In my reading about Nike's founder Phil Knight, I learned about his overwhelming drive for success. It is this feature that he possessed that allowed him to be such as successful entrepreneur. He attributes his success to his mentor, and I think it was very important for him to have someone who influenced him in a positive way. As an entrepreneur an avid risk taker, he was able to grow his company substantially in a short period of time.
The competencies that he exhibited are a large amount of courage in risk taking. In order to grow his company exponentially into the billion dollar company that it is today, he had to make many tough decisions on the way. Another admirable trait is his creativity, that allowed him to have the vision for the future success of his company.
The part of the reading that was confusing to me was Knights role Nike's factories in China. It is unclear how much of an influence he had as child labor allegations occurred.
Question 1: When was the first time you realized that your company was going to be a huge success?
I wonder if he realized it from the very beginning or not until they started to take off
Question 2: Does the child labor accusations keep you up at night?
The accusations are very serious and I wonder what his thoughts are on them
For Fun: I have to assume Phil Knight is an extremely hard worker who believes that his success is derived from that. I share a similar belief, that is if you don't work hard success is not just going to come to you.
Hey Erik, I love that you chose Phil Knight. Phil Knight is awesome and Nike is such a pioneer company. I am going to look past the sweatshops and what not and get to why I consider him an inspiration. He took a huge risk when choosing to make an african american the face of his company but that did not stop him, he knew he had something great and was not going to stop at any cost. I am so glad you chose him. I hope you feel about him how i do.
ReplyDeleteHey Erik, great post! I did not really know anything about Phil Knight's story as the founder of Nike but it seems really interesting! It is super admirable that he built up such a successful and world-renown company that is worth so much today. I hope the accusations about child-labor and sweatshops are untrue. Very interesting choice of a person to write about!
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