Shoe Dog

Wow. I loved this book. Having worked with Nike on a few jobs, I had a lot of gaps of its history. This book isn't so much about shoes as it is about the epic journey of entrepreneurship, friendship, and self-discovery. Knight writes with such honesty and humility at times, it's hard to believe that this is the man worth billions that created the most iconic sports apparel brand in the world. What I like most is Knight's mindset. He had determination and fire in his belly. His belief in his brand was relentless despite some major setbacks. And in this book, he talks about a lot of them. The only part that got sluggish for me was the end with all the US government negotiations stuff. Other than that, it was a very interesting read. It's a bonus that it was written from an Oregonian because I'm a Native Oregonian--and never have I been so proud to be one. His talk about the Men of Oregon echoes the kind of things pioneers and founding fathers sound like. You can tell that Knight wanted to leave a legacy in he could be proud. He was grateful for his roots. They way Knight talks about Steve Prefontaine is so endearing. It was interesting to hear an insider's version of this amazing track athlete. In fact, because I knew so little about Pre, I started to feel like a bad Oregonian (in my defense, he did die before I was born). Now I know why everything that Nike stands for can be traced in the spirit of Pre. He was a charismatic rebel with a cause. (If you go to the Nike HQ museum, they still loop his Olympic run on an old television.) Through it all, you get a sense of what loyalty and friendship meant to Knight: it's literally the glue that held his business together. Since I'm friends with many Nike directors and executives, it's clear now why most of them have worked there for over thirty years (I think their campus badges are black). That's practically unheard of. I'm biased because I've done work with Nike and grew up in Portland. But I'm unbiased in that I'm a loyal fan of Asics running shoes. Ironically, that's how Knight built his empire so I don't feel all that bad. Still, I do have lots of Nike gear and now I look at it a whole lot differently. The swoosh is much brighter than before. Part of my neutrality with Nike was all the talk about the sweat shops in the late 1990's. Knight clearly gives his two cents on that towards the end of the book which still leaves room to interpret the whole issue. But now I see both sides of the coin. Since they changed their tune, put more money into philanthropies (hundreds of millions), and are the model for corporate sustainable development, ultimately I think they're a good force in the universe. Reading this book I soon realized that no matter what Knight was talking about--Nike's flaws or Nike's triumphs--he was a great storyteller. Just as he mentions embedding his sons into historical events in their nightly bedtime story, Knight mindfully embeds the reader into the history of Oregon, America, and the shoe industry. Somehow he made it all sound exciting. I was worried that the book would not be complete. It doesn't have a table of contents so until you get it, you don't know that it's the history of Nike from 1962-1980. Each year is a chapter, and then he sums up the last twenty years of Nike in a chapter at the end. But it all makes sense: Knight ends the book in the year he took his company public. I'm sure he had more adventures to tell, but he got out the main story of all of his hard-fought battles with competitors, athletes, governments, and ultimately himself. Since I've been to the HQ (which employees call the campus), I know there are dozens of more stories. They're all bigger than life. Each building has a history of its own and every time I'm out there, they're building another cluster of buildings. (I was told they stopped naming buildings after people who are alive because of the Lance Armstrong debacle.) Pretty soon they'll buy the whole town of Beaverton and just call it Nike Town. There are stories like Tiger Woods breaking a glass window that houses the lap pool--an entire football field away. That's what you get with Nike: incredible story after incredible story. Guess what the call the marketing department? Nike Story. It makes perfect sense. It's where they articulate the soul of Nike to the world. If there ever was a company with soul, Nike is it. (No pun intended: sole/soul.) This book really captures the amazing story of a businessman and his vision. Anyone interested in entrepreneurship, teamwork, leadership, track, shoes, or Oregon should pick it up for sure. You won't regret it!

