Chip Wilson was twelve when his parents divorced. He later chose a job in Fairbanks over a university desk.
Born in Los Angeles in 1955, he moved to Calgary at five. His father had been a Canadian hockey and football player, his mother an American gymnast. Wilson swam competitively and planned to play football at the University of Alberta. Then he put school off, and went to work in the oil industry in Fairbanks, Alaska. He eventually took an economics degree at the University of Calgary in 1980.
Wilson picked a name with three Ls, partly because he thought it would seem exotic to Japanese buyers, who often struggle with the letter.
He had already started his first company, in 1979. Westbeach Snowboard Ltd made clothes for surf, skate and snowboard kids. He sold it in 1997. A year later he started something else.
Lululemon Athletica opened in Vancouver in January 1998 as a maker of yoga clothes for women. The first standalone store followed in November 2000. Wilson picked a name with three Ls, partly because he thought it would seem exotic to Japanese buyers, who often struggle with the letter. It is the kind of small, odd bet that nobody could have defended in a boardroom.
What the public rarely connects is the personal weight he carried while building it. At 32 he was diagnosed with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, and he has since donated C$100 million toward research. A company built on the body's strength was founded by a man whose own body would be tested.
The company sold 48 percent to Advent International in 2005 and raised US$327.6 million in a Nasdaq IPO in July 2007. Then came the damage. In 2013 black pants turned out to be too sheer, and a recall hit about 17 percent of women's pants sold. The chief executive and product chief left. Wilson's remarks about customers' bodies drew heavy criticism, and he stepped down as chairman that year.
He did not fade quietly. In December 2025 he launched a proxy fight over the board, ending in a cooperation agreement in May 2026.
Today Lululemon reports revenue of about US$11.1 billion and net income of US$1.58 billion (2025). Wilson owns 8.4 percent.
The lesson is one of attachment: a founder can build a brand and still never fully let go of it, and the board may remember that long after he steps aside.