While Apple viewed its 1980 IPO as a coronation, Nike used Wall Street to escape crushing debt. Inside Phil Knight's hostage negotiation.
5 min read
Nike executives tried to fire Tinker Hatfield for the Air Max 1. Inside the 1987 corporate bloodbath that forced an empire to cut itself open.
7 min read
Nike killed the Air Force 1 in 1984. Three Baltimore merchants fronted the cash to resurrect it. And changed the market forever.
6 min read
Nike secretly quantified the toxic toluene choking its overseas workers. Inside the leaked 1997 audit that shattered their public defense.
6 min read
Nike survived 1975 via federal check-kiting fraud. Inside the frozen accounts and the Japanese bailout that kept Phil Knight out of prison.
6 min read
Nike's "Just Do It" Origin: The Firing Squad Slogan0:00/536.0308331× I spent three days locked in a forgotten corporate
6 min read
Desperate Phil Knight paid Carolyn Davidson $35 for the Nike Swoosh. We investigate how a rushed, asymmetrical blade hacked human visual psychology.
6 min read
Phil Knight secured his sportswear empire by breaching a Japanese supplier's briefcase. Inside the 1974 court records of corporate espionage.
7 min read
Editor's note: When you spend an entire month locked in an archive, breathing in the dust of thirty years of corporate history, your
11 min read
Let's talk about the sanctity of the pocket. The modern smartphone is the most intimate piece of hardware in human history. It holds
4 min read
To sell the terrifying Macintosh, Apple deployed Susan Kare. Inside the pixelated psychological Trojan horse that manipulated human trust.
7 min read
The marketing executives want you to believe that technology is a phantom entity, a pure manifestation of thought floating harmlessly in the cloud. They sell
7 min read
If you want to understand the modern technology industry, you have to strip away the mythology. You have to ignore the sleek glass storefronts, the
7 min read
When you spend enough time digging through the decaying paper trail of corporate history, you stop believing in the myth of the flawless visionary. The
7 min read
In the early 1980s, the computer industry was suffering from a severe case of the uglies. Walk into any office, and you were assaulted by
5 min read
