When asked a potentially revealing question ("Have you deliberately cultivated an image for yourself, the way Nike has for its clients?") (Nike also owns Cole-Haan, the dress-shoe manufacturer, and Canstar Sports Inc., the world's largest hockey equipment company.) It's pronounced "ny'-kee." The name is Nike and their rival was Adidas. The area serves as a launching point for hikers scrambling up the nearby snow-capped peaks or a refueling station for said victorious climbers. "And he helped build that connection in our culture.". If he were to add some wisdom of his own, he'd choose something that sums up his long perspective on running. Knight took on a 15 percent stake in the company in 1998, and his son Travis joined the company as an animator. Knight subscribes to the correct, Fredric Bastiat view of war. It owns a movie studio, theatres and a marketing company. Today more Nike shoes are produced in China than in any other country. "Our business practices are no different than those of our competitors," he says. It didn't come to him until later in life, well after he'd chased personal records, helped build Nike and coached youth runners. "The athletes are knocking themselves out in the rehab room. And it was in Frank Shallenberger's small-business class that Knight conceived Nike. He evolved into a distance runner, the kind described as having a lot of "heart. Nike signed Woods to a five-year endorsement deal, reportedly worth more than $40 million, and has thrown its considerable weight behind him. Phil Knight Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Houses, Career & Net Worth Jeffrey Jordan (born November 8, 1988) is famous for being basketball player. One week went by before Johnson heard from anyone. "In a very short period of time, Phil Knight created one of the greatest American commerce stories of the 20th century," says sports agent David Falk, who has frequently butted heads with Knight over the marketing and representation of athletes. He reads broadly, covering a wide range of subjects including finance, management, health, and society. I remember after writing that paper, saying to myself: 'This is really what I would like to do.' Simply put, government spending and taxation shrinks the amount of liquidity otherwise available to the companies of tomorrow. All those things make sense, but it also cant have hurt that Knight had a major chip on his shoulder. He doesn't yet know what he'll do with all of the pictures, but he has plans for the quotes. "The meaning of running grows over time," he says. Stanford, California 94305. "But we are bigger, and thus more visible, so we get more flack. "What the hell is that?" He was notorious for bringing a book to important meetings, pretending like he wasn't paying attention, then saying something brilliant, Chadwick says. Knights book is one that Ill be referencing for many years, and constantly quoting. it become the Achilles' heel of university publications? He hasn't seen her since. Just about every item ever produced by Knights wondrous company was manufactured somewhere not the United States, not to mention that Knights financial savior in Blue Ribbons (Knights original shoe company before Nike) less prosperous days was a Japanese trading company, Nissho. Matt McCue is a frequent contributor to Running Times and the author of An Honorable Run. [2] [3] He is also the owner of the stop motion film production company Laika. "Well," he said with a big grin, "I guess it's 'Hello, world,' huh? Using independent subcontractors, Nike makes many of its products in Indonesia, a world pariah for its well-documented human-rights abuses. Instead, he opts for core exercises in his hotel room. If one of those athletes weren't Michael Jordan, consumers worldwide might still be pronouncing Nike like Mike. Jeff Johnson - Sr. Director Product Development & Planning - Global The following year he transferred to Stanford University on a whim. Once in Knights employ they were soon enough riding bikes to work, then scooters, then driving automobiles. And. Knights book is 383 endlessly interesting pages, but without a hint of hyperbole, he should expand his memoirs whereby he would apply his business experiences to taxes, regulation, trade and monetary policy. The first place a runner usually visits in Eugene is the looping wood-chip trail system named after Steve Prefontaine. of trade are ever changing? I didn't," Johnson says. He is a genuine, authentic and passionate person.". Johnson's encyclopedic knowledge of the sport, however, convinced Wheating to do it. From studying war heroes and generals, he holds a virtue: Dont tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.. "We were guerrilla marketers, and we still are, a little bit. (Chicago's store is one of the city's top tourist attractions.) He earned an estimated $130 million from Nike last year, four times as much as LeBron James, who has the biggest shoe deal among active NBA players. The elite runners loved those shoes.". He currently resides in Harrogate, Yorkshire, England, UK. