{"id":16926,"date":"2010-07-15T16:40:22","date_gmt":"2010-07-15T23:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/?p=16926"},"modified":"2010-07-15T16:46:40","modified_gmt":"2010-07-15T23:46:40","slug":"mike-vallely-explains-his-element-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/?p=16926","title":{"rendered":"Mike Vallely Explains His Element Exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Laybackgrind\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On Wednesday (July 14, 2010), when news began arriving that Mike Vallely<\/a><\/strong> was leaving Element Skateboards<\/a><\/strong> (and becoming one of the few objects to escape Billabong’s<\/a><\/strong> gravitational pull in recent weeks) we were too caught up in agreeing with Boil The Ocean’s take<\/a><\/strong> on the new company to get the official word from the man himself. And what a disservice that was. Here’s what Mike said on his blog<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

You see, I still love Element and the people who I worked closely with there but unfortunately those people are ultimately powerless to steer the ship that is the conglomerate that owns Element. And it has become clearer and clearer to me that the parent company of Element is only looking to build their business and improve their bottom line on the backs of people like me. They can buy admiration but they can\u2019t buy achievement. They can own skateboard companies but they\u2019ll never be skaters. And this really bothers me. It bothers me so much that I can no longer give one ounce of my energy or another second of my time to their cause. Thus, I\u2019ve started my own thing because I simply can\u2019t and won\u2019t be apart of their thing anymore.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No one ever questioned Mike Vallely’s commitment, nor his ability to march directly into battle<\/a><\/strong>. We just hope he can live <\/strong>By the Sword<\/a><\/strong>, and not the other way around.<\/p>\n

[Link: <\/strong>Mike Vallely<\/a><\/strong> via <\/strong>The Skateboard Mag<\/a><\/strong>]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday (July 14, 2010), when news began arriving that Mike Vallely was leaving Element Skateboards (and becoming one of the few objects to escape Billabong’s gravitational pull in recent weeks) we were too caught up in agreeing with Boil The Ocean’s take on the new company to get the official word from the man […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16926"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16926"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16930,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16926\/revisions\/16930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}