Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight

I am not super interested in business-y books or in Nike specifically, but I felt like I kept hearing about this book and how good it was, so I figured I would check it out as an audiobook when I got the chance. And I actually really enjoyed it. Phil Knight talks about the early days of Nike, its beginnings as his "crazy idea" out of his MBA at Stanford and selling Japanese-made Tiger shoes out of the back of his car at track meets, and goes until 1980, when Nike went public and he became overnight a multimillionaire. It was so interesting learning about how this super, super-famous brand began so humbly and how it grew from this tiny beginning, and struggled for so many years to continue to grow and to make ends meet. I definitely don't think I could make it work as an entrepreneur--it sounds excruciatingly hard. But Knight makes it clear that the work he did was "play" and that they loved the work they did. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next to the intrepid Nike team as they made it through their beginning years--it really was a page-turner (although I was listening to it, so I'm not sure what the term would be for that).

The thing I especially liked about his memoir is that he was extremely honest and candid about his failures and mistakes that he made along the way. He was very upfront about his struggles as an introvert in the business world and the times he had to testify in court or deal with politicians, and he talked about stupid mistakes he made along the years too without trying to justify his actions. He also talked at length about his mistakes with his children, and his regrets that he didn't spend enough time with them while trying to build his company. This honesty was surprising at times and very refreshing--he doesn't seem like he's writing this book to explain himself or make himself look good at all. He actually talks about the movie The Bucket List and explains that this book is somewhat fulfilling one of the only things left on his bucket list--since he is worth billions of dollars by this time and has done everything he could have wanted to do (except for fix the things he regrets). It was very well done and very interesting--I kept thinking about it even when I wasn't listening.

I would be interested to get a feminist take on Knight's account of his company's beginnings, though--it was 100% male, 100% testosterone-driven. All of the top people were men handpicked by Knight for their thick skins and their abilities to jive with the team, and their informal team weekends where they would hash out important issues were called "Buttfaces" and they spent the whole time yelling at each other, drinking, and poking fun at each other. I cannot imagine any woman thriving in that atmosphere, and I am curious how much that has changed in the last forty years since the memoir ended. It was the sixties and seventies, though, so times have changed.