I wouldnt be jumping higher, right . Phil i think you might. David really . When y give a 400 mil gift or 500 million gift, do you actually write a check o . It hard to write that check or . Phil uh, ye david what would you say is the most favorable memory you have . Phil kind of look at nike as my work of art, if youwoill. N would you fix your tie,lease . David well, people wouldnt recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. Just leave it this way. All right. I dont ounsider myself a jalist, and nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an iakerviewer, even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . David i have worn your shoes for many years, and now i phil you look great. David finally get a chance to talk abt them. But well will talk about my shoes a little bit later. When you first started the company in, i guess, 1962, around then, you knew nothing about shoe design, you didnt know a lot about management, and you didnt have any money. So today, the company is now worth roughly a market capitalization of aboma 100 billion, revenues,0f about 30 billion, employees. Did you ever imagine when you first stard this company, so in the early sixties, that it could ever be what it became . Phil sometimes when i get that question i say, were exactly on plan. [laughter] but with you i cant be a smartass. David you mean, that wasnt an original question . Phil no, but itsyeah, its been a ride that really nobody could foresee. When we started out, the total branded Athletic Shoe sales in the uni d states were abobillion. So last we did 9. Anso based on the original year, were 450 market share. So itsyou know, we took advantage of the running boom, which became a jogging bitm, which became ass boom. And weve benefited from all of that. David would you say the company benefited more from being a good Marketing Company or a Good Technology company in other words, having a better product or having better marketing, or a combination of both . Phil well, what ive always said is were Marketing Company, and the product is our most important marketing otool. David and the skill set that you brought to it, what would you say the ski b set was that youught . Was it great intellect, great drive,reat leadership . What would you say . Phil all of that. David all of that . Phil yeah. David n equal in equal amounts . Phil if there is one thing, its been, d ive been pretty g at evaluating people. And that was one of the things that i wanted to get through, and i hope did come through in the book, my fellow employee they were terrific. David speaking of that book, here it is. Phil yeah. Davi now, i must confess, before i read the book, shdidnt know what dog was. For those who are watching, what is a shoe dog . That really loves shoes, and that was me. I was a runner. As a ball in the mile. Arall you really care abou the shoes. And so that became important to me and has been with me ever since. David now, you are from oregon, and i think i read that the first fossil we have of a shoe that ever existed is 9,000 years old, and it wascame from oregon. Do you take that as a special sign that it was designed for you to start this company in oregon . well, i havent really thilght of it that way, but i will take it. David ok. [laughter] you grew up your father was a newspaper editor, and when you wanted a summer job once, he told you he wouldnt hire you. Did he not hire you . Philwell, he knew me pretty well. No. There were tor newspapers in portland at the time the journal, which he was publisher of that. He wouldnt hire me, so i went across the street to the oregonian and appli for a job and goit. So i word there for 3 summers. But were you a superstar athlete or were you rage athlete, or what would you say . Phil i was a little better than average, but i was certainly not a superstar. David but you got a scholarship to go to the university of oregon . Phil no, i did not. I was a walk on. Dar a run on, i guess. Phil a run on, ok. David so your best time, as i remember it, was 4 minutes and 10 seconds for a mile. Phil 4 13, but close enough. David 4 13. Ok, 4 13. I gaveou 3 seconds. Phil i should have taken it. David all right, so suppose i told you today that you had these choices. You could ther he built nike run a 3 56 mile. Which would you have preferred . Phil 3 56 mile or build nike . David phil ill take nike. David ok. Phil but i did pause. [laughter] so, you lettered in 3 years, and then afterwards, you went into the army. D after a year in the army, then you served in the reserves for a number of years, so how did you happen to pick stanford as a place to to Business School . Phil well, it was and is a good school. And i got admitted. David ok. All right. So you got admitted, and then in a class you had there, on there was a clas entrepreneurship. Phil yethe professor was really a dynamic professor and an inspirational professor, and he had you write a paper, which was your terpaper which was mostly what your grade would be, in the bay area or make upattach yosssea small business. I and he said, make sure you write about something you kn. Soof my classmates wrote about some