I have been known to chuckle GoPro’s way, even though I part own the company, but I should stop and not just because I’m getting rich off my six shares, though I am (up $1.15 a share). No. I should stop because CEO Nick Woodman is the most generous man on earth.
It has been recently uncovered, in the Bloomberg Reports, that the “Mad Billionaire” honored a freshman in college word of mouth promise to his UC San Diego roommate. The promise was not for a hamburger or even a cheeseburger. The promise was for 10% of the proceeds he received from the sale of the company’s shares. Do you know how much that is? $229 million dollars is how much.
His roommate, Neil Dana, still works for GoPro in the music department, or somewhere, but maybe not for much longer.
And it is truly amazing to give someone $229 million dollars based on a word of mouth promise. What did Neil Dana do ten years ago? I have no idea and neither does anyone else but for $229 million dollars anything would have been worthwhile. Anything at all.
Also uncovered in the same report is that Nick Woodman is the highest paid CEO in America. He made $285.3 million dollars in 2014. That is more than Ralph Lauren, Robert Iger and James Dimon. And they said “action sports” was in decline. Pssssshhhhhht. Kooks.
Surf has sucked off skate for so so so many years, the airs, the names, the importance, and surf is better for it. Look at Filipe’s amazing punctuation on the Rio Pro. Without skate it would have been a pretty good top turn. No more.
So then, surfers, watch this amazing hip transfer as done by Pedro Barros just a few hours ago and filmed by Sean Sullivan at the Vans Pool Party. Watch the height. Watch the lack of care soaring over cement. Watch the clean landing. Watch the crowd go bananas. And wait for it to translate into surf. It is going to be amazing.
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The two swingers in the front are the father-and-son owners of Taiwan's Sheico Group, the world's biggest manufacturer of sports wetsuits. Cute guy in the back is a model. | Photo: Rashley Pon/Global Assignment by Getty Images for Forbes
Meet the Taiwanese Geniuses Who Make Your Wetsuits!
Are you like me? Do you think it’s flashy American and Australian know-how that gets our suits just so?
You are so wrong and maybe racist too!
Taiwan’s Sheico Group has got their paws all over the wetsuits market. Biggest maker of sports wetsuits in the world. Closing in on half-a-billion US dollars a year in trade.
Billabong’s Xcel, O’Neill , Quiksilver and Rip Curl all use Sheico.
According to Forbes Asia,
“Five years ago Sheico was the first to deliver the material for Rip Curl’s Flash-Bomb series, validating its claim to be the world’s fastest-drying wet suit. Within two minutes 90% of water is drained through the inner layer of the suit or heated up by body temperature to give the wearer a greater sense of comfort. Years of exclusive rights to the component were granted to Rip Curl for its competitive edge. ‘At this point Sheico is making the best wet suits in the world…. They are definitely the guy,’ says Greg Wade, president of Xcel in California. What’s amazing, he continues, is that Sheico contract-manufactures for various top brands but manages to customize components so that each can have its own look and feel.”
Jimmicane, Surfing Magazine’s wonderful personality/photo-editor/photographer, loves all things Florida. He loves the Jacksonville Jaguars like they are a real football team. He loves Florida State University like it is a real institution of higher learning. He loves the state’s population like every single man, woman, child is not clinically insane. And now he can love that the Florida Institute of Technology offers Surf Engineering Analysis for college credit!
That’s right. If you are like Jimmy and don’t mind living with face eating zombies, you can move to Melbourne, just east of Orlando, and major in Ocean Engineering and take classes in Surf Engineering Analysis. What is it? The course description says that it “focuses on the physics of waves in the surf zone. Students design a field experiment on their own to collect data about force balances, buoyancy and hydrodynamic drag.”
The associate professor who designed the course, Robert Weaver, says, “Ocean engineering has one of the highest graduate incomes of any of the engineering disciplines. I’m hoping that this class and this program can help play a role in dismantling the old surfer stigma that associates surfers with being aimless beach bums.”
Students get a Rip Curl GPS surf watch (at cost), two customized surfboards with special cutout boxes for measurement instruments and maybe a GoPro. Then they go to the beach and surf and let all their stuff work. Class jargon calls it “movement-based data.”
I don’t know what else they do but I hope they drive fancy cars, once graduating, and go to work for Surfline…those dirty, rich sex freaks.
Have you ever seen such a foregone conclusion? An event, sewn up, on day one?
A few hours ago, and as predicted (here), Filipe Toledo, won the final of the Oi Rio Pro in clean enough three-footers. He beat Bede Durbidge 19.87 to 14.70 and the only surprise, if there was one, was that Bede threw up some decent numbers.
Filipe didn’t drop a heat the entire event, throwing blitzkrieg-like heat scores of 16.27 (round one, beating Kolohe and Melling), 15.60 (round three, Wiggoly Dantas), 17.83 (round four, Banting and John John), 15.00 (quarter-final, Ricky Christie), 15.94 (semi against Italo Ferreira) and a near-perfect 19.87 in the final.
Filipe is now 550 points behind Adriano De Souza in second place.
Third on the board, but five thousand points behind Filipe, is Mick Fanning.
The other title contenders? John John is ten thousand away in seventh, Kelly is in 13th with exactly half Filipe’s points and the current world champ, Gabriel Medina is 16,000 points off the pace in 19th.
A three-way title race between Adriano, Filipe and Mick Fanning is the obvious play here. And, Filipe, who only turned 20 a few weeks ago, would become the youngest world champion, ever, beating Kelly’s record by two months, if he wins in December.
But so much swatting to go between hither and yon! So much can happen in the warp and woof of competition!
So let’s concentrate our attention on Filipe’s perfect 10, the cleanest stomp in competition, the not-an-air-reverse, but clean…clean… rotation. Yeah, they’ve been bigger hits (John John and Julian, even Andy Irons in Mex, way back).
But moves like this are the springs of competition, of progression. Look, below, at the way he saws and nails and measures, lifting and weighting that front foot for speed, an easy rhythm, and almost without an awareness of what’s to come next. Power and form and the cleanest and most dignified landing you’ll ever see. Tens from every single judge.
As the former pro Brad Gerlach, a surfer who was also rated number one aged 20, told BeachGrit yesterday, “He’s not thinking. He’s surfing so spontaneously you don’t know what he’s going to do. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. And that’s fucking awesome. What surprises me about a lot of the guys I watch is they’re confident but they look conservative on the wave. Filipe’s excited to be surfing!”
