Books like Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

01

That Will Never Work

Marc Randolph · Business

That Will Never Work is Marc Randolph's memoir of co-founding Netflix with Reed Hastings, covering the period from the original idea in 1997 through the company's IPO in 2002.

Marc Randolph's Netflix origin story is Shoe Dog's closest cousin: a founder's honest, near-death account of the messy early years, told as a story rather than a lesson.

02

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

Brad Stone · Business

The Everything Store is Brad Stone's account of Amazon's founding and growth from a book retailer to one of the most powerful companies in the world.

Bezos building Amazon from a garage under constant cash strain, obsessed and relentless, the same up-close portrait of a founder who bet everything.

03

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Ben Horowitz · Business

The Hard Thing About Hard Things is Ben Horowitz's account of what it actually feels like to run a company through crisis.

Horowitz on the gut-wrenching reality of keeping a company alive when it is nearly out of cash, the fear Knight lives through, from a CEO who has been there.

04

Steve Jobs

Walter Isaacson · Biography

Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs was authorized by Jobs himself, who gave Isaacson more than forty hours of interviews and opened up his family, friends, and colleagues to the same scrutiny.

Isaacson's definitive portrait of an obsessive founder whose product perfectionism mirrors Bowerman tinkering with a waffle iron to build a better sole.

05

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

Ashlee Vance · Biography

Ashlee Vance's biography of Elon Musk is the most comprehensive account of Musk's life and companies up to 2015, written with Musk's cooperation after an initial refusal and a long negotiation.

Vance shows a founder repeatedly wagering the whole company on the next payroll, the same growing-faster-than-your-cash-flow recklessness Knight confesses to.

06

Lost and Founder

Rand Fishkin · Business

Rand Fishkin built Moz, the SEO software company, from a bootstrapped consultancy into a venture-backed business with millions in revenue — and then watched it nearly collapse under the weight of that growth.

Rand Fishkin's unusually candid startup memoir shares Shoe Dog's honesty about failure, self-doubt, and the parts of company-building nobody puts on a slide.

07

Open: An Autobiography

Andre Agassi · Memoir

Andre Agassi's autobiography opens with one of the most famous confessions in sports memoir: he hates tennis.

Agassi's raw, self-lacerating memoir matches Knight's emotional honesty about the cost of obsession, a champion admitting he half-hated the thing he mastered.

08

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Daniel James Brown · History

The Boys in the Boat is the story of the University of Washington crew team that won the gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, defeating Nazi Germany's squad on Hitler's home course.

Depression-era University of Washington rowers chasing Olympic gold, carrying the grit, teamwork, and Pacific Northwest grain that also runs through Knight and Bowerman.

09

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace · Business

Creativity, Inc.

Catmull on building Pixar and protecting a fragile creative mission through years of near-collapse, a founder reckoning honestly with what it took.

10

The Ride of a Lifetime

Robert Iger · Business

The Ride of a Lifetime is Robert Iger's account of his fifteen years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, from his appointment in 2005 to his planned retirement in 2020.

Iger's memoir of climbing to and running Disney is the more polished cousin, strong on the human toll and judgment calls behind building something lasting.

11

Born to Run

Christopher McDougall · Health

Born to Run begins as a personal injury investigation.

McDougall's exuberant book about why we run gets at the obsession Nike was born to serve, the love of the sport that started Knight on the whole improbable journey.

12

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr.

Ron Chernow · Biography

Ron Chernow's Titan, published in 1998, is the definitive biography of John D.

Chernow's life of Rockefeller is the long-arc version of Shoe Dog: a driven, contradictory man assembling an empire from almost nothing.