Written by Phil Knight, published in 2016. Summary, review, and spoilers ahead.
Shoe Dog is a memoir, which is kind of like an autobiography except it’s not the whole life story. Shoe Dog chronicles the early days of Nike as Phil Knight starts what will ultimately become one of the most recognizable companies and brands in the world.
The story spans, primarily, 1962 through 1979, though the last chapter or two does cover in high level some aspects of the Nike we all have come to know. That said, we get an early and detailed look at how things began at Nike, which I learned wasn’t always called Nike – but started as Blue Ribbon Sports for several years before ultimately changing its name.
We start in 1962 when Phil was a recent college grad, and self-described as no drugs, no sex, and no revolution… very unlike the times. As a drifting young and eager future businessman (or really, a business, man) he essentially took his Stanford Business School project, which was on shoes, and leveraging some of Dad’s startup money, created a company.
Side Note – I like the quote that Phil cites as having a strong influence on his style (very early on), which was from General George Patton which states, “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” This quote hit home pretty hard for me. And it certainly holds true with how Phil manages his team throughout our story. Quote approved!
Phil, as was new to me, was (is) heavily influenced by Japanese culture. Which, in 1962 was cemented on a trip around the world with the highlight being Japan (among making some contacts there that would assist throughout most of his early days).
Upon his return, he hit the ground running (pun intended) with Blue Ribbon Sports. A company he started to resell Tiger shoes, a Japanese shoe brand that had, in Phil’s view, a superior product and not much market share in the states. He quickly partnered with Oregon track coaches and had decent success selling those shoes out of the trunk of his car. Going from track meet to track meet across the Pacific Northwest. I don’t know why this shocked me, but it did. Guess we all start somewhere.
Also, quite interesting was how he had to take on an additional “normal” job to help pay the bills and keep things afloat and how for years, and I mean like nearly 20 years, he was always running from paycheck to paycheck. Barely making ends meet. I have no idea how he lived this way. Feels like one giant gamble that goes on constantly for 2 decades. Always in over his head. Obviously it worked out… but I digress.
By 1975 he’s grown quite a bit, but still barely making ends meet. He fails to repay a $1M bank loan and stares bankruptcy directly in the face. He also faces fraud charges from the FBI for some dubious business practices and accounting tactics. He manages to dodge this bullet at the 11th hour from the assistance of a Japanese contact.
It was also in 1975 that Phil’s star athlete, Vince Prefontaine (aka Pre) dies unexpectedly in a car wreck at the ripe old age of 24. Phil, and really the nation, looked up to this kid as a phenomenal track athlete.
A year later, in 1976, Blue Ribbon (which was recently rebranded as Nike) launches their “waffle trainers” which blow up in popularity. His partner had been experimenting with various chemicals and materials to create a better running sole and used a literal waffle iron to create the first prototypes. Nike is now culturally iconic.
From here things really start to accelerate, with signing several Olympians to their roster and expansions into several college sports programs. That said, now with $14M in sales, he’s still flying by the seat of his pants.
His team is growing, as the more they sell the more he borrows, and the cycle ever continues. He must keep feeding the beast.
Side note – huge fan that he called his inner circle of employees the “butt faces”. Just great.
In 1977, Nike starts landing deals with movie stars in Hollywood. Farrah Fawcett rocks a pair on Charlie’s Angels. Pretty rad.
That same year, a collection of Nike’s competitors band together and lobby the US Gov to prompt an import/trade bill that lands Nike a back-tax bill to the tune of $25M. Absolutely crippling news and would be game over for Phil and team. However, Phil pushes on, ultimately calling all congressmen he can himself and reverse lobbying. This goes on for a few years.
In 1980, Chinese laws are loosening, and Phil sees the opportunity to expand overseas and wants to be first in the new market. Knowing the first to do business there will have the advantage. He is right.
He also counter sues in 1980 for the $25M back-tax bill citing competitors for using illegal business practices. With fear properly instilled, they decide to settle for $7M. But Phil had kicked the can long enough and continued to drive ever growing sales (basically doubling every year) and the final decision to IPO, he’s got the cash to cover (and then some).
Phil structures the IPO so that he retains control of the company through Class A and B shares and immediately mints him a millionaire. $178M to be exact. Which in 2023 dollars is equivalent to $658M dollars. So yeah… he goes from barely keeping things alive, to filthy ungodly rich in the matter of like 2 seconds. Why did he wait so long? Apparently he didn’t know he could retain control after IPO’ing. Kind of think a little research there early on could’ve solved that… but whatevs.
Fun fact. Nike IPO’s the same week as Apple. I wish I had owned both at the time.
It’s at this point, the memoir basically ends. He has a chapter or two about the cool things that Nike has since done, but it’s less a cohesive story at this point, and more just random things that he’s been able to do since then. You don’t get any dirty details about Jordans or anything. I assume he may release a Vol. 2 at some point, but that’s pure speculation.
TLDR: Shoe Dog was a fun look into the early days of Nike. Much like The Accidental Billionaires story of the early days of Facebook (also reviewed on this site) you get some cool details from well before Nike as we’ve all come to know it. I quite enjoyed this book; especially given I knew very little of this particular part in Nike’s history. Solid read. 4/5 Stars.
