And now, some Monday morning inspiration. In an interview with Harvard Business Review, Phil Knight, former chair and CEO of Nike, opened up about the famously quirky beginning of Nike – if you’re not familiar, it involves a waffle iron.
Knight started the sports apparel and equipment behemoth after taking an entrepreneurship class at Stanford and teaming up with his former track coach, Bill Bowerman. The rest, as they say, is history – running shoes would never be the same. In the interview with Dan McGinn, Knight also discusses the swoosh’s innovation culture, as well as the succession process that led to former runner and Nike insider Mark Parker becoming CEO.
“The shoe is the one piece of equipment that really matters to a runner,” Knight told McGinn. “There’s no ball involved, there’s no racket, there’s no helmet. Bowerman was obsessed with it, that he believed, you know, an ounce in a pair of shoes was the same as a thousand pounds in the last five yards of a 1,500 meter [race]. So, he was obsessed with it and it got me quite interested in it.”
Listen to the full interview on the Harvard Business Review site, where you can also find a transcript of the conversation.
