jeff johnson, nike net worth

You thought, 'I can take a chance, I can dare to do something.'". Nike has enjoyed great growth in the women's, apparel and outdoors markets. Despite the arguments of Johnsons father, Phil holds steady he would give Johnson a $50 raise, and that was it. Immediately, Knight's ownership in shares made him worth $178 million. In large part because of that one employee with the thousand-watt smile and springboard legs, there is no greater status symbol among youths than Nike products. Without the full-length cushioned mid-sole, which Johnson invented from shower thongs, many of us would be on crutches today. Hes lived Brenners quote, and much more. And with the latter in mind, were constantly told that discrimination is harmful, that it discourages the otherwise talented. Money for Blue Ribbon, and eventually Nike, was always tight. Paddock's training schedule seemed easy. Jeff Johnson Nike Net Worth. Little did he know that the decision would change his life. Nothing wrong with that, Knight believes. If were trading with individuals around the world, wars that kill those trading partners become rather expensive. "The athletes are knocking themselves out in the rehab room. Blue Ribbons first salesman, Jeff Johnson has a personality quirk he sends Phil mountains of letters, detailing his every development, every sale and notable customer. Governments often fear companies that grow too large and powerful. They wrap themselves in antitrust laws to fight what they dont trust, and dont understand. He earned an estimated $130 million from Nike last year, four times as much as LeBron James, who has the biggest shoe deal among active NBA players. Every day different. I remember after writing that paper, saying to myself: 'This is really what I would like to do.' Even though the company's commercials have been hailed as pop art, Nike has been denounced for turning sports stars into cartoonish berathletes and creating a market of young consumers blinded by idolatry. Now, 10 years after Nike's upheaval, Phil Knight has become a sort of professor emeritus. Even when Johnson stopped coaching teams, he was still offering guidance to promising up-and-coming athletes. Lights reflect off the lake and illuminate the four miles of running trails that crisscross and surround the campus. Knight knows this well, and this writer would give anything to hear him lecture on currencies. Just as a baseball player is only as good as his last at-bat, Knight figures Nike is only as good as its last quarterly report. They wanted you to never, ever outgrow your cash balance. Not much has changed since. Late at night, he leans back in his office chair and gazes out the window. "Where should I sit?" "Other than that, I'm all of those things--most of those adjectives are right some of the time," he says. The company was growing at such a tremendous rate that Knight had to reorganize the roles of his top managers every six months. "Apparently, they shared the same whim because they accepted me," he says. Unlike most people who take up running to accomplish a goal, lose weight or join a team, Johnson's initial inspiration was survival. He reads broadly, covering a wide range of subjects including finance, management, health, and society. Armed with a lifetime's worth of running memories and 700 miles left to get to Eugene, Ore., he picks up a reporter in his gray Subaru at the Salt Lake City Airport. When the Olympic trials conclude, he packs up his gray Subaru and drives back home to add these memories and photos to those captured over the past 50 years. All those things make sense, but it also cant have hurt that Knight had a major chip on his shoulder. He currently resides in Illinois, United States. The Ducks ultimately recruited Wheating in 2006 and he went on to make the 2008 and 2012 U.S. Olympic teams. . This would doubtless offend Trump, Peter Navarro and other economic illiterates within the Trump administration, but Knight helpfully adds that China is our [Nike's] second largest market.. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Jeff Johnson and Nike: A Key Early Employee. So, how much is Jeff Johnson worth at the age of 69 years old? In globalizing his business out of necessity, he also plainly promoted world peace. Newspaper columnists decried "Just Do It" as a nihilistic slogan that justified or even begat these crimes. I nervously appraise my black leather, conservative flats and kick myself for making such a boring choice for a meeting with the man who made footwear an art form. But the world may never know which adjective suits him best. To Knight, Nikes early history, one defined by near constant fear of bankruptcy, was the story to tell. But the shoe still needed a name so Jeff Johnson, Nike's first full-time employee, came up with the word Nike. According to this. I could accept it on an intellectual level, but I really didn't believe it," he says. In fiscal year 1996, Nike's revenue hit a stratospheric $6.5 billion (with $550 million in income). Consequently, no one doing business in Japan could possibly plan for tomorrow. As Knight recalls about his companys austere past, Any dollar that wasnt nailed down I was plowing directly back into the