48 pages • 1 hour read
Phil KnightShoe Dog
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 19-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary: “1979”
Knight meets with a man at the Treasury Department in Washington, DC, in an attempt to convince him that the bill Nike had received for $25 million “was a gigantic misunderstanding” (335). Knight presents the man with a memo that claims the American Selling Price does not have anything to do with Nike, but the man continues to demand the $25 million payment.
Knight begins traveling frequently to Washington, DC, to seek help from politicians and consultants. In the summer of 1979, Werschkul and Knight meet with an Oregon senator named Mark O. Hatfield, who agrees to help Nike’s cause. Both Hatfield and another Oregon senator, Bob Packwood, call the man at the Treasury Department.
Knight seeks the help of a man named David Chang to break into the Chinese market. Chang is said to be an expert on trade in China. In his first meetings with Woodell and Strasser, however, Chang makes an awkward impression.
Chapter 20 Summary: “1980”
In his fight against US Customs, Knight deploys several moves. First, Knight creates a new shoe and prices it very low, so that “officials would have to use this ‘competitor’ shoe as a new reference point in deciding [the company’s] import duty” (344). Then Nike airs a commercial that portrays its fight against the US government. Finally, Nike files a $25 million antitrust suit that claims its competitors conspired to undermine Nike through underhanded practices.
The man at the Treasury Department and his superiors begin settlement talks. Though Knight doesn’t want to pay a single dollar, he settles on a deal to pay $9 million.
Knight revisits the possibility of going public. He learns of a way to go public without losing control of the company, in which he issues two different classes of stock. He puts the decision to a vote with his inner circle, and they unanimously vote in favor of going public.
Knight receives a letter from the Chinese government, welcoming him for a formal visit. In July 1980, Knight boards a plane with Chang, Strasser, and Hayes. For two weeks they travel throughout China with government aids. Many of the factories they visit in remote towns outside of Beijing are rundown and subpar. They take a 19-hour train to Shanghai, where they make a deal with the government’s Ministry of Sports: At the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Chinese athletes will enter the stadium wearing Nike shoes and apparel. They then meet with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and secure deals with two Chinese factories to become “the first American shoemaker in twenty-five years to be allowed to do business in China” (352).
Upon returning to Oregon, Knight makes a series of important decisions related to the process of going public. He chooses a firm to oversee the process, drafts a prospectus, hands paperwork to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and releases a formal announcement in September.
Knight and others travel to promote the offering. At a formal dinner in New York City, Hayes makes an awkward joke, and Knight decides that only he and Johnson will present to potential investors. They travel to Chicago, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle. They choose December 2, 1980, as the date for the offering. Though the hired firm advises a price of $20 per share, Knight insists on a price of $22 per share.
Knight drives home after finalizing the deal. He puts his sons to bed and calculates how much his partners and he will soon be worth. Bowerman will be worth $9 million, while Woodell, Johnson, Hayes, and Strasser will be worth around $6 million. Knight will be worth $178 million.
Epilogue Summary: “Night”
Knight and Penny run into Bill Gates and Warren Buffet at a screening of the film The Bucket List in 2007. One of the men asks Knight what’s on his bucket list, which prompts Knight to reflect on whether he has done everything he wanted in his life.
Knight reflects on the state of his company after stepping down as CEO. In the year 2006, Nike made $16 billion in sales, while Adidas made $10 billion. He thinks back on the celebrity athletes around whom Nike developed a brand and identity, such as Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Tiger Woods.
Knight’s son Matthew tragically died in a scuba diving accident in 2000. Many athletes, including Tiger Woods, called Knight personally to express their condolences. Knight remembers others who have passed away, including Bowerman and Strasser. Woodell lives in central Oregon, while Johnson lives alone in New Hampshire, where he’s converted a barn into a large mansion to house his thousands of books.
Returning to reflections about his bucket list, Knight thinks “it might be nice to tell the story of Nike” (381). He grabs a legal pad, sits in his recliner, and begins to write.
Chapter 19-Epilogue Analysis
Though ostensibly a businessman, Knight feels that his life—and what he has built with Nike—transcends what is usually denoted by the term “business.” For one, as Knight proclaims several times throughout Shoe Dog, his primary motivation has never been strictly to make money. Instead, Knight sought higher ideals, such as turning his life and work into a kind of perpetual play and seeking victory at any cost (the latter of which informs The Desire for Victory as Nike’s Binding Spirit). As Knight puts it, “For some, I realize, business is the all-out pursuit of profits, period, full stop, but for us business was no more about making money than being human is about making blood” (352). The analogy observes that, just as the human body needs blood to survive, a business needs money to thrive. However, just as there is more to being human than producing blood, there is more to creating a business than producing money.
The final two business challenges that Knight discusses in Shoe Dog are breaking into the Chinese market and finally going public as a company. Both of these maneuvers allow Knight to vastly increase his production. To do business in China, Knight must enlist the help of Chang, a man who knows the ins and outs of doing trade in China but who is an awkward fit at Nike. Knight flies to China and meets with government officials to become the first American shoe producer to do business in China in more than 20 years. This partnership proves crucial to Nike’s enormous success worldwide, meaning that Knight’s risk-taking paid off—a variation on Breaking Rules in Order to Succeed.
The second major breakthrough in Shoe Dog’s final chapters is Nike’s decision to go public. The major challenge for Knight had always been how to go public while maintaining control of his company. The solution presents itself when a trusted advisor explains that Knight can sell two different tiers of stock, Class A and Class B. Knight, his inner circle, and the debenture holders can hold Class A stock, while Class B stock would be sold to the public. In the end, with this arrangement, Knight would personally be able to maintain 46% of his company. Knight remains firm on his selling price of $22 per share, and at the end of Chapter 20, Nike goes public, making Knight a multimillionaire. With this enormous success, the story of the creation of Nike comes to a close.
While Chapters 1 through 20 are told in chronological sequence, the Epilogue is told from a different temporal vantage point. In the Epilogue, Knight has stepped down as CEO and reflects back on the years spanning from 1980 to 2006. He remembers many highs and lows, including the death of his son Matthew, the sweatshop controversy, and his relationships with such high-profile athletes as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Lebron James. Knight recounts these years through flashbacks since by this point, Nike was an established company, and the story of its origins and earliest struggles had reached its conclusion. This narrative decision signals that Shoe Dog is the story of Nike’s creation and Knight’s journey to maturity rather than a detailed account of every moment in Nike’s long history.