electronics project, which was beyond me. But i remembered my old track coach playing with shoes, and i was one of the guinea pigs of the shoes he pled with, so i was sort of quite aware of the process, and it just didnt make sense to me at the time that Running Shoes should be made inermany, which were dominatin the worlds markets. So i said they should be made in japan, and maybe japan can do to german shoes japan did to german cameras. And so that was the premise. Onworked pretty hard he paper, and the professor d it, so that was the beginning. David did you get an a on it . Phil i did, yes. David ok. All right, so then youraduated. And despite this great paper, no shoe company hired you, and you didnt then have the big Silicon ValleyVenture Capital world, so you didnt get a job there. You went back to you ahome and you becaaccountant, ph is that right . mmhmm. David so was that exciting for you to be an accountant . Phil no, i didnt ever plan tr be an accountant0 years. But it was. I talkedlot of people about what i should do, and i was kind of a finance major at stanfor and they said there really is no such thing. You should get your cpa certificate. It will be a great education and put a floor under your earnings. Sos what i did. David but you also before you really did that, you went by yourself on a trip around the world . Phil i started out with another guy, and he got waylaid by a girl in hawaii, i went on alone. [laughter] i didnt have that problem. David when you were in japan, did you not stop in to see a shoe manufacturer . Phil yeah, that was part of the idea inspired by ter that i wrote, that i would call on japanese shoe manufactures to see about importing theird shoes into the uniates. I only called on one, and they were enthusiastic, so it began. David you came back and they started shipping y a shoes to a ompany that you had nam. Where did the name blue ribbon come from . Il first place. When they asked me, whats the name of your company, i had to come up with something. David so you it blue ribbon. All right, so they started shipping you shoes. So as i understand, you had a green valeant, and you would put them in the trunk and go around the track meets and sell the shoes. Is that what you did . Phil thats what i did. David a at thatime, you had no vision of building a great global company. Tyou were just trying. Phil well, i thought it was the start and we could be bigger. David ok. Phil yeah, obviously, as i said earlier, nobody expected it to be as big as it is. David but at some point, they began to ut competitive with you. So you began to build your own Company Called nike, and you needed a symbol of the company, and i guess somebody came up with this swoosh. You paid 35 for that . Phil yeah, it was a graphics arts student neat Portland State whed money. [laughter] phil we said, we will pay you two dollars hour to get some designs. She spent 17. 5 hours on that. [laughter] david so 35, thats pretty good. Ok. Phil it did have a happy ending. David youher some stock. Phil when we went public, we gave her 500 shares of stock, and she t sold a single share, and it is over 1 million right now. David wow. Thats pretty good. So you began your own company eventually after you parted ways with the janese company. Did you actually design the shoes yourself or were yourthe person who fed out what the shoes wgoing to look like . Phil we were in a hurry. We had it remin me of you know, they asked john kennedy how he became a hero, and he said, its easy. They sk my boat. That, you know, tiger just basically gave us an ultimatum that said either sell us 51 of your company at book value or were gonna set up other distributors no matter what this piece of paper says. So that kind of gave us an idea that we maybe Better Change manufacturers. So we were ia hurry. And the first shoes, yes, that i did in an office in tokyo, japan over the cof a weekend. David well, ican you reveal the secret . If you actually have better shoes, c you run faster, or it really doesnt make that much difference . S phil i think she key. We still believe in the mile run lighter is better. It makes a difference. I mean, obvitosly, if you tried un a mile in a pair of dress shoes, as an exame, s youre not gonnaunst as you are in a pair of 4ounce cleats. In the old days when i warunning at the university of oregon, we hadr lot of canvas upaining shoes. You go out for a 6milrun, fand you come back and yot were bloody, so it matters. David so whenou started your company, nike, the dominant companies were germanadidas and puma. Were they happy with you coming along . And di gthey kind of try you out of business . Phil oh, no. They kind of pht worry too much abt us until it was too lat we kind of snuck up on them. David there wniversity of oregon runner, steve prefontaine, who was a legendary track star, and you became close to him. How did you get him to wear your shoes . Phil well, we worked at it and worked at it and worked at it. Orobviously, that he had adidas his whole life, but he was right there in eugene, and we had a small office in eugene, and the guy that ran the office became his brother practically, and