business. Thinking about the corporate tax through the prism of Knight always operating on a constantly shredding shoestring, the corporate tax robs companies of their present and future. Regarding taxes and spending, Knight addressed both; albeit in oblique fashion. Time spent basking in the glow of success or recounting past triumphs is time wasted. ), Motivation Tips When Marathon Day Is Not Your Day, Everything You Need to Know About Hip Pain. An indifferent student, Knight graduated from Oregon with a degree in journalism in 1959. "If not, I hope he goes to medical school." The company paid $35 to commission a new logo--a fat checkmark dubbed a "swoosh"--and the new shoe debuted at the 1972 Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore. "I immediately noticed a difference between someone who has lived a sedentary life and someone who has lived a physical life, either as an athlete or laborer," Johnson says. We can handle this. Known for his decidedly dressed-down and wrinkled wardrobe, he looks surprisingly natty. On Tuesday night, May 3, 2004, "The Sopranos" had just ended when Johnson, then 62, felt like he'd been hit by lightning. Nike courts controversy. Once dubbed the "most powerful man in sports" by the Sporting News, Knight presents himself as affable, albeit slightly stiff and a tad shy. "He once said in a speech that the worst thing he could envision was to sit his grandkids on his knee and have them ask him, 'What's a Nike?' It was pure Philip Hampson Knight: innovative, controversial and very, very successful. The Nike swoosh is so ubiquitous that the name Nike is often omitted altogether. In 1971 Johnson gave the company its most distinguishable asset: its name. Traveling north over the dry flatlands of western Idaho and into Oregon, Johnson decides to pack it in for the night in Ontario, a speck-of-dust town right off the interstate. "Hello, World.". The company desperately needed one. ", In the late 1990s, Johnson and Lananna created the Nike Farm Team, a training group for post-collegiate athletes based at Stanford, where Lananna coached at the time. Their short time together--one season of track--was enough for Johnson to reach out to Vin Lananna, the former University of Oregon coach, and tell him about Wheating's potential. Hes the author of the 2016 book Who Needs the Fed? He is a genuine, authentic and passionate person.". Nike's seductive marketing focuses squarely on a charismatic athlete or image, rarely even mentioning or showing the shoes. He then continued his education at the University of Oregon, where he was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, worked as a sports reporter for the Oregon Daily Emerald, and was a middle-distance runner. Lots of them. The global expansion of Nike has been a certain enemy of poverty, but at the same time Knight writes with regret of three layoff periods in ten years that forced his company to lay off 15,000+ employees. "Mike Pallet had like 50 kids in his and then there was me. November 23, 2021. Knight also understood that this lust for heroes and appreciation for in-your-face attitude is not limited to American youth. Amateur title last summer, Nike founder Phil Knight shadowed him from hole to hole, appraising the young phenom's every smile the way a golf coach would his swing. Thus, on January 25, 1964, Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) was founded; this is the company that would later become Nike. "Nobody liked it, but it seemed better than anything else. After graduating from Stanford, Knight acquiesced to his father's wishes and secured a "real" job with a Portland accounting firm. 1 in our industry, we've had to modify our culture and become a bit more planned.". This entrepreneur is working feverishly to knock Nike off of its lofty perch much as Nike did formerly #1 Adidas. And Knight took leave of our interview by forming a steeple with his hands and bowing. The company paid $35 to commission a new logo--a fat checkmark dubbed a "swoosh"--and the new shoe debuted at the 1972 Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore. Nike sold $3.2 million worth of shoes in 1972, and its profits doubled each of the next 10 years. Examples in this review will show why thats perhaps true. But the biggest push will be overseas. He and his new passenger will travel according to the rhythm of the road and end up in Eugene in three days, completing Johnson's 18th cross-country road trip. His own father thought he was jackassing around. If readers are interested in learning about economics, and truly understanding economics, they need only purchase and read Knights book. "What else you got?" Now it seems formulaic--sign a gifted athlete to a lucrative endorsement contract, give him his own television commercial and shoe, blow him up larger than life and count the money. Stanford changed Knight's life. Your email address will not be published. Phil Knight controls 24 percent of the world's largest athletic shoe and sports apparel company, Nike. In 1971, Knight decided he could retire his accountant's wing tips. "We were guerrilla marketers, and we still are, a little bit. (Knight still gets a kick out of telling this story: "A few years ago there was a poll in