In this candid and riveting memoir, Nike founder and board chairman Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company’s early days as an intrepid* startup and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.

Young, searching, fresh out of business school, Knight borrowed 50 dollars from his father and launched a company with one simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost running shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk* of his Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed 8,000 dollars that first year, 1963. Today, Nike’s annual sales top US$30 billion.

In a memoir that’s surprising, humble, unfiltered*, funny, and beautifully crafted, the man behind the brand tells his story. At 24, backpacking through Asia and Europe and Africa, Knight decides the unconventional* path is the one for him. Rather than work for a big corporation, he will create something new, dynamic, different. Knight details the many risks he faced along the way, the crushing setbacks*, the ruthless* competitors, the countless doubters and haters and hostile* bankers—as well as his many thrilling triumphs and narrow escapes.

Above all, he recalls the foundational relationships that formed the heart and soul of Nike, with his former track coach, the irascible* and charismatic Bill Bowerman, and with his first employees, a group of misfits and savants who quickly became a band of swoosh-crazed brothers.

The book is available at online bookstores like jd.com.(SD-Agencies)