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading. As Knight looked for a new position for Johnson, Johnson momentarily found himself without a job. If, as Marshall McLuhan famously said, advertising is the greatest art form of the 20th century, then Nike is its Picasso, imaginatively expanding the parameters of the medium's use of the athlete-endorser. Individuals are only sellers insofar as theyre buyers, or exporters as insofar as theyre importers. (It was originally called Blue Ribbon Sports before being renamed Nike in 1971.) Where Knight was once famous for governing by instinct, today Nike studies reams of statistics and convenes a focus group before designing a new shoelace. In November 2004, he resigned as Nike's CEO, but he stayed on with the company as the chairman of the board. Knight developed a blueprint for superior athletic shoes, produced inexpensively in Japan, where labor was cheaper. How Jeff Johnson sold Nike's first shoes - Marketing Examples At the same time, the company's mass marketing made the shoes so attractive and desirable that they became a de rigueur accessory to the American wardrobe and dream--even if increasingly sedentary teens only wore them to watch TV. Maybe some of the layoff rounds wouldnt have been as substantial as they were. He straightens out of a slouch, steadies his gaze and, like a shortstop, waits to field the next question. As Knight recalls about the employees of a much younger Nike, Each of us had been misunderstood, misjudged, dismissed. But when Nike was dislodged from the top, he realized that his fly-by-Knight approach would no longer work. From an economics standpoint, Knights recollection of nearly always being in debt for the first 18 years of the companys existence, of always fearing the one incorrect move that would bankrupt Nike, is instructive on its own. "Both are dominant cultural forces, both speak an international language, and both are all about emotions. Its a fixer-upper, with tissue thin walls and broken windows. In 1971 Johnson gave the company its most distinguishable asset: its name. No company has put as much creative energy and resources into marketing celebrities as Nike. A black linen suit drapes loosely over his slender frame. November 23, 2021. Amateur title last summer, Nike founder Phil Knight shadowed him from hole to hole, appraising the young phenom's every smile the way a golf coach would his swing. But the shoe still needed a name so Jeff Johnson, Nike's first full-time employee, came up with the word Nike. As Knight puts it, International trade always, always benefits both trading nations. It cant be repeated enough what a valuable book Shoe Dog would be for every teacher, economist, and politician in the U.S., and around the world. Wed each been forged by early failure. Yes! Phil Knight earned his net worth as the founder and largest individual shareholder. Nike's seductive marketing focuses squarely on a charismatic athlete or image, rarely even mentioning or showing the shoes. Then there are the three library-style drawers where Johnson keeps thousands of note cards scribbled with quotes he's come across over the years. Governments often fear companies that grow too large and powerful. They wrap themselves in antitrust laws to fight what they dont trust, and dont understand. How lucky Nike employees are that they get to hear about how it all began in Knights parents basement, all of this before Blue Ribbon could afford to rent a space connected to a raucous bar; this one with broken windows that this then-fledgling company lacked the funds to fix. Occasionally, though, Knight does indulge himself. Hes the author of the 2016 book Who Needs the Fed? Knights bigger, more economic point is that the only answer to poverty is entry-level jobs. Now it seems formulaic--sign a gifted athlete to a lucrative endorsement contract, give him his own television commercial and shoe, blow him up larger than life and count the money. As noted, he was NIKE employee #1, and he gave the then fledgling company its name. More information on Jeff Johnson can be found here. He unobtrusively enters the Wimbledon conference room on the fourth floor of the John McEnroe Building on the Nike World Campus in Beaverton, Ore. (a good hour's jog from Portland), clears his throat, introduces himself and apologizes for being 10 minutes late. Some say the logo is worth the net worth of the