ultimately convinced him to switch to nike. Track and field athlete. David you went after others. How hard is it you have to pay them to use your shoes or they just like it so much they just use the shoes . Phil they all just like it so much, theey aar them. David really . Phil no. [laughter] david ok. Phil no, itsi mean, obviously, if theyre good enough, they demand an endorsement fee om us or whoever ar. And you know, other than pre, the one that comes immediately to mind is michael johon at the 96 olympics in atlanta, wore the gold shoes, which lifted us gnificantly. David and you made those shoes . Ph mmhmm. David so as you began to go beyond track, how did you decide what the next sport was . Because track was an important ing for you when you started, but it wasnt your view of the only sport that you could have shoes made for. So you went next to tennis. Is that right . Phil um, thatwe had a situation with the original manufacturer, all they made was Running Shoes. So when we saiwere gonna break wi them, we werent limited to Running Shoes. So actually, the first nike shoes designed that weekend in tokyo included tennis, basketball, and wrestling. Two out of three worked. David now inyou dont need shoes in wrestling, i guess. Phil well, you do, but theres not that big a market. David early on, you had was it jn mcenroe was one of your player he from time to time would lose his temper. And did that reflect poorly on your shoe or you didnt care about his image . His image was he was a great teis player, but sometimes he would lose control, some people might s , and thatt bother you, or did it actually help sales . Phil the latter. David oh,t did . Ok. Phil no, he had a bad temper. But i always remember that Arnold Palmer had a d temper, too, i but he would keep control. But you could see him standing there ready to lose it. Went over. He was Arnold Palmer that didnt keep it in control. St exciting player of his era. And in private was a perfect gentleman. It was just that he was so intense that it would get away from him sometimes. But he was unique in that he lost his temper a lot, but when he played bjorn borg, and i think he played him 25 times, he never lost his temper once. David wow. Dnt really knew john mcenroe as a tennis player, but when i practiced law early on, the office next to mine was held by a man named john mcenroe sr. , and he always told me his son was a gh School Tennis player an. And of course, you always roll your eyes when you hear this. [laughter] so, lets talk about golf. A man named ger woods came ang, and you signed him up relatively early in his professional career, i guess at the beginning of it. So was that hard to convince him to do this . Philsetiger woods you could coming from way back, that he had won 3 u. S. Juniors and then went on to win 3 u. S. Amateurs in a 6year span from the time he was 15 to 20. And that so we he would play occasionally in the portland area, and we would always invi o him and his fath to lunch, so we were working on that for probably 3 years before wtually signed him. David and when you signed him up, exclusivy, but you also then began to make golf equipment as well, so you made golf balls and golf equipment, but now you are out of that business. Is that because you just want to focus on shoes and not other types of equipment . Phil itsrly simple equation. We lost money for 20 years on equipment and balls and we realized next year was not going to be any different. David ok,hao you got out of but let me ask you. For a while, you were doing casl wear as well. In other words, there was the aerobics effort and there was casual wear. You decided to try to make Athletic Shoes into a casual kind of shoes. Did that work as well . David yeah. Sear and shoes and clothes is still a fairly significant part of our business. David and so, in other words, its not just for athletes. You try to now design shoeso and you have been fo time, for people who are just wearing them casually. And so you le e it when people aring suits and wearing your shoes as well . Phil you look great. David k. And do you ever wear anythin . Phil no. Rdavid ok. So when you w a tuxedo or something and you wear nike shoes as well . David ok. So let me ask about basketball. In baske you have somebody named Michael Jordan, a basketball player, youve heard of, right . Phil i haveeard of him. Sign him up . O, was it hard to and why was his shoe so successful, came the most successfuloe ever. Phil yeah, it was hard to sn him up because everybody waed him. And we won that bid. We won that war. David was it on your personality . Phil clearly. [laughter] david not money, just personality . Pril no, we offered ty good. But we had a lot of good players. We didnt have really great players, and we thought he had the chance to be that. He was obvious way better than we ever could have imagined, but, yeah, w started wearing the shoes, we made them really dramatic. They were reblack and white, the main colors. And of coursit he was a very eg player. He jumped and he was quick, and he shot, he did everything well, and he was handsome and he spoke well. And then the shoe was