You’ve probably seen the Swoosh a thousand times today. It’s on the shoes of the guy sitting across from you on the subway, the hoodie of the woman jogging past your house, and likely somewhere in your own closet. But if you asked a random person on the street, "Who is the founder of Nike company?" they’d probably pause.
Maybe they’d guess Michael Jordan. (Nope, he just made them a mountain of money). Maybe they'd think of some faceless corporate committee in a glass boardroom.
Honestly, the real story is much weirder. It involves a "crazy idea" from a college paper, a kitchen waffle iron that met a tragic end, and a guy selling sneakers out of the trunk of a green Plymouth Valiant.
It wasn't just one person
Most people look for a single name, but Nike was born from a handshake between two very different men: Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman.
They weren't business moguls. Not at first. Knight was a middle-distance runner at the University of Oregon, and Bowerman was his coach. In the late 1950s, running wasn't the multi-billion-dollar "lifestyle" it is now. It was a niche, painful sport for eccentrics.
Knight was a business student with a chip on his shoulder. While getting his MBA at Stanford, he wrote a research paper with a title that sounds like a snooze-fest but was actually prophetic: “Can Japanese Sports Shoes Do to German Sports Shoes What Japanese Cameras Did to German Cameras?” Basically, he noticed that German brands like Adidas were expensive and dominated the market. He figured if he could get high-quality, low-cost shoes from Japan, he could take over.
The $500 handshake
In 1964, Knight and Bowerman each put up $500. That’s it. They called their little operation Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS).
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At first, they weren't even making shoes. They were just the "middlemen." Knight traveled to Japan, cold-called the Onitsuka Tiger company (now known as ASICS), and convinced them he was a big-shot American distributor. He wasn't. He was just a kid from Oregon with a dream and a very empty bank account.
He started selling those Tiger shoes at track meets. He’d pull up in his car, open the trunk, and talk to runners. It was grassroots before "grassroots" was a marketing buzzword.
Bill Bowerman and the ruined waffle iron
While Knight was the "numbers guy," Bill Bowerman was the "mad scientist." He was obsessed with making shoes lighter. He believed that if you could strip an ounce off a shoe, a runner would be carrying pounds less over the course of a mile.
One morning in 1971, Bowerman was staring at his wife’s waffle iron over breakfast.
He wondered: What if you used that grid pattern for the sole of a shoe?
He didn't just think about it; he actually did it. He poured liquid urethane into the family waffle iron. He ruined the appliance—his wife, Barbara, wasn't thrilled—but he created the "Waffle Trainer." It gripped the new artificial tracks better than anything else on the market. That "Waffle" sole is essentially what put Nike on the map as an innovator, not just an importer.
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Why "Nike"? (And the $35 logo)
By 1971, the relationship with the Japanese suppliers had soured. BRS needed its own brand name and logo. Fast.
Phil Knight actually hated the name "Nike." He wanted to call the company "Dimension Six." Thankfully, Jeff Johnson—the company's very first employee—had a dream about the Greek goddess of victory, Nike. He suggested it at the eleventh hour. Knight famously said, "I don't love it, but maybe it'll grow on me."
As for the logo? They hired a design student at Portland State named Carolyn Davidson. They told her they wanted something that conveyed motion. She handed over the "Swoosh."
Knight’s reaction? "I don't love it, but I think it'll grow on me."
He paid her $35 for it. To be fair, he later gave her a massive amount of stock that eventually became worth millions, so don't feel too bad for her.
The growth of a giant
The 1970s were a blur of lawsuits and lucky breaks. They officially changed the name to Nike, Inc. and went public in 1980. That was the year Phil Knight became a multi-millionaire, but the company’s identity was still firmly rooted in the "track geek" culture Bowerman had fostered.
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| Key Figure | Their Role in the Founding |
|---|---|
| Phil Knight | The visionary and salesman who saw the potential in Japanese manufacturing. |
| Bill Bowerman | The legendary coach who obsessed over performance and invented the waffle sole. |
| Jeff Johnson | Employee #1 who came up with the name "Nike" and opened the first retail store. |
| Carolyn Davidson | The student who designed the Swoosh logo for $35. |
What most people get wrong about the founders
People think Nike was always this "cool" lifestyle brand. It wasn't. For the first decade, they were just trying not to go bankrupt. Knight often worked as an accountant on the side just to keep the lights on.
Another misconception is that Phil Knight is still the one calling every single shot. While he’s the Chairman Emeritus and still very much the "spiritual father" of the brand, he stepped down as CEO in 2004. As of 2026, he’s one of the wealthiest people on the planet, with a net worth often cited over $30 billion, but he’s mostly focused on philanthropy and his beloved University of Oregon.
Bowerman passed away in 1999, but his "innovate or die" spirit is still basically the company's constitution. Every time you see a weird new air bubble or a knit fabric on a shoe, that's Bowerman's legacy.
Moving forward with your own "Crazy Idea"
If you're looking at the Nike story and wondering how to apply it to your own life or business, keep these few things in mind. They didn't start with a multi-million dollar ad campaign. They started with a problem: "These shoes are too heavy and too expensive."
- Find a partner who covers your blind spots. Knight knew business, but Bowerman knew the product. You need both the "hustler" and the "hacker."
- Don't wait for the "perfect" name or logo. The most famous logo in history was bought for thirty-five bucks by a guy who didn't even like it at first.
- Listen to the experts in the field. Knight didn't sell to "customers"; he sold to runners. He went where they lived (the track) and spoke their language.
Start by looking at the small frustrations in your own industry. Is there something "too heavy" or "too expensive" that everyone else just accepts as normal? That’s usually where the next big thing is hiding. If you want to dive deeper into the gritty details of the early days, read Phil Knight’s memoir, Shoe Dog. It’s probably the most honest business book you’ll ever read, mostly because he admits how often they almost failed.