A Brief Book Review of Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
In 1977, five years after its founding, Nike introduced an ad campaign with a simple yet powerful ethos. Next to a picture of a lone runner along a country road was the following: “Beating the competition is relatively easy. Beating yourself is a never-ending commitment”. It captured the relentless, competitive nature of the company at the time and, I would venture, the spirit of this remarkable memoir. In ”Shoe Dog”, notions of victory and defeat loom larger than Olympian gods; they bless or curse the effort, teamwork, reflections, ambitions, preparations, and will power of the mere mortals in this story, of which our narrator Phil Knight, co-founder of the company, is most prominent. But he is hardly the only intriguing one. We follow him, and his very own Penelope, on this hilarious, detail-rich Odyssean narrative, as he meets captivating and cleverly described characters such as workaholic bookworm and first Nike employee Jeff Johnson, Oregon track coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman, American track legend and early company spokesman Steve Prefontaine, and numerous Japanese businessmen (most notably the diabolical Kitami and the wise Hasuro Mayami). The book covers 1962 to 1980, with a tender and heart warming epilogue in the 21st century. Despite being one of the world’s most well known and popular companies, this story is full of surprises. Did you know that until its IPO in 1980, Nike flirted with bankruptcy nearly every year, as it grew like a weed but stretched its thin cash balances to the limit? Did you know that for its first ten years despite being known for its shoe innovations and rebellious advertising, Nike only hired accountants and lawyers? There are heartwarming father and son stories here, lessons on frugality and capital allocation, meditations on burnout and international trade, and a fair bit of poetry. One of the best business memoirs I have read. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.