In 1962, fresh from Stanford business school, Phil Knight persuaded his father to lend him money for a trip around the world and pitched himself, with no company behind him, to the Japanese shoemaker Onitsuka Tiger. He came home as the American distributor of their running shoes and started selling them from the back of his car at track meets in Oregon.
The memoir covers the years from that crazy idea to Nike's public offering in 1980. Knight describes his partnership with Bill Bowerman, his old University of Oregon track coach, who tinkered with soles on a waffle iron, and the eccentric early employees who ran the business. Much of the drama is financial: constant cash crises, hostile banks, a bitter split with Onitsuka and the creation of the Nike brand and swoosh, plus a ruinous customs duty dispute.
Knight writes with unusual candour about self-doubt, mistakes and the toll on his family. Little of it reads like a corporate history; it is a story about persistence and the chaotic reality of starting a company. The final chapters step back to reflect on what the company cost him and on the people who made it possible, giving the memoir an unexpectedly moving close.
Book details
| Author | Phil Knight |
|---|---|
| First published | 2016 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Memoir |
| Type | Non-fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 386 |
| Setting | Oregon and Japan, 1962-1980 |
Themes
- Entrepreneurship
- Persistence
- Partnership
- Risk
- Sport
Who should read it
Aspiring founders and sports fans who want an honest account of how messy and uncertain building a business really is.
If you liked this, try
- Steve Jobs
- Zero to One
- The Ride of a Lifetime