Phil Knight (February 24, 1938-), male, the legendary leader of the Nike brand, is one of the most eccentric leaders in Fortune 500 companies.

He always wears sunglasses and displays a super "cool" image; he was a long-distance runner and later built a tens of billions of dollars sports empire with just $1,000; his company is a famous advertising pioneer. But he bluntly said "I don't believe in advertising"; he is at the forefront of the business world, but he loves studying Japanese Zen culture and often falls into meditation.

He is introverted and not good at talking, but he is good at uniting people. Nike is like a happy athletes club. In March 2019, Phil Knight ranked 26th on the 2019 Forbes Global Billionaires list with a wealth of US$33.4 billion.

Extended information:

Compared to those founders in Silicon Valley who are eager to publish biographies in their 40s, the 78-year-old Mr. Knight seems to be an anomaly. This low-key old man has never left his hometown except when he went to Stanford University to study for an MBA degree at the age of 24.

He was born and raised in Portland, a seaport city in the northwest United States. The Nike headquarters he founded is in a small town outside his hometown of Portland. He stays away from the media all year round, wears a pair of sunglasses in public events, and has supported his alma mater team, the Oregon Duck, throughout his life.

Before this, few people outside the sports circle had paid attention to him. In many media, he was just the greedy old man behind countless sweatshops in Southeast Asia. It was not until the publication of the memoirs that people rediscovered the founder of the sports brand that had become integrated into American culture.

From this book, you can't see the author's tone of showing off at all, just like an ordinary old man, calmly recalling the past in the afternoon sun. Compared with those arrogant young talents in the Internet era, it is a little more profound and long-lasting.

In Knight’s story, entrepreneurship is not about changing the world, but a thirty-year race. He went from being a young man with nothing to shouldering more and more responsibilities in the race. He was always on the verge of bankruptcy and death; in middle age, he took the company public, but did not stop, but ran faster and faster. Until the year of his retirement, he suddenly looked around and found that he was the final winner.

Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Phil Knight