Shoe Dog, Phil Knight, 2016

Rating: 5/5

Memoirs of successful entrepreneurs can be tricky for a reader. They could become boastful, making the memoir a tedious read, the entrepreneurs'  achievements notwithstanding. They could be airbrushed - for example, serendipity can be positioned as great strategy. They could be whitewashed - any business would have operated in grey areas at some point of time and a good memoir should faithfully record and explain it. Or they could simply be boring - a successful entrepreneur need not be a fascinating storyteller! Fortunately, Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike, avoids many of these pitfalls.

Knight, unlike some entrepreneurs, had a reasonably comfortable life even from his early days. He belonged to a stable middle-class family and went to reputed colleges. An important turning point in his life was a paper that he produced for a business class at Stanford, Can Japanese Sports Shoes Do To German Sports Shoes What Japanese Cameras Did to German Cameras? He revisited this idea later in his life and the rest is, of course, history. Knight recounts this without exaggeration, taking credit where due and exhibiting modesty when he should.

A positive surprise for me was that this book was a page-turner - JR Moehringer (who collaborated with Andre Agassi too) helped with the book. That was an added bonus!

Nike has not been without its fair share of controversies, notably the one surrounding its use of "sweatshops" across the globe. Knight does discuss that, but just over a page and a half. And half of that is spent in giving a positive spin to the outcome. For a controversy that raged over several years, its treatment in the memoir was a bit disappointing.

This is not a "self-help" type of book with lessons for a budding entrepreneur. But ultimately, a good memoir should be inspiring and I think this book will be exactly that for any young reader. The story of Nike, from the initial unconventional idea of importing and reselling Japanese shoes to the early Blue Ribbon days to the eventual establishment of one of the world's best known brands and logos should all motivate any person to dream. That, to my mind, is the greatest success of this book.

Pros: Page-turning, insightful, inspirational

Cons: Could have addressed controversies in more detail