Shoe Dog
"In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the 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. In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed $8,000 his first year. Today, Nike's annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of startups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all startups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognizable symbols in the world today. But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, in a memoir that is candid, humble, gutsy, and wry, he tells his story, beginning with his crossroads moment. At 24, after backpacking around the world, he decided to take the unconventional path, to start his own business--a business that would be dynamic, different. Knight details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream--along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls the formative relationships with his first partners and employees, a ragtag group of misfits and seekers who became a tight-knit band of brothers.
Stats for nerds
77recommend
114mentions
103people
2016–2025years
74% recommend25% neutral1% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I'm 38 years old and other than a couple years of moderate weightlifting with friends in my early 20s, I have never regularly exercised.
This year, I was able to change that. Funny enough, I read "Shoe Dog" for the business story, but finished the book with an interest in running. I think it was just the enthusiasm and lifestyle of running that was pervasive throughout the book. However, I've attempted to get into running before, and it only lasted a couple weeks.
This time, I tried again, but as an old-ass man, my motivations have changed. I just want consistency. I don't have a vision of winning any races, doing 20-mile trail runs, or other big ambitions. I just want to not die of a heart attack when I'm 45. I want to be in generally decent shape.
Laugh if you want, but as a complete novice, ChatGPT set me up with some cushy running shoes (Brooks Glycerins) and a basic goal: run for 30 minutes and try to keep my heart rate between 130 and 160bpm. This is more of maintaining a metric rather than trying to hit a lofty goal. From day one, you can achieve this success metric. It means your getting some moderate cardio. I bought a chest-strap heart rate monitor and linked it to a free app (Heart Graph) on my phone.
I'm now 8 weeks in, and I'm dedicated to the habit more than any goal. I feel a lot better, and by avoiding over-exertion and frustration from too lofty of a goal, I'm able to stay consistent without feeling miserable. I'm able to enjoy the "runner's high" without the cramps and misery that I endured in past attempts.
- Shoe Dog is a great book. That book + "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" by Murakami also had a similar effect on me.
- "Business" is so broad it's hard to give you recommendations without knowing what you're looking for. That's kind of the point of my post. But as one example, as I mentioned in my post, I loved Doom Guy. If you're building a business in the video game industry you should definitely check it out.
I would also recommend all of the other books in my post that I mentioned by different sub-genres (Shoe Dog, Radical Candor, etc.).
- list of (most of) the books mentioned in this thread so far. I tried reading every comment but used chatGPT instead.
1. The Big Rich - Texas oil boom.
2. Barbarians at the Gate - Private equity origins.
3. Masters of Doom - John Carmack and Id Software.
4. Einstein by Walter Isaacson - Einstein's discoveries.
5. Houdini!!! - The escape artist and magician.
6. The Double Helix - DNA discovery.
7. Stress Test by Tim Geithner - Financial crisis.
8. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl - Concentration camp survival.
9. The Chariots of Apollo - NASA's space program.
10. Across the Airless Wilds by Earl Swift - Development of the moon buggy.
11. Apollo: The Race to the Moon by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox - Apollo missions.
12. The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr - Food supply chains.
13. The Prize by Daniel Yergin - Oil industry evolution.
14. Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson - Ambitious wreck divers.
15. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes - Manhattan Project.
16. American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin - Robert Oppenheimer.
17. Conquistador by Buddy Levy - Hernán Cortés and the Aztecs.
18. Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner - Water infrastructure in the American West.
19. The Wright Brothers by David McCullough - The invention of flight.
20. Walt Disney by Neal Gabler - Vision and innovation in entertainment.
21. Tuxedo Park by Jennet Conant - Invention of radar.
22. Insisting on the Impossible - Edwin Land and instant photography.
23. The Logic of Failure - Understanding and avoiding failure.
24. The Big Short by Michael Lewis - 2008 financial crisis.
25. The Box by Marc Levinson - Shipping container revolution.
26. Latitude by Nicholas Crane - Cartography innovations.
27. When the Heavens Went on Sale by Ashlee Vance - Space startups.
28. The Founders by Jimmy Soni - PayPal's early days.
29. The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester - Precision engineering.
30. The Little Engine That Could - Children's classic.
31. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell - Success mechanics.
32. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight - Founding of Nike.
33. Black Hole Blues by Janna Levin - Building LIGO.
34. Freedom’s Forge - WWII industry mobilization.
35. Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes - Electrification by Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse.
36. The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough - Panama Canal construction.
37. Annapurna by Maurice Herzog - Climbing a Himalayan peak.
38. Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder - Data General engineers.
39. Showstopper by G. Pascal Zachary - Development of Windows NT.
40. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand - WWII survival.
41. The Measure of All Things by Ken Alder - Defining the meter.
42. The Cuckoo’s Egg by Clifford Stoll - Tracking a hacker.
43. The Man Who Knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel - Srinivasa Ramanujan.
44. The Power Broker by Robert Caro - Robert Moses and New York infrastructure.
45. How Big Things Get Done - Large-scale project execution.
46. Dealers of Lightning by Michael A. Hiltzik - Xerox PARC.
47. Built by Roma Agrawal - Civil engineering insights.
48. The Will to Keep Winning by Daigo Umehara - Competitive gaming.
49. Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold - Low-temperature physics.
50. Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins - Apollo 11.
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz
This is probably one of the best
Shoe Dog - Phil Knight. A great read about the struggles of how Nike started. But was left unsatisfied as the book ends with the company going public but doesnt cover its ascension in the late 80s/90s and how that went down.
- Atomic Habits by James Clear - The art of showing up has been effective and it worked for me.
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy - You get what you've put your soul into
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight - I love the storytelling by the author, you can hear Phil telling this story himself.