Nike brand, valuing it as a more than $30 billion image. "We're in the sports business, and there's a big difference.". Employee Number One | Runner's World Trade is a two way, lifestyle enhancing street. The company came under fire in the early 1990s when there was a spate of shootings and knifings in American inner cities by teenagers coveting Nikes, which were just then pushing the $100 mark. To this day, visitors to his office must remove their shoes--even their $180 Air Pamirs--before entering. "I thought that was ridiculous . Michael Jordan Has Made Over $1 Billion From Nike - Forbes They wanted you to never, ever outgrow your cash balance. Not much has changed since. Jeff Johnson does leave for the East Coast, but not without a fight. But these days he is more interested in being an artist than a businessman. So he pushed himself hard. Jeff Johnson - the first employee In 1965 they hired Jeff Johnson - the perfect employee one could hope for. His channel proved to be an immediate success, earning more than 40,000 subscribers within the first six months of its existence. ", His voice gets louder, his words faster. He was very impressed by the quality of the shoes and their low cost, and managed to set up a meeting between himself and Mr. Onitsuka. Absent a globalized supply chain, Nike once again isnt Nike. It's like picking up John DeLorean in a Yugo. There were few runners in. Year-old messages later retrieved on it confirm that to be true. In 2005, Kimball Union Academy basketball coach Dave Faucher tipped off his friend that he had a gangly 6-foot-5 player with explosive wheels on his team. Unlike most people who take up running to accomplish a goal, lose weight or join a team, Johnson's initial inspiration was survival. Maybe it was his recovery from his stroke that really hammered it home. The Nike-crafted tag line on the ads? "Nobody liked it, but it seemed better than anything else. They got their iconic "swoosh" logo from graphic design student Carolyn Davidson in 1971, paying her $35 for the commission. Prefontaine went over the track like a tractor. 42 Years Ago, Magic Johnson Left an Estimated $5.2 Billion of Nike The message is clear: introspection over. "Where should I sit?" They greeted my passion and intensity with labored sighs and vacant stares. So did financial sources for years and years. Sorry, but theres no free lunch. These towering shrines look about as much like a typical shoe store as Dennis Rodman looks like a typical human. Knight has been portrayed as mysterious, inscrutable, eccentric, unpredictable, enigmatic, idiosyncratic, shy, aloof, reclusive, competitive and a genius. After graduating from Stanford, Knight acquiesced to his father's wishes and secured a "real" job with a Portland accounting firm. "It was totally seat-of-the-pants." It was Johnson (described as "Employee Number One") who suggested the name Nike - the Greek goddess of victory. This entrepreneur is working feverishly to knock Nike off of its lofty perch much as Nike did formerly #1 Adidas. He was the company's first chairman and CEO and is now the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc. With an estimated net worth of $43.3 billion as of 2023, Knight was listed by Forbes as the 24th richest person in the world. Just the other day a rather large woman in her 20s tackling the first run of her life easily swept past him on the riverside trail near his house, he laments. Thinking about Europe and Japan alone (Knights description of 1960s Tokyos bombed out existence in Shoe Dog is chilling and sad), imagine how much more prosperous both would be, and by extension imagine how much more prosperous the U.S. would be today, absent the waste of precious life that the war was. Not only did Bowerman actually place an order for the shoes, he actually propositioned Knight to become his business partner. Nike outdistanced its competitors by moving beyond basketball, tennis and track to control the women's and outdoor markets. "Hello, World.". Knight streamlined the company (laying off 600 of the company's 2,000 employees) and reorganized Nike along more conventional, corporate lines. You can also click edit to tell us what the Net Worth of the Jeff Johnson is A Conversation With Jeff Johnson, Original Gangster Of Running Jeff Johnson was born on May 7, 1973 in Harrogate, England. "Sports is like rock 'n' roll," he says. Knight laughs uncomfortably and reaches for his watch as if embarrassed to have committed two personal transgressions: He reflected out loud, and he exposed a small corner of his heart. Though he carries a cell phone in the car, he insists that he never uses it. "And when you left Hayward Field you felt better about yourself. ", Given Nike's tremendous success, the change was inevitable. Johnson explained the story about iconic brand names, and that the word was also for the Greek winged goddess of victory. "The door was open," he says. Knights memoir is yet another reminder that the Fed really doesnt much matter to economic growth. 