Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE

I had heard of Phil Knight, but I didn’t know about Phil Knight. Anyone who knows me well will tell you I have an unexplainable attachment to the Adidas brand. In fact, I had to double check in disbelief but I truly don’t own anything from the Nike range in my wardrobe. That is why reading this book initially felt like a disloyalty in a major way. I had bought myself this copy a while back but I kept putting it further down my reading list, until I eventually succumbed to all the good reviews I read about it. Now I know a book is awesome when I feel the need to take it with me to the toilet seat. This particular one debuted as early as the first chapter. I was engrossed. Reading books by self-made milli or billionaires can sometimes be daunting. Sometimes they get so caught up in the me, me, me moments that it becomes difficult to read through the pages without rolling your eyes and silently thinking to yourself, ‘get over yourself already’. Not this one though. I could relate to this man. Right from the start, I appreciated how human Phil Knight was. A sell for me is always a book where the author allows themselves to be vulnerable. Phil Knight just laid it all out, from 1962 to 1980, he tells the story of not only the making of the brand, but the making of the man too. He tells you how he succumbed to using the Nike name (suggested by one of his eccentric employees, Jeff Johnson) because they had run out of time and a name had to go on the shoe. If it were up to him that brand would today be knows as Dimension Six. 🤦🏽‍♀️ Nike is the Greek goddess of victory so in a way the name embodied everything that Phil Knight was striving for. In 1972, he begrudgingly accepted the name and told himself it would grow on him. Until this point Phil Knight owned a company known as Blue Ribbon which acted as a distributor for Japanese based Onitsuka Tiger Company (today known as Asics). He had however had a fallout with Mr. Onitsuka and there was an urgent need to rebrand. Another thing that makes you warm up to Phil Knight in his book is how he seemed mostly in favor of the underdog. His employees were not the typical (or even athletic) type of people you would pick for the kind of dream he had, but they had one thing in common, each one of them was a Shoe Dog. Phil Knight openly admits to how in his quest to build an empire, he wasn’t the best of dads. He talks about his strained relationship with his son Matt who died while scuba diving in May 2004 and that part just moved me to tears. He talks about fall outs with close friends and partners, espionage, the backlash from competitors, near bankruptcy, he even admits to writing off Magic Johnson and calling him the player with no position that would never make it in the NBA. He talks about the kind or relationship he has with Tiger and why to this day he will hear no ill word spoken of him. He even briefly talks about what became known as the sweatshop controversy. This could easily have been a fairytale but it is an honest, entertaining memoir that every book lover must read. My only question perhaps is why he makes no mention of his daughter anywhere in his memoir and even the internet seems to have very little detail about her. At this point I figure I am a little sold to the idea of owning my first pair of Nike shoes. Cortez perhaps?🤔🤔🤔

I was a little dubious when I saw so many 5 star reviews for this book here, but after reading this I have to say I wholeheartedly agree. This memoir by Phil Knight explores the travel adventures he went on after finishing college and the world view it gave him. It then looks at how he set up the business that eventually became Nike and how he battled adversity and his competitors to become one of the most respected global sports brands. Each chapter follows a year in the life of the founder and his business from the early 60's up until 1980. At the end it mentions briefly where the company is at at the time of writing to conclude things in a satisfying way, although I'd happily read a second part that continues on from where this book leaves off. His tenacity shines through on every page and I also developed a greater appreciation of Nike and their ethos as a business. After the Sweatshop scandal in the 90's I was a little hesitant about buying their products, but he touches upon this aspect of the business and the subsequent deeper understanding of what drives this company has made me see them in a new light. The writing is clear and engaging and he manages to tell a story in such a way that makes you want to keep turning the pages until the end and entertains whilst also imparting some business knowledge at the same time. This is invaluable for those starting a business and a damn good read for those of us who just enjoy a good memoir/autobiography. Highly recommended.

Wonderful book, very well written. If it had stopped a few pages before the end I would have given it 5 stars. This is the extraordinary story of single-minded determination, of the gritty development of Nike as a company over its first 20 years or so. Their final success was achieved by going Public, which was good and even necessary for the business. But as a reader the final chapter leaves the wrong taste in one's mouth as it were. Name-dropping Warren Buffett and Bill Gates (they meet at a cinema in Palm Springs) just doesn't sit right after hearing the tough challenges of the first penny-scrimping period. I would rather not know how the multi-billlionaires live, or at least that wasn't why I read the book. I understand (I think) why Phil Knight wrote that last chapter, but for me it gave a slightly sour note to a book which I had felt (up to the point of my having read that final chapter) was one of the best I had read in the past 20 years. Highly recommended, I suppose I should say. I just wish he hadn't bothered writing that final chapter.

A great book. Interesting learning about the Nike history. Written in a way that you always want to read more.

Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike, provides a captivating and inspiring look into the journey of building one of the most iconic brands in the world. Knight's storytelling is raw and honest, capturing both the relentless struggles and the thrilling victories of his path from a small, risky startup to a global powerhouse. With insights into entrepreneurship, perseverance, and creativity, *Shoe Dog* resonates deeply with readers who crave real, behind-the-scenes stories. This memoir is not only a tale of business success but also a celebration of the power of vision, making it a must-read for aspiring entrepreneurs and fans of true storytelling alike.

This book is a perfectly cohesive narrative telling the story of the origins, rise, perils, and ultimate success of Nike. The author portrays himself as extremely human and uncertain, and as flawed as Amy other character in the book. And yet his and his colleagues’ exceptional mature is shown repeatedly in their actions during harrowing misadventures and competitive disruptions.

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.

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.

Great easy read Couldn’t put down Shows you the ups and down necessary to become successful What a legend he was

This book is definitely a must read for all entrepreneurs. Very well written, easy to read, it describes the Nike empire birth and the personality of Phil Knight. This guy deserves Respect. For some people, I heard he was/is the most hated CEO in US because of his raise, but I invite you all to read and know what the guy had been through, and how well he manage it. What I also like, this book has no boring part, goes straight to the point, no blabla to make extra pages such as many authors is this field. 5 stars for me !