Shoe Dog
Phil Knight's memoir of building Nike from a $50 loan and a trunk full of Japanese running shoes into the most iconic brand in sports. A brutally honest account of near-bankruptcy, lawsuits, broken partnerships, and the decade of chaos before the swoosh meant anything. The best business memoir ever written because Knight doesn't pretend he had a plan — he just refused to stop.
Knight ends his story in 1980, right before everything you associate with Nike arrives: Jordan, the marketing empire, and the Asian factory scandals, which get a few defensive paragraphs near the close. Penny Knight appears mainly to be neglected and forgiving. As yarn it charms; as accounting it halts the audit precisely where the hard questions begin.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