1 in our industry, we've had to modify our culture and become a bit more planned.". Indeed, Knight first presented his ideas for a shoe company (jogging shoes) at Stanford Business School. Travis knight has since been promoted to be the CEO and president of Laika. It leaves plenty of time to get to know this deep thinker who's contributed much to the distance running culture in America. Johnson's stay in Boulder proved to be short-lived. Not that Reebok endorser Sean Kemp or Converse man Larry Johnson (both guilty of taunting lesser opponents while representing the United States in the 1994 World Games) are paragons of virtue, but Nike pioneered the trend of signing athletes who project attitude as well as excellence. Like this article? Knight says she later received stock that was worth . He holds Class A and Class B shares through a Delaware-based holding company appropriately named "Swoosh". You could walk in off the street and be inspired by this guy," Johnson says. His own father thought he was jackassing around. When the aerobic fad hit in the mid-'80s, Nike ignored it. Knight writes about how some of his first employees, Jeff Johnson (employee #1) and Bob Woodell, still visit the companys stunning Beaverton, Oregon campus to tell stories of the early days. Despite the arguments of Johnsons father, Phil holds steady he would give Johnson a $50 raise, and that was it. Members of it almost unanimously believe that the government spending surge that took place during World War II saved the global economy, and the U.S. economy specifically. Their short time together--one season of track--was enough for Johnson to reach out to Vin Lananna, the former University of Oregon coach, and tell him about Wheating's potential. And for those not familiar with Bastiat, Knight subscribes to the Joseph Kennedy view that war is bad for business. Yes it is. Today, the average American boy owns 10 pairs of sneakers. "The effect Pre had on us in the stands is that he made us feel better about ourselves," Johnson says. Interesting about Shoe Dog is that it pretty much ends in 1980 when Nike was taken public. his co-worker asked. 2023 Celebrity Net Worth / All Rights Reserved. He also visited the Onitsuka shoe factory in Kobe, which was producing Adidas knock-offs, called Tigers. A small smile flits across his face, but he quickly checks it. This reviewer simply hopes that Knight takes more time to explain what he did, and what he saw. On that day Knight was worth $178 million, while many of his early employees had holdings in the $6 million range. (Knight still gets a kick out of telling this story: "A few years ago there was a poll in China to name the greatest man ever. In June 2015, Knight announced he was stepping down as Nike's chairman, and he officially retired from the company's board at the end of June 2016. Ironically, the chairman of the company that has set the standard with its groundbreaking, creative advertising campaigns (It's Gotta Be the Shoes, Bo Knows, Just Do It, Griffey for President) had to be talked into advertising at all. The swooshNike's iconic symbolwas designed by a college art student who was paid $35 for her design work, at the rate of $2 per hour. "Where some people look at a sky and see the clouds, Jeff will see the blue of it," says Lananna. He was a middle-distance runner for the University of Oregon track team, which at the time had one of the best programs in the country. ", An adoring sports media lapped up the young man's winning soundbite. Sports isn't about truth and accuracy. Jeff Johnson is on his way to the 2012 U.S. Olympic trials, but instead of taking a first-class flight--which, as .css-1hr08dr{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.125rem;text-decoration-color:#59E7ED;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-1hr08dr:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Nike's first-ever employee 48 years ago, he most likely could afford--he prefers to drive there from his Lebanon, N.H., home. Plato may have thought the unexamined life was not worth living, but what did he know? The lessons within it are many. About early finance for his company, Knight dealt with the very local First National Bank of Oregon. Instead, the more frustrated he became when he couldn't complete certain tasks, the harder he worked to heal. When provided, we also incorporate private tips and feedback received from the celebrities or their representatives. Phil Knight