Shoe Dog

by Phil Knight

And a discus shoe, which they called a Throw Up. Do not laugh, I told myself. Do not . . . laugh.

The cowards never started and the weak died along the way—that leaves us.

Supply and demand is always the root problem in business. It’s been true since Phoenician traders raced to bring Rome the coveted purple dye that colored the clothing of royals and rich people;

We were mostly Oregon guys, which was important. We had an inborn need to prove ourselves, to show the world that we weren’t hicks and hayseeds. And we were nearly all merciless self-loathers, which kept the egos in check. There was none of that smartest-guy-in-the-room foolishness.

Sir, with all respect, I’ve been all over the world, I’ve seen corrupt governments in undeveloped countries act this way. I’ve seen thugs push around businesses, with arrogance, with impunity, and I can’t believe my own government would behave in such a fashion.”

When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the lives of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer, or better, and when you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but so seldom is—you’re participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you’re helping others to live more fully, and if that’s business, all right, call me a businessman.

I fell asleep for a few hours. When I woke it was cold and rainy. I went to the window. The trees were dripping water. Everything was mist and fog. The world was the same as it had been the day before, as it had always been. Nothing had changed, least of all me. And yet I was worth $178 million.

The five thousand employees at the world headquarters in Beaverton are housed on an Edenic collegiate campus, with two hundred acres of wooded wilderness, laced by rolling streams, dotted by pristine ball fields. The buildings are named after the men and women who have given us more than their names and endorsements. Joan Benoit Samuelson, Ken Griffey Jr., Mia Hamm, Tiger Woods, Dan Fouts, Jerry Rice, Steve Prefontaine—they’ve given us our identity.

“You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you.” I forget if it was Nicholson or Freeman. The line is so true, so very true.

He’s one of the best storytellers in the history of Nike. My favorite, naturally, is the one about the day we went public. He sat his parents down and told them the news. “What does that mean?” they whispered. “It means your original eight-thousand-dollar loan to Phil is worth $1.6 million.” They looked at each other, looked at Woodell. “I don’t understand,” his mother said.

But that’s the nature of money. Whether you have it or not, whether you want it or not, whether you like it or not, it will try to define your days. Our task as human beings is not to let it.