distinctive looking. And david stern did us a huge favor, he banned it in the nba. And so we ran a big says banned in the nba, and every kid wanted the shoe then. [laughter] david but now michael jdan hasnt played inhe nba for more ta decade, and yet the shoe is still maybe your blling basketball shoe. Why is that . Phil when Michael Jordan retired from the game of basketball, we were selling about 700 miion worth of jordan product. And its now become a brand, and we are selling over 3 billion worth of jordan product. And there are some kids some kids really know who he is and hes an alltime great, but some kids dont even know who he was. Its just it became a brand. David so when you wear his shoes, so you jump higher . I mean, if i wore those shoes, i wouldnt be jumping higher, right . Phil i think you might. David really . Im going to go get some. Because of the success of the company, you are one of the wnilthiest men in the uted states and one of the wealthiest men in the world. B youre also one of tgest philanthropists in the United States and the world. So lets talk about your philanthropy f a moment. When did you that realize you just cant take it with you and youre better to give it away . At what poinin your life do y say, ive got to do something with this other than just hold on to it . Phil well, it w p fairly late in trocess because i kept thinking it was all going to disappear. I often said, if this is a dream, dont wake me. That, umbut yes, as the years went on, so, yeah, as i got older, i said, you know, you cantake it with you. But ive wanted to focus on 3 or 4 main charities rather than y and spread it across the board. David to the university of egon, your alma mar, youve given a couple of hundred Million Dollars related to athletics, but youve also given 500 million recently for a science center. So why did you decide to be so generous to your alma mater . Phil well, and basically, phnd of have to laugh because two of the great entrepreneurs, bill gates and steve jobs, basically dropped out of college when ty were freshmen, and my story ithe exact opposite. The company nike is really the result two universities, thersity of oregon, which started the idea of Running Shoes, ch and then stanford, wad the entrepreneurship education. So ive tried to give back to those two schools. Those ha been two of my main ntributions. And then the other that means a lot to me is oshu, which has a very outstanding leader heir Cancer Research area. David the oregon Science Health university. Phil Oregon Health sciences, yeah. David you gave them 500 million for Cancer Research. Youve also given recently 400 million for a new Scholarship Fellowship Program at Stanford University. Its called the knighthennessy fellows. Can you describeou decided to do the Knight Hennessy program . Phil well, first of all, im a little bit biased, t i think John Hennessy, who was president of Stanford University for 16 years, aneim sure that we could h an argument about this, but i think hes the best College President in the United States. And when he was getting ready to step down, he came up and had this plan that hed been working on for years, which basically it took a look at the rhodes holarship and looked at which was set up, i think, in 1835 or so, and nobody can quality from latin america. Theres certain number that come from e the disproportionate c from the United States because henry rhodes thought that would lead maybe to the Uinted States coming back the empire. David that didnt work, but. Phil no. Ro he took that pam make it better could we anrdbuild it around stan and when he proposed the idea, i leapt at it instantly. I think its gonna be a fabulous program. David its a very wellknown program w, but it did take 400 million of your money. So was it hard to just say, ill give y 400 million . Or do you go home and talk to your wife penny and say, i00 gonna give away illion today . Phil well, it took a little bit longer than that. It took ther part of a year, but that was one of the faster ones just because of my high regard for John Hennessy and the program that he had i think its gonna be an outstanding program. David so when you give a 400 million gift or a 500 million gift do you actually write a check out or do you just kind of wire the money . And is it hard to write that check . Phil yes. No, its a little bit of some of iteen given in stock and some of itits paid out over a few years. Dad you had two sons, one ed tragically in a scuba diving accident. And in hisonor, youve done some things. How have you tried to memorialize him in that way . Phil well, he was a big sports fan, so e gave some money to the un folltheir new basketrena, which was named after him. David today, what is left for you to accomplish and what do you want to accomplish that havent phil well, i look back on the last couple of years, and im pretty happy wosh whats happened in years, particularly around the philanthropyar that ive been able to do, and there will be more going ahead, but i take my time in thinking about those things, and im feeling good about things right now. David so do consult with your wife on that . Phil