is an American businessman, sports fan and philanthropist who has a net worth of $40 billion. "She'll smoke me.". Few took Knight seriously; least of all the dominant brand at the time, Adidas. Knight was raised in the Portland neighborhood of Eastmoreland, and graduated from Cleveland High School. Time spent basking in the glow of success or recounting past triumphs is time wasted. Nike has become a major player in promoting women's sports as well as funneling money into inner-city sports programs. ", In the late 1990s, Johnson and Lananna created the Nike Farm Team, a training group for post-collegiate athletes based at Stanford, where Lananna coached at the time. Three days later, Woods called a news conference, stepped before the TV cameras and announced that he was quitting college to join the Professional Golf Association Tour. At one point, Jeff Johnson sends one letter that Phil cant ignore. Jeff Johnson - Forbes Could Nike's Phil Knight Really Buy The Trail Blazers? "The American shoes were offshoots of tire companies. Eventually, he'll compile his favorites into a book for runners. Knight lived it, and the uncertainty of a yen sans a price rule was that life was suddenly treacherous for any company doing the bulk of its production in Japan. So while the Japanese wisely didnt devalue the yen as much as Presidents Nixon and Carter wrecked the dollar in the 70s, floating exchange rates made conducting business there quite a bit more difficult. There would be no Nike without Johnson, who provided the name. "In about a second they came to their senses and grabbed me, but in that one second I found that I could balance," Johnson says. But then the company made a fatal mistake, one of great hubris. "We had gangs in third grade," he remembers. He wouldnt have done this if there had been manufacturing capacity in the States capable of and willing to make the shoes for him here. He accuses the company of exploiting Indonesians while quietly encouraging the Suharto government to crack down on dissent. The Will Vinton Studios, an animation company, had sought external investors due to rapid growth in the late 1990s. "We're not in the fashion business, as the Wall Street Journal wrote the other day," says Knight, clearly still peeved. For Knight, that means finding new markets to dominate and new products to peddle. Jeff Johnson does leave for the East Coast, but not without a fight. His parents are Lota Knight (ne Hatfield) and Bill Knight, was a lawyer and later a newspaper publisher. Johnsons and Woodells stories, along with Knights amazing book, hopefully remind the employees of this truth, all the while enhancing their already bursting pride in what theyre a part of. This is a crucial economic point given the odd focus of economists on a Federal Reserve that projects its always overstated influence through a risk averse banking system. That struck a nerve, as it flouted, even mocked, Knight's bedrock belief that, above all, authenticity and function sell shoes. In large part because of that one employee with the thousand-watt smile and springboard legs, there is no greater status symbol among youths than Nike products. The Nike swoosh is so ubiquitous that the name Nike is often omitted altogether. When they met, Andrew Wheating told Johnson he wanted to be a top 5K runner. Implicit in antitrust is that the present foretells the future, but it doesnt. Even when he gets in a car crash and breaks his skull, he continues to sell shoes. After 50 years of working out, his body was familiar breaking down tissue, resting and recovering, and doing it all over again the next day. "Phil understands the symbolic power and attractiveness of sports," says A. Michael Spence, dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Nike board member. Jeff Johnson, Nike's first employee, recommended calling the firm "Nike," named after the Greek flying goddess of victory, and Blue Ribbon Sports has consequently renamed Nike in 1978. He correctly predicted that American culture was a marketable commodity--that teenagers from Paris to Shanghai would be just as taken with Charles Barkley's ample attitude as teenagers in Trenton and San Diego. It wasn't the first time Johnson and Lananna collaborated. The company was growing at such a tremendous rate that Knight had to reorganize the roles of his top managers every six months. For the first time, he was excited to read about something other than sports. He got in touch with Mattel, who gave Nike an exclusive for the material that they called phylon. ", Others are just uneasy with Nike's particular brand of advertising. Trade is a two-way street. Stanford changed Knight's life. Before Shortform, he co-founded PrepScholar, an online education company. The great Canadian economist Reuven Brenner once referred to macroeconomics as a tautology and a myth, a dangerous one at that, sustaining the illusion that prosperity is necessarily linked with territory, national units, and government spending in general. Phil Knight, the wildly talented, courageous, and visionary founder of Nike would likely share Brenners contempt for the macro side of economics. It was also time to give his fledgling company a new name and logo. So far, with Chadwick's help, they've converted about 12,000. It did, however, present a tradeoff: Despite Johnson's dislike of the business environment, the influx of investment dollars would eventually allow him to retire at 41. 