China to name the greatest man ever. Since banks were and are in the business of lending money, small businesses eager to grow large were bad bets simply because most failed. "The market is saturated to the point where it can be sickening. Jeff Johnson does leave for the East Coast, but not without a fight. "And he helped build that connection in our culture.". It leaves plenty of time to get to know this deep thinker who's contributed much to the distance running culture in America. After 50 years of working out, his body was familiar breaking down tissue, resting and recovering, and doing it all over again the next day. 1. DETAILS BELOW Jeff Johnson (born May 7, 1973) is famous for being radio host. Nike is back on top because it grew up, but Knight clearly misses his company's adolescent days. "We had no master plan," Knight acknowledges. He looked at every exercise like doing repeat quarters. Phil Knight earned his net worth as the founder and largest individual shareholder. It's unusual that someone can be so open-minded, yet stay singularly focused on a project. Jeff Johnson is on his way to the 2012 U.S. Olympic trials, but instead of taking a first-class flight--which, as .css-1hr08dr{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.125rem;text-decoration-color:#59E7ED;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-1hr08dr:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Nike's first-ever employee 48 years ago, he most likely could afford--he prefers to drive there from his Lebanon, N.H., home. Knight's overriding goal is to ensure Nike's legacy. Members of it almost unanimously believe that the government spending surge that took place during World War II saved the global economy, and the U.S. economy specifically. (It was originally called Blue Ribbon Sports before being renamed Nike in 1971.) From an economics standpoint, Knights recollection of nearly always being in debt for the first 18 years of the companys existence, of always fearing the one incorrect move that would bankrupt Nike, is instructive on its own. Even when he gets in a car crash and breaks his skull, he continues to sell shoes. He enjoyed the company of books and read about one per week, mysteries mostly. Laika's first feature film was the stop motion animated film "Coraline" (2009). More on government spending, the modern economics profession has taken the absurd belief that government spending drives prosperity in a rather horrifying direction. One week went by before Johnson heard from anyone. The yen, formerly pegged to the dollar, suddenly had no definition. Johnson's selling strategy was similar to Knights, but he was better than him. Woods may be the company's current star, but its controversial CEO and founder is the real story. ", As Nike ran away with the athletic-shoe market in the '80s, these criticisms were merely annoying pebbles wedged in its shoes. Then Jeff Johnson, '63, a fellow running geek, proposed a name that came to him in a dream: Nike, for the Greek winged goddess of victory. Irreverence and risk-taking were prized; the athletic establishment and corporate wisdom were disdained. What stories of entrepreneurs almost invariably tell us is that these outsiders were and are discriminated against, almost as a rule. ", His voice gets louder, his words faster. The day he was finally approved to drive, the first place he went was to his favorite riverside trail. 326 Galvez Street Map. Few took Knight seriously; least of all the dominant brand at the time, Adidas. Then there are the three library-style drawers where Johnson keeps thousands of note cards scribbled with quotes he's come across over the years. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. That's as far as he'll go. Suffocatingly so. He returned to coaching, something he did when he worked at the Nike factory, and began serving as a volunteer assistant for the local high school running programs around Lebanon. Johnson let out a wild grunt that startled the aides and they accidentally let go of him. Knight is not one for reflection. . He got in touch with Mattel, who gave Nike an exclusive for the material that they called phylon. And Johnson was an even more prolific salesman than Knight. But fledgling Boston-based Reebok high-stepped right in, creating a somewhat flimsy, but attractive shoe that women bought like tickets to a Meryl Streep movie. "I thought that was ridiculous . As Knight recalls, Not one [student] asked a single question. According to the police officials, he committed suicide on 8th September 2021. He also visited the Onitsuka shoe factory in Kobe, which was producing Adidas knock-offs, called Tigers. (Nike also owns Cole-Haan, the dress-shoe manufacturer, and Canstar Sports Inc., the world's largest hockey equipment company.) 