I loved the first two thirds of this book. It was so alive, so luminous, that I lived those early years with him, just as he did. It was exciting and moving and I had to keep on reading to the very end. The vibrancy of the book dropped for me, in the last third, but maybe that's just me. Perhaps as was true for Phil Knight, things changed to being far more "corporate" about the time he transformed his business into a publicly-traded corporation. He then enacted a dress code, to avoid offending bankers, financial backers, and other financial types, which sadly offended some of his leading associates, who cared so much for the free-wheeling style that appealed to them, that they had adopted as they gave their all for the company. In a moving part, one of them left, and went over to the enemy, Adidas, after the corporate listing on the stock exchange had resulted in a transformation made everything a bit more "corporate," and less intimate and personal. I noticed how much my passion for the book dropped off, once he had become a multi-millionaire. Then it was all about how much of the millions and the success he earned for his friends, early backers, and shareholders... A wonderfully human and appealing fellow, willing to risk everything, time and again, who became enmeshed in a high end corporate lifestyle, with a bit too little in time for his lovely wife and two boys. A charming man, a decent man, quite caught up in his struggles to evolve his company, which he did, as it slowly changed him, notably. Earlier, he had traveled the world in a wondrous journey before embarking on founding his company: Hawaii, Japan, Thailand, India, Egypt, London, to name a few, and merely mentioning them do not do the trip justice at all. He was in search of a truer more authentic version of himself--which he found along the way, along with a love story that was both quite charming and very touching. This delightful woman, met on Mt. Fuji, later drifted away, declaring him "too unsophisticated." The question that haunts me a bit: was there a sense in which she was right all along? Perhaps she was, in a way, that then I could not even begin to see, that emerged only at the end. What I wonder is whether the Universe was actually guiding him to remain a bit smaller, more of a butterfly than an eagle, with truer values, for him? Only he will ever know. Nike is a profound success as a company, and much admired. He created it, with his will and his passion, truly out of nothing. That is a remarkable story.

I have to say I only picked up Shoe Dog, Nike's Phil Knight's autobiography (or *memoir*? What's the difference?), because of it's mention on Gates Notes, Bill Gates' blog, where the Microsoft founder publishes an yearly holiday book list based on what were his top reads of the year (in this case, 2016). Here's what Gates had to say about the book: >[the] memoir, by the co-founder of Nike, is a refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like: messy, precarious, and riddled with mistakes. I’ve met Knight a few times over the years. He’s super nice, but he’s also quiet and difficult to get to know. Here Knight opens up in a way few CEOs are willing to do. I don’t think Knight sets out to teach the reader anything. Instead, he accomplishes something better. He tells his story as honestly as he can. It’s an amazing tale. I tend to trust book suggestions by people whose reading habits I admire. It's the case of Bill Gates. My trusting bias is leveraged by the facts that he's a very successful entrepreneur (maybe the most) and a very avid reader. These two traits lead me to believe that his suggestions will most likely be useful for other entrepreneurs and aspiring CEOs like me (since he's damn good at it) and well written (since he's very well read). Shoe Dog proved my assumptions right. The book has earned its place among a handful of other reads I consider powerful aides on my journey to build a long-lasting successful company. Made in America (by Sam Walton), The Hard Thing about Hard Things (by Ben Horowitz), Gringing it Out (Ray Kroc), Pour Your Heart Into It (by Howard Schultz) and now Shoe Dog, all have something in common: they discuss the hardships, sacrifices and joys involved in building such a legacy in a way that feels like these guys are your mentors meeting you for weekly 1-on-1s over coffee. Knight's book teaches us a lot about resilience ("don't ever stop"). Nike's cofounder fought a number of life-threatening fires during his journey, and maybe that's really a big part of building such a successful company: remaining in the game. He lost credit lines when his business depended on them; he repeatedly almost lost his partnership with Onitsuka (I didn't know Nike had started selling Jap shoes) when distributing them in the U.S. was the only business he had; he was fined for more than a year's revenue by the Government. But he lived to fight another day, meditating, counting backwards, running, doing "whatever it took to hold it together". I can relate to that. Another recurring theme in the book is Knight's reluctance in going public. Founding a company that's built to last is a commitment that's best measured in decades, and so an IPO was very far from his goal, a vision unlike Silicon Valley's. We all see many startups going public with founders holding less than 10% of the equity, and quickly stepping down to start other companies and do it all over again. Building a huge company takes a very long time, and the really great founders behind the really great companies do everything in their power to remain in control (see Google, Facebook and Amazon). So knowing he'd be around for decades running Nike was a huge factor in Knight's holding up an IPO as far as he could, so that he wouldn't abide too much equity, and I think he was right. I, too, want to build Qulture.Rocks for the long long run. He says "the cowards never started, and the weak died along the way." He might as well have said "the cowards never started, and the weak died - or sold out - along the way". Of course, that really stems from the fact that he wasn't really chasing money, but the amazing road that's building a company for the long-term. Reflecting on his 30-plus years with Nike, he looks back and reflects on the journey being the end goal, "because, honestly, I wished I could do it all over again". That helps a lot to put my path in perspective... Remembering all the sacrifices and hardships I've been going through are actually the thing I'll miss when all is conquered and set. Not that everybody thinks, or even should think, this way: that's the privilege of a small part of entrepreneurs, who do it for the love for their products and the excitement of building something bigger than themselves. Another thing I could relate was Knight's view of the importance of money in building Nike, not as the endgame, but as a means to build greater things: "For us, business was no more about making money than being human is about making blood". I can also relate to that. I'd love to be selling ten times what I'm selling right now so I could hire more talent, build a great office and pay top dollar to our amazing team. And that's what money's for. That's enough. If your a founder trying to build a great company, read it.

