Phil Knight Net Worth

Phil Knight Net Worth

How Much Does Phil Knight Make?

Phil Knight is the co-founder and Chairman of Nike, Inc.. He resigned as the company's chief executive officer in 2004, while retaining the position of chairman of the board. As of 2010, Knight's stake in Nike gives him an estimated net worth of US$11.1 billion, making him the 23rd richest person in the U.S.

A graduate of the University of Oregon and Stanford Graduate School of Business, he has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the schools. Knight gave the largest donation in history at the time to Stanford's business school in 2006. A native Oregonian, he ran track for coach Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon, with whom he would co-found Nike.

Right after graduating from Oregon, Knight enlisted in the Army and served one year on active duty and seven years in the Army Reserve. After the year of active duty, he enrolled at Stanford Graduate School of Business. In Frank Shallenberger's Small Business class, Knight developed a love affair with something besides sports — he discovered he was an entrepreneur. Knight recalls in a Stanford Magazine article "That class was an 'aha!' moment" ... "Shallenberger defined the type of person who was an entrepreneur--and I realized he was talking to me. I remember after saying to myself: 'This is really what I would like to do.' " In this class Knight needed to create a business plan. His paper, "Can Japanese Sports Shoes Do to German Sports Shoes What Japanese Cameras Did to German Cameras?", essentially was the premise to his foray into selling running shoes. He graduated with a Masters of Business Administration from the school in 1962.