383 pages later theyll know more about a not-so-dismal dismal science than theyll ever know if they go the conventional route of reading boring textbooks full of charts, formulas, and statistics. The always silly notion of antitrust is further exposed in this essential autobiography. Stanford University. Even if Johnson "only" got $10,000 in Nike stock, those shares would now be worth nearly $1 billion. The Ducks ultimately recruited Wheating in 2006 and he went on to make the 2008 and 2012 U.S. Olympic teams. . Currently, they are all stored in his basement. This is how he secured the distribution rights for Tiger in the western United States. An avid photographer, Johnson snapped classic images of the many distance wunderkind in the 1960s and 1970s. Your email address will not be published. During an executive meeting in 1983, Knight reshuffled the roles of his highest-ranking deputies. As Knight recalls, Not one [student] asked a single question. Johnson relocated from the factory in New Hampshire to headquarters in Beaverton and was put in charge of managing the running division. He then set out on a graduation trip which included a stop in Kobe, Japan, where he discovered Tiger brand running shoes, manufactured by Onitsuka Co. in Kobe. (Two rooms of his five-bedroom house, where he lives by himself, are dedicated to his library.) "It wasn't planning," Knight says. It was pure Philip Hampson Knight: innovative, controversial and very, very successful. JEFF BEZOS NET WORTH: $113 BILLION SOURCE OF WEALTH: AMAZON . And Jeff Johnson delivers results. Knight knows this well, and this writer would give anything to hear him lecture on currencies. Armed with a lifetime's worth of running memories and 700 miles left to get to Eugene, Ore., he picks up a reporter in his gray Subaru at the Salt Lake City Airport. Shallenberger gave his class the following assignment: Invent a new business, describe its purpose and create a marketing plan. Nike has enjoyed great growth in the women's, apparel and outdoors markets. In 2004, Matthew unfortunately passed away while scuba diving in El Salvador due to an undetected congenital heart defect. Nike's "swoosh" logo, now deemed one of the most expensive logos globally, was approved for $35 by graphic design undergraduate Carolyn Davidson in 1971. As the perhaps overly modest Knight notes, Whenever reporters said a factory was unsatisfactory, they never said how much better it was than the day we first went in. Interesting about Nikes overseas factories is that the company always paid above the prevailing market rate; sometimes so much above it that Nike, according to Knight, was disrupting the nations entire economic ecosystem. Translated, there were times when exploited Nike factory workers were earning more than doctors in the impoverished countries that Nike entered. China is a large market for Nike precisely because the U.S. is a large market for Nike goods produced in China. ", He spent the next 40 days in the hospital and credits his recovery to his life as a runner. The truly dynamic finance that powers the worlds most dynamic economy isnt of the bank variety. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has launched his own crusade against Nike. Then Jeff Johnson, '63, a fellow running geek, proposed a name that came to him in a dream: Nike, for the Greek winged goddess of victory. One of Johnsons customers says that he can start getting Tiger running shoes from another seller a wrestling coach somewhere in the East Coast. . John Tamny is a Forbes contributor, editor of RealClearMarkets, a senior fellow in economics at Reason Foundation, and a senior economic adviser to Toreador Research & Trading. In His Brilliant History Of Nike, Phil Knight Expertly - Forbes The company is packaging the young golfer--who is part African American, part Chinese, part American Indian, part Thai and part white--as the Jackie Robinson of golf, breaking down barriers each time he steps on a course.
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