This book is about an entrepreneur’s journey, how one man took on the giants and won. The Dassler brothers, founders of Puma and Adidas, began their business in 1924 and Phil Knight began his in 1963. Over the past 18 years of writing reviews, I don’t think I have reviewed more than 3 autobiographies. My experience has been that hardly any avoid being little more than an airbrushed account of an extraordinary genius, with depth of character and business prowess, written by the paragon him or herself. My visceral response to an autobiography is – ignore. Shoe Dog came to my attention in 2017, and I ignored it. A week ago, a client, still in her mid-30s, and half way to building her company into a billion-dollar business, raved about the book. I share her enthusiasm for this autobiography. Let me tell you why. If you are looking for ‘my 7 secrets of great success’ in this book, you will find only one. And for that one, this 400-page book is not worth the effort. So why would Bill Gates call this book “…an amazing tale”? Primarily because, as Gates says, “Knight opens up in a way that few CEOs are willing to do.” There are no two businesses that could possibly follow the same paths to success. Every business is one of a kind, with a unique history, built by unique people, facing unique challenges, and responding in their uniquely flawed way. Everything about this book links back to Phil Knight’s love for running. His humourless, stern and brilliant college track coach, Bill Bowerman, eventually became one of his earliest business partners. This was a man who would take the athletes’ shoes from their locker, tear them apart, examine them and redo them. He understood that if you remove one ounce from a shoe, you remove over fifty pounds from the runner. It was Bowerman who used his wife’s waffle iron to develop the soles for which Nike became famous. In one of the many beautifully written passages in a remarkably well written book, Knight describes watching a race in which the legendary middle-distance runner, Steve Prefontaine participated. The joy and agony Knight and his wife experienced is described vividly – Knight was no passive spectator: he was experiencing the tension of the athletes, their physical exertion, their ‘digging deep’ into personal reserves to push through the last moments before the finish. At the end of the meeting, Knight describes – in passing – the physical exertion he experienced as a spectator, and the beauty and the art of these athletes. Knight, trained as an accountant, didn’t start his sports shoe business, Blue Ribbon, because he had a vision of manufacturing sports shoes, and turning them into a universal, essential clothing item across the globe. He didn’t have the strong desire to get rich as even a part of his decision-making criteria. Throughout his business career he chose not to make real money in favour of other decision criteria: not spoiling the culture of the business by listing, or selling to the wrong people. The culture of Nike is possibly best described as wild, made up of “losers”, (a disabled athlete confined to a wheel chair; an obese accountant who would never make partner in his firm because he was so large; a needy and obsessive letter-writing lawyer.) But all were perfect in their positions and each a “Buttface” as the inner circle was called. The interactions in the company were forceful, crude and remorseless, which is why truth was heard. No, they were not polite and sensitive: in fact, the essential common denominator across the various Buttfaces was a thick-skin. For most of the history of the company, from the early days when it was still called Blue Ribbon to its emergence as Nike, the company was cash-strapped. All but the last chapters of the book had an underlying theme of financial survival. Initially it was to pay the few thousand dollars to be able to buy the next shipment of shoes from the Japanese manufacturer, to having the bank cut off their credit line, to being sued by the Customs Department for $25m of unpaid fees for an obscure tax (finally reduced to $9m.) And all this time, there was an escape route – go public. And each time it was rejected because of what it might do to the ethos of the company. So, what is the only lesson you will learn from this book? It is not that Knight was the quintessential, ‘Jack Welsh’ quality manager - confident, kind, clear thinking, and a team player. As a text-book manager Knight would not make even a department head. He is shy, introspective, and does not praise, or give much feedback unless it is to solve problems. The lesson is passion. Having real passion for what you are investing your time, effort and money in. Real passion. The stuff that makes you thrill when you see a master take the race, with the grace of an artist, drawing down on resources he never knew he had. A level of passion that leads you to doing things you may regret – like being sorry your wife will not stay an extra day in hospital after giving birth to your second son, because you wanted to attend an athletics meeting. Passion is why you teach accountancy to support your micro-business of selling superb running shoes. Passion is running almost every day of your life, knowing how important shoes are. Passion is when you enthusiastically encourage and support others who are masters of your passion – the athletes. And passion is the drive to see your heroes in your Nikes, not Adidas. Passion is what makes an accounting graduate into a “shoe dog”, strong enough to take the whipping that life and business deals you. Passion is the only thing that will keep you going, and digging deep into mental and physical reserves you never knew you had. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur you will grow in important ways from reading this book. If you are asked what you learned, you may not be able to articulate a single lesson beyond ‘passion.’ But this is all about you, the entrepreneur, and reading the frank account of the journey of a founder-CEO now worth $10b, will be a meaningful experience. Readability Light -+--- Serious Insights High +---- Low Practical High ----+ Low *Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy, and is the author of the recently released ‘Executive Update.’