absolutely. She has final approval. [laughter] david now, where did you meet your wife . Phil well, i taught two years at Portland State, and s one of my students. David ok. And she was a good student . Phil yeah. E e was actually qugood student. She was a better student than i was. David its unalistic to make the kinds of products in the United States, you would say, these shoes and those kinds of things . Phil it is as we speak, but the Manufacturing Technology is changing very, very rapidly, so, you know, out there somewhere, 5 or 10 years, therwill be some shoe manufacturing done in the United States, which is supposedly good news. The bad news is there wont be a lot of jobs. David you were a runner for quite some time. I think up until the of 70, you ran. You never actually hurt your knee so much that you dont have artificial knees or artificiahips. Phil do not. David so how did you avoid all those problems by running so much and nr having damaged ybody . You were just a graceful runner, or good shoes . P phil well, i didn too much strain on the knees cause i dont have very much muscle mass, so i wky that way. But, yeah, i still get out and walk. When i was, i think 70, when i was out for one of my runs, i got passed by a woman with a baby carriage and i realized that maybe i should really quit trying to run and just walk. David the athletes you have met over the years, you have been involved with some of the most famous athletes. Weve mentioned some tiger woods, john mcene, steve prefontaine, Michael Jordan, among others, are any of them that stand out to you as the people that you would say are role models for youth, or do think all of tm are . And which ones have you developed the closest personal relationship with . Phil wel the ones you mentioned i like a lot and know pretty well. Theyre all a little. Is john mcenroe a role model . I would say, yeah, kind of, but a lot of peopld disagree with that. But yeah, i think but which one stands out more than the other i really do look at the them as my children kind of, and who is your favorite child . U cant say that. David so like when you got to know tiger woods, did he give you golf tips, or you dont play golf . He tried to give me a tip, but it didnt really work. David so the high point of your career you would say was when nike went public or when nike came tohe success it current has . What would you say is the high point, the u st favorable memory have . Phil i kind of look at nike as my work of art, if you will, and just the whole painting is what matters. David lets talk finally about leadership. So lea prship is not clear eople, whether you are born with it or you inherit it or you kinecome a leader by education. What do you think makes a great leader . Phil well, they come in all shapes and sizes, dont they . I mean, obviposly hollywood will ray our leaders tall and handsome and strongjawed, but lot of times the real good leaders are just the opposite. I think its just. People that well, first of all, they have got to want it, but they come in all shapes and sizes. I dont know there is any one lson. David and stoday, anything left you would like to achieve in your personal life or professional life, or youve pretty much achieved it . Phil no, iif i knew exactly what it wa i probably wouldnt tell you, but itsi dont really know. T its something i think about a lot, and im comfortable that ill be having y have some goals and to meet them david now, you are famous for wearing sunglasses, and i appreciate you not wearing them this interview. But is that because you are shy by nature . You just dont want people to see you . Phil basically, i wear contact lenses, and it makes the sun bright. T the future is so bri wear them all the time. David ok. Thank you very much for interesting conversation im gonna try to wear these shoes more regularly, so maybe i can be in better shape than i am. Phil thank you very much. Thank you. David appreciate it. Announcer support for the pbs presentation of this program was provided by general motors. I see a future. I see a good future. Both we see a future. Wiero crashes. Woman i see a future where fossil fuels. Man are a thing of the past. All we see a future with zero emissions. I see a future where traffic. Keeps perfect ti. Where intellence is keepalways by degn. We see a futuriowith zero congestn. Man we are. Second man we are. Both we are. All general motors. Be more pbs hes aillionairehe businessman and politician who will be a major force in 2020. This week on firing line. Ive devoted my life and net worth to tryingo make the world a better place. Hes no longer the mayor l of new york city, Michael Bloomberg is still banking on his polical capital. He gave 1. 8 billionli pouring millions into democratic races and causes and making his case foris businesse gto step in dur this era of polarization. No one should be allowed to buy a gun without passing a background check,io p many thought Michael Bloomberg would run against n anothe york city billionaire that hes known for decades. The bottom line is, trump is a risky, reckless aec radical choice and we c tt affordo make that choice. Whats doe