I have just finished reading “Swoosh. The unauthorizes story of Nike and the men who played there“. Even though it was a business book, it read like a novel, telling the story of Phil Knight and the men who worked with him to make Nike a billion dollar company.
What struck me most was that when you got closer to the end of the book, you could see how the company was transformed from a dynamic, creative (almost anarchistic) company into a corporate behemoth. I want to share the ending with you:
“The new leaders of Nike are not entrepreneurs like their predecessors. They are managers, very good managers – much better managers than their predecessors. The pain-in-the ass individualism that made Nike different is gone, but so is the spirit that made employees care. There are experts who would say that such a transition was inevitable, that every large company goes through a transition from entrepreneurs to managerq. But if times ever got tough again, which would you turn to? And, perhaps, just as important, who would you rather go to a ball game with?”
“Just do it?”
UPDATE: You might also want to read this and this article from Harvard Business School, which deal with when it is time for a company’s founder to “move on” and hand over the reins to a new CEO.
Hi Johnny
It’s been a long, long time but I was just thinking about you so thought I would seek you out.
I was reading some more guff about web2.0, YouTube buyout etc, and couldn’t help but think that you had all this sussed back in ’99. YuFriends, YuPhoto and whatever other pet projects you had. Would have been nice to let it all run and see what happened!
Drop me a note sometime
Steve Russell (at bt.com…still)