It may seem surprising that a review of a “sports book” would appear on my site, where book reviews are essentially reserved for the domain of politics and economics. But that surprise would stem from a gigantic misunderstanding, for Shoedog is no “sports book.” Rather, it is a virtual economics textbook. And one every business student in America should read. Indeed, it is one a certain White House occupant should read as well. For those interested in sports, as I am, history, as I am, and business, as I am, this book was a tremendous synthesis of the three, in the particular context of describing the birth of one of the greatest brands in American history – indeed, in world history … I doubt the story of a company’s founding and rise to greatness has ever ended a couple decades before the company’s peak, but that is the genius of Shoedog. Nike founder, Phil Knight, begins the story of this iconic brand at the most embryonic of stages, and ends the story in 1980, at their public offering, despite two and a half decades of utter domination that commenced subsequently. The story of Nike to us mere mortals is Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, and “Just Do It.” But as readers of this fine book will discover, the real story of Nike took place in the late 1960’s and throughout the 1970’s, as the formative challenges that make a business took place. And if any company would become rightful heir to “Just Do It” — it was Nike. Nike has employed hundreds of thousands of people over the decades, and has created untold amounts of wealth by giving consumers something they wanted: Initially, a high quality running shoe; eventually, a brand — a belief — an affiliation. But the genius of finding future basketball, track, and golf stars to endorse the brand was a small part of the story of this company’s ascension. The genius that created Nike is the genius of this book: It focused on personnel management, on global cost synergies, on harnessing an international supply chain the likes of which the world had never seen, on overcoming legal adversity, and above all else, managing the challenges of liquidity and capital that nearly any company faces in the early innings of their existence. This is an economics book. It is a tribute to the miracle of free trade which has created more wealth than any other phenomena in the history of civilization. It is a rebuke of the evils of crony capitalism and those rent-seeking piranhas who would attempt to use government alliances to strangle healthy competition. We are living in an era when forces on the right and the left are capitulating to a childish view of globalization — one seeking to make it a bogeyman for anything and everything — and ignoring the absolutely indisputable evidence for the enhancement of quality of life globalization has created. Few companies better illustrate what matching willing buyers and sellers around the world can mean for consumers, for producers, for shareholders, for employees, and for indeed all stakeholders in a given organization than Nike. While countless others do, for it is a universal lesson, Nike is the story of a young man and his track coach creating $100 billion of wealth that has circulated across a vast, vast ecosystem, by understanding the miracles of global trade. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough for one looking for a biographical narrative version of an economics lesson, versus the academic attempts that often prove too dry. The story of Shoedog was anything but dry, and the message of Shoedog is anything but trite.

