Nike only paid $35 for the swoosh—and cofounder Phil Knight didn’t like it at first

Nike cofounder Phil Knight once taught accounting classes at Portland State University

Before Nike took off, Phil Knight taught accounting classes at Portland State. He met two very important people there: his wife Penelope and Carolyn Davidson, who designed Nike’s logo.

Nike's Phil Knight ran for Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon before they became business partners

They became business partners when Knight tried to sell the Onitsuka Tigers to Bowerman for the Oregon track team. Bowerman told Knight he didn't just want the shoes; he wanted in on the whole deal.

Nike started out as a Japanese shoe distributor called Blue Ribbon Sports

Nike cofounder Phil Knight’s first business venture was distributing Onitsuka Tiger running shoes in America. Knight would drive to track meets and sell the shoes out of the back of his car.

The business plan for Blue Ribbon Sports came from a Stanford assignment

Nike cofounder Phil Knight’s original idea was to begin selling Japanese shoes, which were cheaper and just as light and durable as the leading German shoes from Adidas and Puma, at a lower price in the American market. His last assignment in business school at Stanford became the original business plan for Blue Ribbon Sports.

Nike was almost named ‘Dimension Six’

Jeff Johnson, the company’s first full-time employee, said the name came to him in a dream just before Blue Ribbon Sports filed a patent for the “Nike” football shoe. Nike cofounder Phil Knight wanted to name the company “Dimension Six,” but was ultimately convinced that a one-word name would be better. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Nike couldn’t sign legendary distance runner Steve Prefontaine due to regulations

Because of amateur running regulations, Prefontaine—who held every American running record from 2,000 to 10,000 meters at the time—couldn’t do a paid endorsement for Nike. So Nike’s Phil Knight decided to give him a $5K yearly stipend and print business cards that said Prefontaine was the “National Director of Public Affairs.” When asked what that meant, Knight said, “it means he can run fast.”

Nike went public in 1980, and the first share sold at $22

Nike stock plummeted in the four years that followed the company’s initial public offering (IPO). The company’s deal with Michael Jordan in 1984 ultimately revived investor confidence.

The first shoes Jordan got from Nike were against NBA regulations

The initial mockups Nike gave Jordan were entirely black and red. The NBA had strict rules around shoe color at the time that these colors violated. The story goes that Nike paid the $5K fine for each game that Jordan wore the shoes in, but there’s no photographic evidence that Jordan ever wore them in a game at all. Regardless, Nike created the “banned” ad, capitalizing on the controversy.

Bill Bowerman’s daughter-in-law found the waffle iron he used to create a breakthrough shoe

Nike cofounder and University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman poured polyurethane into a waffle iron for his first attempt at creating the revolutionary waffle-knit sole. The waffle iron, which was found in his backyard, now sits in Nike’s headquarters.

Nike made retailers pay for Air Jordans upfront to guarantee stock

Instead of paying for the inventory sold, Knight locked retailers into iron-clad agreements, where the companies would pay upfront for Nike inventory (but at a 7% discount). Knight did this to leverage debt, allowing retailers a better chance at getting the wildly popular Air Jordans.

Kanye abruptly left Nike in 2013 and took his Air Yeezys to Adidas for $10M

In 2009, Kanye West became the first non-athlete Nike produced a signature shoe for. However, Kanye left Nike for the company’s rival, Adidas, just a few years later. Kanye said Nike was stifling his creative vision, and he felt like he wasn’t getting enough royalties.

Nike is one of the world’s most recognizable brands

People recognize the Nike “swoosh” brand logo all over the world. The simplicity of the logo and the short, snappy name of the company are largely responsible for the brand’s wide-sweeping visibility.

Shaquille O’Neal showed up to a meeting with Nike wearing head-to-toe Reebok

Nike wanted to sign then-newcomer Shaquille O’Neill, but didn’t offer Shaq his own shoe because they had already signed Alonzo Mourning. Shaq said he felt like Nike didn’t understand his potential, and the company wouldn’t have given him as much creative control as Reebok would.

Nike’s slogan was inspired by a death row inmate’s last words

Advertising superstar Dan Wieden of legendary advertising agency Widen+Kennedy said he got inspiration for Nike’s “Just do it” from an inmate’s last words on death row. Wieden said the way the inmate talked about facing uncertainty inspired him.

A NASA engineer came up with the idea for the air-cushioned Nike Air shoes

Frank Rudy came to Nike with the idea of using air capsules in the soles of running shoes to provide better cushioning. The first shoe with this technology, the Tailwind, came out in 1979.

X's bird logo cost just $15 and wasn't added until four years after launch

When Twitter launched in 2006, it featured green, slimy lettering and lacked the now-famous bird icon. The bird was adopted in 2010 and eventually became the platform's official logo—unofficially named Larry after NBA legend Larry Bird.

The Beatles once sued Nike

Nike used The Beatles' "Revolution" in an ad, sparking a $15M lawsuit over the song's use. While The Beatles and Nike ultimately reached an agreement, Nike ushered in the modern practice of using hit songs in advertisements, as opposed to jingles or covers.

More than 400 investors turned Peloton down in its initial funding rounds

Peloton founder John Foley said investors rejected the company's initial funding requests because there was no clear indication of what the market for at-home fitness classes looked like. Ultimately, more than 200 angel investors gave the company its first round of cash. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Apple's first backer recruited his own CEO to help manage the company

Wanting Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to focus on developing Apple computers, Mike Markkula brought in his colleague from Fairchild Semiconductor, Michael Scott. As employee number five, Scott helped professionalize the fledgling computer company and getting manufacturing off the ground. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Sam Altman gave his first-ever startup pitch after dropping out of Stanford

He dropped out of Stanford to start Loopt, which sold in 2012 for $43.4M. You can watch his first-ever startup pitch in a video.

Raymond Pettibon designed Black Flag's iconic logo

Pettibon’s brother, Greg Ginn, was the guitarist for a new band in search of a logo. Pettibon delivered an image that would become one of the defining icons of punk: four black bars, meant to symbolize a waving flag.

North Carolina adopted 'First in Flight' license plates in 1982—to snarky reviews

Many locals surfaced the irony of enshrining the accomplishments of two men from Ohio on the license plates of North Carolinans. Nonetheless, the style endures to this day, alongside Ohio’s “Birthplace of Aviation.”

How fee-free Robinhood makes money

Robinhood is both loved and hated by retail investors. Although its mobile app is easy to use and transactions on its platform are fee-free, many individuals have taken issue with a controversial practice that drives 75% of its revenues. Robinhood uses payment for order flow, essentially taking payment from other brokerages to redirect users’ trades. Read up on how PFOF works here.

John Riddell’s first helmet was adopted by college football teams in 1939

The early days of football were violent and there was little protection for players, especially their heads. When deaths became commonplace, John Riddell set out to invent a better way to protect football players. Eventually, the technology from Riddell’s helmets ended up on WWII battlefields.

College sticker prices are often misleading

1440's editor-in-chief chatted with an economist in this podcast episode to unravel how college tuition really works, who carries the biggest debt, and why the system feels expensive.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

About 2,000 US babies are born annually without some portion of their limbs, potentially leading to a lifetime of pricey prosthetics.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Meet the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence—most of whom didn't put pen to paper until August 2, 1776—and see their original signatures.

Lesser-known phobias include turophobia, or the fear of cheese, and nomophobia, the fear of being without your cell phone.

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Between 10 million and 50 million people in the US develop rashes from poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak each year.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.