“Sometimes you have to give up” – Business – Kommersant
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February 24 marks the 85th birthday of Nike founder Phil Knight. He detailed his views on life and business in his autobiography Shoe Salesman. The history of Nike, told by its founder, ”but Kommersant also collected his other statements.
About higher education
“College education is infamous after the stories of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who dropped out after a year and achieved great success. But I had the opposite. I wrote the business plan for the company that would eventually become Nike in a class at Stanford.”
(From an interview with Insight)
About leaders
“Hollywood portrays the leader as tall and handsome, with a strong chin. Very often, real outstanding leaders look exactly the opposite. First of all, they must want to become leaders. But their appearance is very different.
(From the book “Being a Leader”)
About originality
“In order to succeed with the consumer, you need to wake him up. He’s not going to go out and buy the same thing he always has or listen to the same thing he’s always heard. There are 50 different competitors in the athletic shoe business. If you do the same thing that you did before or that someone else is doing, you won’t last more than one or two seasons.”
(From an HBR interview)
About choosing the face of the company
“We look not only at how good an athlete is, but also on what his or her character is. It’s not an exact science.”
(From CNBC interview)
About failures
“Those who urge entrepreneurs to never give up? Charlatans. Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes knowing when to give up, when to do something else, is a stroke of genius. Giving up on something doesn’t mean stopping. Never stop.”
(From The Shoe Salesman: A Nike Story As Told by Its Founder)
About the time
“Every six months a new life begins, that’s what you need to worry about in order to stay one step ahead. If you spend this time talking about coolness, your ass will be kicked.”
(From an interview with Stanfordmag)
About help
“While traveling, I sometimes met promising young people who insisted that they were not going to ask for help on the way (to success.— “b”). They wanted to deal with everything themselves. My approach was the opposite. It’s hard enough on the road. Get all the help you can. Getting help is part of common sense which you gain for life.
(From an address to Stanford alumni)
About calling
“Look for a calling. If you follow your calling, it will be easier to endure fatigue, failure will warm you up, and a burst of energy will be like you have never experienced. I would like to warn the best of them, the iconoclasts, the innovators, the rebels, that there will always be a target on their backs. The better they are, the bigger the target will be on the back. This is not the opinion of one person – this is the law of nature.
(From The Shoe Salesman: A Nike Story As Told by Its Founder)
About creativity
“I have always said that a businessman can be an artist just like an artist, writer or musician. My work of art is Nike.”
(From an interview with Canadian Business)
About future
“Manufacturing technologies are changing very, very quickly… In five or ten years, some shoe manufacturing will be located in the United States (and not in China.— “b”), which I think is good news. The bad news is that there won’t be many jobs. It will be a very automated production.”
(From an interview with Bloomberg)
About provocations in advertising
“It doesn’t matter how many people hate your brand, as long as enough people love it. As long as they support you, you can not be afraid to offend people. You can’t walk in the middle of the road all the time. You have to take a stand.”
(From an interview with Fast Company)
About corporate culture
“Company culture is like a person’s personality: you can’t dictate what it will be. Nike’s culture is different from mine. She’s young and irreverent, and I’m not like that.”
(From an interview with Canadian Business)
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