One can’t argue with success and I can’t think of a more successful person than Phil Knight. His autobiography, “Shoe Dog,” reveals secrets of his accomplishments in the development of his mega firm, Nike. I know Phil Knight’s secret of success. He uses people. He captures them with his acuity at perceiving dedication and a sense of responsibly. Then he ignores them as they attend to their job. If they stumble, despite his abhorrence of micromanaging, he demonstrates strong guidance because poor performance invariably brings a personal visit from him. He also has an aversion to most standard business practices. He makes bankers nervous with his edge of the chasm financial condition. He will saw the legs off a perceived competitor. He is unfazed by seeking money from any source that might have it. He gets in the face of employees, suppliers, sales reps, or anyone else who lets him down. In short, he knows which pile of crap that, when stirred, brings the sweet smell of success. If you think I’m being critical of Knight or his methods, you are wrong. I believe that he is incredibly intelligent, moral, and astute in his business practices. The people who may have been used should have no complaints. They have become immensely successful and prosperous as Nike has become the bellwether for success under Knight’s leadership. There are many milestones in Knight’s book. The Japanese company that originally produced his Blue Ribbon shoes gets its comeuppance for poor performance; Knight gets new, more innovative financing. The first shipment of Nike shoes, manufactured in Mexico, arrive just in time for a big show but have a crappy finish and crooked swooshes; he makes do. Bill Bowerman’s innovative waffle sole, described in Patent #284,736 as “having integral polygon shaped studs…of square, rectangular or triple cross section…[and] a plurality of flat sides which…give greatly improved traction,” provide a great boon for the fledgling company. The signing of Nike’s first professional sports star, tennis player Ilie Nastase, is the start of lucrative endorsements by universally recognized athletes. These are a few examples of the hurdles Knight sails over. He writes about his voyage with clarity, using marvelous language, as he recounts riveting personal triumphs (along with some flops). His steely-eyed pursuit of his goals is truly inspirational. I learned a great deal about him, including his respect and inspirational relationship with his father. It’s apparent that this love has much to do with his successful life’s story. It carries over to the essence and success of his team. “Shoe Dog” is an entrancing read from an icon in the business world. Yet it’s not another self-indulgent recital of personal greatness and achievement. It’s immensely personable and readable, allowing the essence of the man to shine through. It’s inspiring. Schuyler T Wallace Author of TIN LIZARD TALES

I bought my first pair of Nike running shoes back in 1980. I was in the U.S. Air Force, assigned to the Presidential Honor Guard, and going through difficult times. My friend talked me into running...but I wasn't a runner. In fact, my nickname from third grade until graduation was "Old Man," as I was always the slowest kid on any team. But I wanted a change and so told him I would run with him. I didn't own running shoes, didn't know anything about them. But my friend did...and took me to buy a pair of Nike shoes; I was captivated by the waffle soles. Move forward many years and I become more aware of Nike through the world of professional football. And not in a good way. My military veteran friends were saying tough stuff about Nike. My sense of Nike was still good but now a bit tainted. Upon retirement, I started running with a vengeance. I tried a variety of shoes...Nike recaptured my imagination and sense of adventure. I'm so glad. And then I found this incredible book. I could not put it down. Not only did I read it, I lived it as though I were there. I laughed, I wept, I was anxious and nervous and frustrated, and I was very hopeful. I heard Phil's voice through every written word. I learned so much about Nike, the Swoosh, about Phil, about Bowerman and Pre...and many, many other names that are so well known today. I came to appreciate Phil's position on life and people and opportunities and team and purpose and value. And I came to better understand friendship and loyalty and, dare I say it, love. I hope you read the book at a fast pace, seeing each page in movement as though the story were taking place right before your eyes. And I hope you fall in love with this great company -- imagine, hearing about such legends as Bowerman and Pre and how Phil's Crazy Idea came to fruition...as if though Phil were speaking directly with you! You will be impacted, inspired...I know I was; it's simply amazing and the best book, apart from that which is holy, I've ever devoured.