1 walked out the door with no regrets. While we work diligently to ensure that our numbers are as accurate as possible, unless otherwise indicated they are only estimates. No doubt its easy for the employees of today to forget how very ephemeral success is. Nike's analog isn't the conservative team owner, but the cocky superstar who sets the agenda and is so wildly popular he knows he can get away with just about anything. Jane Austen wrote great novels. For the first time, he was excited to read about something other than sports. .css-17zuyas{display:block;font-family:Sailec,Sailec-fallback,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:bold;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-17zuyas:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-17zuyas{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.4;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-17zuyas{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.4;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-17zuyas{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.4;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-17zuyas{font-size:1.2rem;line-height:1.4;}}.css-17zuyas h2 span:hover{color:#CDCDCD;}Coaches Tips for Tackling the Boston Marathon, What You Need to Know About Threshold Training, Periodized Training Can Help You Hit Your Goals, What Every Runner Should Know about Fascia, Why Slowing Down Can Help You Get Faster (Really! Known as "Buck," Knight had more enthusiasm than talent, which made him the ideal human guinea pig for legendary track coach Bill Bowerman's endless tinkering with running shoes. The following morning Johnson had to undergo an MRI. Knight was so impressed with both the quality and low production costs that he made a deal with Onitsuka to distribute Tigers in the United States. He straightens out of a slouch, steadies his gaze and, like a shortstop, waits to field the next question. In his mind, Johnson is still a lithe teenager striding across the trails of northern California, sights set on breaking 4:30 for the mile. Occasionally, though, Knight does indulge himself. He doesn't yet know what he'll do with all of the pictures, but he has plans for the quotes. The marketing budget grew, and so did the emphasis on design, Nike's euphemism for fashion. And it was in Frank Shallenberger's small-business class that Knight conceived Nike. (Shortform note: Just take a minute to remember that business used to be done entirely through phone and letters, not email). In 1965, Knight hired Johnson as the first full-time employee. According to our Database, He has no children. For instance, Nike donated $25,000 to Tonya Harding's defense fund in 1994, in part to tweak Reebok, the sponsors of Nancy Kerrigan. He was very impressed by the quality of the shoes and their low cost, and managed to set up a meeting between himself and Mr. Onitsuka. Johnson's encyclopedic knowledge of the sport, however, convinced Wheating to do it. Once in Knights employ they were soon enough riding bikes to work, then scooters, then driving automobiles. Nike was founded in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports and initially operated as a distributor for the Japanese shoemaker Onitsuka Tiger (now known as Asics). Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center Over the next four decades, Knight grew Nike from a tiny upstart shoe company, into one of the largest and most famous brands of all time. As of 2022, Jeff Johnson's net worth is $100,000 - $1M. His once-bouncy gait has returned to earth after grinding out an estimated 60,000 lifetime miles. "We had gangs in third grade," he remembers. ", He spent the next 40 days in the hospital and credits his recovery to his life as a runner. He hasn't seen her since. A road trip with Jeff Johnson, Nike's original wage-earner, unveils a treasure of running history. "You didn't even have to understand track. He founded Magic Johnson Enterprises, which is now valued at over US$1 billion, per Celebrity Net Worth. As Knight puts it, International trade always, always benefits both trading nations. It cant be repeated enough what a valuable book Shoe Dog would be for every teacher, economist, and politician in the U.S., and around the world. Sorry, but theres no free lunch. "I wasn't very good at the new job and I hated it," he says. Travis knight has since been promoted to be the CEO and president of Laika. Even if Johnson "only" got $10,000 in Nike stock, those shares would now be worth nearly $1 billion. Family, Spouse, Dating, and Relationships of Jeff Johnson He married his wife Jacqueline in 2012. . Neither Phil nor Bowerman, the only owners of Blue Ribbon, want to give up their equity. Wed each been forged by early failure. Yes! Eventually, he'll compile his favorites into a book for runners. of trade are ever changing? From there he pushes on to Bend, where he finds the town's Dairy Queen by relying on his instincts rather than his phone's GPS or the AAA map he keeps between the front seats. Instead, the more frustrated he became when he couldn't complete certain tasks, the harder he worked to heal. My kingdom for liquidity. What this writer would give to have every politician read Knights story, and for Knight to come to Washington in his retirement to tell his story. These towering shrines look about as much like a typical shoe store as Dennis Rodman looks like a typical human. His time, however, was the fastest among the incoming freshmen at the University of Colorado in 1959. He evolved into a distance runner, the kind described as having a lot of "heart. An impenitent Knight shrugs when asked about these issues. The press savaged the ads