. I did it like maybe once now, you know, 10 years. And then there was like a year or two where I think I, you know, get into Coke and that was like, you know, Coke's a weak drug.

David Lesh [00:47:58] It's just essentially like drinking a Red Bull is fucking worthless, but, you know, Coke's kind of the cool thing for a year or two and that gets old and just kind of the same old scene of people that aren't really going anywhere and doing anything. And so then I never, you know, really did that again. And I don't know, it's just like, none of it, none of it is interesting for very long. And so I, I I, I had zero problem. I've never been addicted to anything in my life. I think I could do heroin right now and never do it again. So, no, I was never, never had any trouble getting off anything.

Vance Crowe [00:48:30] And man, what do you wanna see with your company? What's, what's your, where do you want to take it? What do you hope that it becomes?

David Lesh [00:48:40] I don't know. I would like it to grow, but, you know, I'm doing this. I've got employees, but I don't have any other, you know, people that are, are, are kind of leading and pushing the company. And I don't do any sales. I've kind of just been very slowly growing the company since the onset and I could maybe like, push it harder, but it would require a lot of my time to, to like grow it into some humongous thing. And I think I would lose out on a lot of good years of my life doing that. So I've got now, you know, a very well oiled, efficient machine. We make money, we do well, it doesn't take any huge amount of my time. And so it's, you know, here's an example of kind of choosing lifestyle and passion over money. I mean, I'm sure I could, there's a lot of things and not just with, with the Vertigo business, I've got other side hustles that I, that I have, I could push, you know, any number of those a lot harder and could have been pushing those a lot harder for many years. And, you know, I, I've got a very good quality of life. I, I'm very appreciative for what I have and I've worked hard for it. You know, is it worth being one of these people that, that just works, you know, eight or 12 hours a day, five, six days a week and doesn't get to enjoy your life?

David Lesh [00:50:13] Like, you know, I, I started the company in my early twenties. I'm in my mid thirties now, and, you know, these are like the best years of your life. You're gonna spend them sitting in a, in a dark office with no windows and doing emails and calls. You're gonna get out there and, and do some stuff in the world. So I, I want the company to keep growing, but I'm not willing to, you know, to, to, to really do much more than I'm doing now, to, to get it there. So if there was somebody else who came along who had some magical, huge distribution deal, I would consider, you know, giving them some equity or whatever. If, if there was somebody out there that was a good fit that could, hey, you know, has have some magic solution to, to just explode the company that wouldn't require, you know, much or any of my time, I'd consider it. But where it's at now is fine. I'm happy with it.

Vance Crowe [00:51:07] So earlier you had talked about like, happiness and, you know, like what you were doing. When you describe happiness, what, what is that to you? What does that mean?

David Lesh [00:51:18] It's, it's taken me a long time to kind of learn what that is for me. And I've really only really figured it out fully, I would say in the last, probably year or two, and the last few years of my life have been maybe some of the best. But for me, happiness is freedom. Freedom to go where I want, do what I want, buy what I want, see what I want, eat what I want, hang out with who I want, and just, just kind of not have to, to answer to anyone.

Vance Crowe [00:52:02] That's interesting. I, so, I, I did not live anywhere near the wildlife that you did, but I lived in Africa for a while along the coast of California, a bunch of different places. And I, the, the freedom is the opposite of what I want now. Like, and maybe that's not quite fair, but you know, you have a child and it's really difficult for anybody to tell you that that will be what you want. But like, as soon as we're done, I'm gonna go upstairs and I'm gonna get to hold my baby and she's, I'm gonna do everything I can to make her laugh. And it's just an interesting thing because I, I, I have no idea if that's what other people want. And so I'm always interested in hearing what other people want and what makes them happy because I, I think, I think it wouldn't have made me happy at a different time in my life. I think it would've made me miserable, actually.

David Lesh [00:52:50] And I think that that is, that is a key, key thing, key concept is doing the right things in life at the right times. Because, you know, you have a kid when you're 18, it might ruin your life. So I think, and I've got a lot of friends who, who have kids, and some of 'em I think are more or less stoked on, on what that means for their life. And I totally see the benefit of having kids, you know, creating someone that looks just like you and you can mold and shape and teach and, you know, get to kind of share life with, and, you know, when you're older, you get to hang out with them. I, I very much see the value in that. I maybe see less value in that than a lot of people because my family was shitty. And so like, yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:53:40] I'm the middle child of seven. So for me it was like, kids make sense in some deep way.

David Lesh [00:53:44] Yeah. If, if you had like, you know, this amazing childhood where you have all these, you know, amazing memories and you, you had, you know, these Christmases together and coming down the stairs and there's packages under the tree. If you've got that, you know, in your brain about family and kids, then you, you maybe would be more stoked on it. My reality was different. So, you know, I, I, I see the value in that and I'm open to that. But for me, I don't think that that would be what I would want for a minimum of another 10 years. I can see when I'm 45, like, you know, settling down and I mean, not settling down. I don't think I'll ever settle down. But when I'm 45, you know, finding a chick and having two kids maybe, but I'm, I'm, I mean, it's very possible. Like if you asked me right now, you have to decide whether you're gonna have kids or not. I'd say, no, I'm not having kids.

Vance Crowe [00:54:37] I would've a hundred percent been exactly where you're at. Have you ever had your heart like broken? Has a chick ever just like destroyed you? Of course.

David Lesh [00:54:43] Of course. Oh yeah. Over and over.

Vance Crowe [00:54:49] That's the kicker. At least for me. I mean, until I met the woman that was like, not, she had, she didn't think what I thought was clever. She was not like entertained by it. Like all of a sudden, bang, I was hooked.

David Lesh [00:55:02] I mean, every girl that I've dated since I was, you know, 15 years old has wanted to marry me. And if at any point I wanted to, you know, marry a cool, smart hot chick with rich family, whatever, I could have done that a long time ago. And I definitely dodged some, some major bullets by not doing that.

Vance Crowe [00:55:23] Yeah. I mean, I think like you are the ultimate taming of the beast, right? Like, and that's in some ways all the way down in the archetypal of a, of a woman to wanna like capture the, the wild beast that nobody else could. Yeah.

David Lesh [00:55:35] They always, they always think that they're gonna, they're gonna somehow change me or, or tame me. And it just never, never works out very well.

Vance Crowe [00:55:44] Well, David Lash man, I, I had no idea how this conversation would go, and I figured that if the New Yorker was gonna kind of paint you as this, you know, nice guy, kind of misguided pariah that I, you were gonna probably be somebody I liked and this has been really, really interesting and entertaining.

David Lesh [00:56:02] Well, thanks for having me on.