Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

by Phil Knight Narrated by Norbert Leo Butz, Phil Knight

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Part-memoir, part-business, and wholly inspirational, get into the nitty-gritty of how a motivated self-starter built a multi-billion dollar empire from the ground up.

In this instant and tenacious New York Times bestseller, Nike founder and board chairman Phil Knight “offers a rare and revealing look at the notoriously media-shy man behind the swoosh” (Booklist, starred review), illuminating his company's early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world's most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.

Bill Gates named Shoe Dog one of his five favorite books of the year and called it “an amazing tale, a refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like. It's a messy, perilous, and chaotic journey, riddled with mistakes, endless struggles, and sacrifice. Phil Knight opens up in ways few CEOs are willing to do.”

Fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed fifty dollars from his father and launched a company with one simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost running shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his car in 1963, Knight grossed eight thousand dollars that first year. Today, Nike's annual sales top $30 billion. In this age of start-ups, Knight's Nike is the gold standard, and its swoosh is one of the few icons instantly recognized in every corner of the world.

But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always been a mystery. In Shoe Dog, he tells his story at last. At twenty-four, Knight decides that rather than work for a big corporation, he will create something all his own, new, dynamic, different. He details the many risks he encountered, the crushing setbacks, the ruthless competitors and hostile bankers-as well as his many thrilling triumphs. Above all, he recalls the relationships that formed the heart and soul of Nike, with his former track coach, the irascible and charismatic Bill Bowerman, and with his first employees, a ragtag group of misfits and savants who quickly became a band of swoosh-crazed brothers.

Together, harnessing the electrifying power of a bold vision and a shared belief in the transformative power of sports, they created a brand-and a culture-that changed everything.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

The ultimate entrepreneur’s guide to the top of the mountain. I could not put it down. . . . [Shoe Dog] builds characters of the people behind the brand.”—Bill Walton, Wall Street Journal

"A fresh historical perspective on one of the most profiled companies in the world." —ESPN.com

“A refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like. . . . Knight opens up in a way few CEOs are willing to do. . . . It’s an amazing tale.”—Bill Gates, one of his favorite books of 2016

"The best memoir I recall ever reading. As a business biography, it ranks with such recent works as Neal Gabler’s Disney and Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs. But as a personal memoir Shoe Dog reaches a depth of emotional honesty that even the best biographies haven’t touched."—Rich Karlgaard, Forbes

“A fascinating warts-and-all account of the company’s early years, a rascally tale of scrappiness and survival, a great read.”—Motley Fool

“A rare and revealing look at the notoriously media-shy man behind the swoosh.”—Booklist (starred review)

"Shoe Dog is, at its heart, an origin story, of both a global brand and a footwear lifer . . . it reads like pure adventure story, boys facing steeper and steeper challenges and finding ways through, often by the skin of their teeth. As Knight collects the misfits and oddballs who become the core of his growing company, Shoe Dog is more like The Lord of the Rings than a typical mogul memoir."—Complex

“‘The best book I read last year. Phil is . . . a gifted storyteller.”—Warren Buffett

MAY 2016 - AudioFile

Many listeners will recall when Nike was an upstart sneaker company. Phil Knight, cofounder and chairman, writes page-turner prose about his adventures in making the company the brand we know today. Narrator Norbert Leo Butz is no less impressive. He infuses his delivery with drama and suspense, keeping the listener engaged with each chapter. Knight claims to be a shy introvert, but Butz isn’t fooled, portraying the chairman as a straight-shooting, no-nonsense leader who keeps winning because he’s relentless in his pursuit of success. Nike had a shaky beginning, but the intrepid “Swoosh” couldn’t be stopped. Butz supplies listeners with the story behind it all. E.E.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2016-05-06
Nike mogul Knight charts the rise of his business empire, a world leader in athletic wear.The title of the memoir is apt, for much of it is a rather dogged struggle through the minutiae of shoe distributorship and manufacture, with all the deals and lawsuits that entails. Knight began that journey more than half a century ago, when, as a young entrepreneur-in-training, it occurred to him that there might be room in the American marketplace for Japanese running shoes. He wrote a paper to that effect. "Being a business buff," he recounts, "I knew that Japanese cameras had made deep cuts into the camera market, which had once been dominated by Germans. Thus, I argued in my paper that Japanese running shoes might do the same thing." There was much hope in that thesis, for this was back in the day before Steve Prefontaine came along to help Knight press his case to runners everywhere. From that start, Knight built what has been reckoned to be a $30 billion-per-year business. He is proud to tell that story, as one might expect, but there's some score-settling to do: the bad guys include a Japanese shoe manufacturer who couldn't make a straight deal, a competitor called the Marlboro Man (who, admittedly, was "poaching our poaching"), tennis ace Jimmy Connors (whose agent, backing away from an endorsement agreement, insisted, "I don't remember any deal. We've already got a deal three times better than your deal, which I don't remember"), and a few other such impediments. The story, though with many merits, is rather listless. Unfortunately, much of the book conforms to the dry formulas of business writing, borrowing in turn from business speechifying: tell a joke, show a slide, read the text and expand on the bullet points, move to the next slide. By the numbers, to be sure, but students of business, for whom Nike is a well-established case study, may want to have this view straight from the source.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170537709
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	04/26/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	535,785

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