for posing Woods as a racial trailblazer, a path long since pioneered by black golfers such as Charlie Sifford and Lee Elder. At one point, Jeff Johnson sends one letter that Phil cant ignore. Not that Reebok endorser Sean Kemp or Converse man Larry Johnson (both guilty of taunting lesser opponents while representing the United States in the 1994 World Games) are paragons of virtue, but Nike pioneered the trend of signing athletes who project attitude as well as excellence. his co-worker asked. But did you know she Ok, but imagine if Nike and its owners had been taxed quite a bit less. He loves to talk about running, but when the conversation turns toward his own routine, he all but apologizes for his current state of fitness. Knight laughs uncomfortably and reaches for his watch as if embarrassed to have committed two personal transgressions: He reflected out loud, and he exposed a small corner of his heart. Eventually, Knight purchased Will Vinton Studios, and in 2003 he branded the company under the new name Laika. The great Canadian economist Reuven Brenner once referred to macroeconomics as a tautology and a myth, a dangerous one at that, sustaining the illusion that prosperity is necessarily linked with territory, national units, and government spending in general. Phil Knight, the wildly talented, courageous, and visionary founder of Nike would likely share Brenners contempt for the macro side of economics. We have estimated Jeff Johnson's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. Using independent subcontractors, Nike makes many of its products in Indonesia, a world pariah for its well-documented human-rights abuses. Just about every item ever produced by Knights wondrous company was manufactured somewhere not the United States, not to mention that Knights financial savior in Blue Ribbons (Knights original shoe company before Nike) less prosperous days was a Japanese trading company, Nissho. Jeff Johnson's income source is mostly from being a successful . His parents are Lota Knight (ne Hatfield) and Bill Knight, was a lawyer and later a newspaper publisher. Allen graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude and attended medical training at the MD/PhD program at Harvard and MIT. But when Nike was dislodged from the top, he realized that his fly-by-Knight approach would no longer work. The Will Vinton Studios, an animation company, had sought external investors due to rapid growth in the late 1990s. It met with a lukewarm Buttface reception. And Jeff Johnson delivers results. After Johnson retired from Nike, he returned to his beloved New England to live a quiet life. With his trim beard, collar-length, wavy red-blond hair shrouding most of the gray, he suggests a record executive who looks and sounds remarkably like actor Donald Sutherland. 2023 Celebrity Net Worth / All Rights Reserved. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. He has a passion for non-fiction books (having read 200+ and counting) and is on a mission to make the world's best ideas more accessible to everyone. As mentioned at this reviews beginning, global trade made what became Nike possible. It's time once again to just do it. . "Genius" is the one attribute on the list that Knight questions. By 1969, at the fortuitous dawn of the jogging boom, Knight sold a million bucks worth of Onitsuka shoes bearing his Blue Ribbon Sports label. "We've decided to call it Nike," his co-worker told Johnson over the phone. Nike was accused of focusing its ad campaigns on children in the ghettos, although, ironically, athletic shoes are the most cross-cultural of commodities. Submit a correction suggestion and help us fix it! Prefontaine went over the track like a tractor. Nike engineered shoes for the top echelon of athletes to compete and train in. Knight isn't wearing his ever-present Oakley sunglasses (he's rarely photographed without them), which is a bonus, as his pale blue eyes open wide and sparkle when a topic engages him. Thinking about Europe and Japan alone (Knights description of 1960s Tokyos bombed out existence in Shoe Dog is chilling and sad), imagine how much more prosperous both would be, and by extension imagine how much more prosperous the U.S. would be today, absent the waste of precious life that the war was. Nike still takes risks and challenges the sports establishment, but much of the criticism leveled against the company has quieted. "We didn't invent it," Knight acknowledges in an interview, "but we ratcheted it up several notches.". It isn't tame by civilian standards, but, to a guy at the forefront of the running boom, his biweekly 40-minute slogs (broken up by walking breaks) feel like the epilogue to a grand novel. "Phil understands the symbolic power and attractiveness of sports," says A. Michael Spence, dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Nike board member. Jeff Johnson looks torn, but he doesnt want to quit. On the first day in the hospital, a psychologist told Johnson he would experience black moods, but he says he never did. Phil and his wife Penelope now live in Beaverton, Oregon. When were shooting at one another, were not improving one another through trade.

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