At first, I thought I wouldn't finish this book. The first twenty-one pages had ink stains from whomever in production put the pages together. Though the ink blotches were a distraction, the writing, the words used and his story is compelling - until about page sixty, when I kept asking myself, "Was he a great businessman at the expense of his marriage, and his children?" Because he addressed this just when I paused to consider if I would finish this book, I kept reading. I was curious about his story, because I remember watching between the 70's and certainly more recently, many hurtles this company went through. I'm a runner, mostly as a result of having been in the army, and because running at o'dark thirty sets the pace for my day. With Colin Kaepernick taking a knee, and the white army soldier having encouraged him to take that knee, I wondered why Nikie is taking this position. What's the back story? Throughout this memoir, Mr. Knight and his "Buttface" leadership team, as they call themselves, describe in great detail how they turned the adversity of their individual lives, and the lives of others into "... taking a chance on people." One example in which Nike took a chance with the underdog was when they had experienced their first law suit. They took a risk with an attorney fresh out of law school, on a contingency basis. This attorney also didn't look like athletic. He was obese. But when this new attorney read the summary of the case, he described the case as a "holy crusade." And they won with honesty on their part, with blatant dishonesty on the plaintiff's part. Nike had come to represent a symbol of rebellion and iconoclasm. The leadership team embrace, among other things how the public loves to watch the athlete put total effort into what he or she is doing, even if the athlete is risking death. Because this memoir is so well written, I actually felt like I was watching a movie, or, even been their, every step of the way. My vocabulary, business ideas, running technique, and awareness of power plays exponentially expanded as I read this memoir. It was interesting to notice the parallels between how he ignored letters from his first employee and the fact that he struggled with feeling respected and approved of by his father. It is also great how he described what it is like to be at the mercy of bankers, competitors, unscrupulous business partners, and being sued - until he and the team got indignant with themselves, and rose to the opportunity. I still have some questions, having read this book: 1. Will Mr. Knight write a book about sons feeling like they are growing up in the shadow of their fathers? 2. On page 186 of this memoir, it says, "The average person takes seventy-five hundred steps a day, 274 million steps over the course of a life, the equivalent of six times around the globe ..." How many miles is this? 3. Why did this book share very little about Michael Jordan, until the last few pages? 4. Three years have passed since this memoir was published, and since this became something on your bucket list. What's on your bucket list now? He truly is a "gifted storyteller," as Warren Buffett describes Phil Knight.

Throughly enjoyable. As a 30yr veteran expat in Japan I could feel his pain. I found myself giving him advice. I’ve recommended the book to several.

This is by far the best book I have ever read about entrepreneurship and never giving up. I have read a lot of books about people who have created successful businesses, but this is by far the best one I have ever read. Captivating from start to finish. I can’t wait to read it again.

I thoroughly enjoyed this candid and inspirational personal view into the life of Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. The story is told in a very approachable and compelling manner. Perhaps because I lean more toward biographies, I found it highly entertaining and hard to put down, but I believe it also has to do with the fact that book is very well written; simple and easy to follow.

Ich wusste schon als ich die Gratis-Probe anfing, dass ich dieses Buch lesen MUSS. Einfach Weltklasse. Als anfänglicher Entrepreneur hat mich dieses Buch Demut, Hoffnung und einen langen Atem gelehrt. Qualitäten die man kultivieren sollte, wenn man erfolgreich werden möchte. Eine wirklich einmalige Geschichte und darüber hinaus sehr gut geschrieben. Ich war überrascht! Also, wenn du noch haderst: Kauf es einfach. Es wird dich inspirieren! Dimitri Kanth

A very personal journey of Phil Knight recounted in an engaging and moving manner. Read this book previously and loved it so I bought it as a gift for a friend. Highly recommended!