Shoe Dog - Phill Knight
Knight’s memoirs swing quite differently to the usual entrepreneurial story. He doesn’t present himself as a gung-ho hotshot with the next big idea and the will to make it happen. But then you think about what Phil did, and this presentation doesn’t align with what Knight has done throughout his life. Nike was started by a well-off kid who travelled the world on their dad’s money, went to Japan to take advantage of cheap labour, and then continued to exploit his privilege and connections to build up this business through what Knight calls luck, and what is often actually dealing in bad faith. This might be the harshest interpretation of the book, but I think those lauding Knight as a visionary fail to see the obvious privilege that he had in the early years. I also wasn’t a big fan of the victimisation that Phil did throughout the piece, with the final chapter of the book acting as a ‘we’re actually really ethical and the good guys’ sob piece.
But… he is a brilliant writer for a businessman, and the words flow well. As a story, it is a fun read, following the hijinks of a ragtag group of athletes trying to jump from one crisis to the next. For that, I would say it’s worth a read, though take the victim, started-from-nothing framing with a grain of salt.
3/5