David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…It's interesting. Phil Knight would describe himself in his prime as an okay runner. Because he was running with the best collegiate runners in the world coached by Bill Bowerman, who barely gave Phil Knight the time of day. I get the sense he was not a man of many words and certainly almost no words of encouragement other than run faster. You've got Phil Knight. The guy runs a 4-minute 13-second mile and is convinced he's okay. This is exactly what I was going to say. I think at any other school, Phil would have been a star. This isn't really in Shoe Dog, but I know Phil's personality from reading so much about him over the past couple of weeks. I think he probably went to Oregon in part because he wasn't going to be a star there. He is, I think, the most introverted CEO that we have ever covered on Acquired. Rockefeller was pretty introverted, but he looks like Elon Musk compared to Phil Knight. Yeah, and a lot of the CEOs that show up in these Acquired episodes are deeply private people, but it's mostly because they want to stay out of the limelight. When they're in the limelight, you can see that they can turn it on. They're bright, shiny, and they're loving working the room. That's not Phil Knight at all.…

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