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Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout

fortune.com

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Re: Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout

#361

Post by illiac786 »

jarym wrote: post #262
nemothekid wrote: post #11

Nike's destruction over the past 5 years was really surprised and until I read up about the whole "direct to consumer" fiasco it really helped me understand another trend I was a bit confused about. About 2-3 years, it felt like, out of nowhere everyone was wearing Hoka and On brand sneakers. In my entire life it felt like the Nike/Adidas duopoly was unbreakable, and then it felt suddenly that Hoka was everywhere. Wh…

We keep reading different variations of the same story over and over - different companies and industries but make the same fatal mistakes. 1) Let the 'spreadsheet people' take over, every decision is now allegedly based on 'data' 2) Kill the innovation because they can’t put a $ value on it 3) Rake in a few years of fast profits and soak in glory 4) Company implodes, CEO rides into the sunset, board that should have…

Is it what happened at Nike? I did not folly it very much

Re: Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout

#362

Post by tuesdaynight »

tencentshill wrote: post #293
alexpotato wrote: post #219

There is a great article [0] that has some interesting points about this: - Nike used to be very "male coded" e.g. "Be like Mike" - So much so that they were one of the only companies where men bought more clothes than women - The powers that be wanted to go after the "Adjacent Whale" (explained in the article) that was the female consumer - They ended up alienating their core customer base while competing poorly wit…

I don't think "culture war" was a big contributor.

Good luck trying to argue that with people nowadays. Culture war mentality is perfect for wishful thinking, and it's hard to avoid falling into the trap.

Google, Apple, Facebook, etc, had their woke phase with tremendously growth, and nobody says "get woke, go broke" when they made billions. What about Twitter losing all its users because of Musk? Most of the people in my social circle who said that are still using Twitter nowadays. And if you dare to say that they are drinking the Kool-Aid, you are "not following politics close enough"

Re: Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout

#363

Post by dijit »

mikestew wrote: post #357
dijit wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the people flagging me haven’t bothered to try reading it, they just assume that they know what it says and thats enough. Despite the fact that I suspect many would agree with the core sentiment, no matter which political side you’re on. It argues that greed causes loss of direction, and that large corporations can’t help themselves but to be greedy.

I’m not reading that disjointed wall of text to the end. If you have a point to make, spit out, don’t proxy it to someone else. Links are to support your argument, not make it for you.

Your call, aside from the opening being a bit long winded, it's actually a well written bit of text that goes into what made Nike successful historically, and the psychology of corporate greed and it's ability to destroy vision.

The point that was made was that their brand had historically been very competitive and celebrated that competitiveness, that was their whole marketing.

However they completely abandoned that way of marketing because there was a "whale" just off the bow which was much more lucrative (or so they thought) and what if they could just capture that whale... and eventually capturing that whale comes at any cost, including the alienation of your core purchasing demographics. But they tell themselves it's worth it, if only they can just bring in the whale.

So, clearly they don't care about anyone, least of all if you used to be a customer.

the point made in the text is properly versed and written, you do yourself a disservice by choosing not to read it because it makes a really good point that doesn't compress well.

Re: Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout

#364

Post by dijit »

throwawayffffas wrote: post #237
dijit wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the people flagging me haven’t bothered to try reading it, they just assume that they know what it says and thats enough. Despite the fact that I suspect many would agree with the core sentiment, no matter which political side you’re on. It argues that greed causes loss of direction, and that large corporations can’t help themselves but to be greedy.

It does so in an incredibly long winded stream of consciousness that meanders all over the place, and half way through reads as "Nike is bad because it went woke."

> "Nike is bad because it went woke."

They tried expanding their audience for a perceived larger audience.

Eventually they realised that the "weight" of bringing in this larger audience meant letting some things go.

The things they let go were their core demographic.

They were unable to bring in the whale anyway.

Thus, greed, not malice (or a political agenda) lead them to lose their standing.

It's not more political than that.

Re: Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout

#365

Post by DivingForGold »

nemothekid wrote: post #11

Nike's destruction over the past 5 years was really surprised and until I read up about the whole "direct to consumer" fiasco it really helped me understand another trend I was a bit confused about. About 2-3 years, it felt like, out of nowhere everyone was wearing Hoka and On brand sneakers. In my entire life it felt like the Nike/Adidas duopoly was unbreakable, and then it felt suddenly that Hoka was everywhere. Wh…

Go Woke - - - Go Broke.

Re: Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout

#366

Post by nunez »

freetime2 wrote: post #81

I had a good 15+ year run where I only ever wore Nikes. Then I wore my first wide toe-box shoes and haven’t bought Nike since. Looking back, Nike was never very good about offering different width options on most of their shoes. And I still don’t think they offer wide toe box shoes.

Nike used to have sort-of minimalist shoes (Nike Free) but they (and Adidas) never really embraced that movement. New Balance tried with the Minimus line, but they eventually re-designed them with a more traditional architecture (narrower toe box, arch support, some drop). Same with Merrell.

Re: Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout

#367

Post by ericmay »

jarym wrote: post #349
ericmay wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that narrative and story is overly-simplistic, feel-good stuff for engineers who think they're smarter than they are and the explanations for why these companies fail can be rather nuanced and completely unrelated to whatever decision some database developer thinks they would make? Maybe you're seeing patterns because your brain which is set by default to recognize patterns is deceiving you? Nike specifically l…

https://andrewdremin.com/nike-dtc-strategy-failure-2026/ talks about how they changed their approach to product development to rehash old designs for a more fashion led approach.

A failure of design rehash is still an engineering failure in this industry. I don't think you can cleanly separate the two like you are more able to, though imperfectly, in software.

I don't mean to suggest that there aren't other problems or that spreadsheet people aren't dragging the company down. Changing to a more D2C business model was likely a bad idea, for example, which has influence/influenced by engineering/design as well. But I do mean to challenge this notion of "if only the engineers got to make the decisions" because from my point of view with respect to Nike and its clothing line, those are the engineers being unleashed to build whatever futuristic/fashionable products that they want to.

Re: Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout

#368

Post by mikestew »

dijit wrote: post #363
mikestew wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not reading that disjointed wall of text to the end. If you have a point to make, spit out, don’t proxy it to someone else. Links are to support your argument, not make it for you.

Your call, aside from the opening being a bit long winded, it's actually a well written bit of text that goes into what made Nike successful historically, and the psychology of corporate greed and it's ability to destroy vision. The point that was made was that their brand had historically been very competitive and celebrated that competitiveness, that was their whole marketing. However they completely abandoned that…

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I lightly read half-way, but it didn’t catch me like it apparently did you. That aside, what you’ve said (and, AFAICT, what TFA was trying to say) matches the scatterbrained marketing and product vision I’ve witnessed recently, at least from the perspective of a competitive runner who has used their shoes since the ‘70s.

From my POV, shopping Nike is schizophrenic in that I don’t know which piece of gear is the fashion brand and which is for athletes. Which fits what you’re saying: who are they even trying to sell to anymore? And thus, as a person who was their core (Phil Knight start Nike selling running shoes out of the trunk of his car), I mostly run in other brands these days.

Re: Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout

#369

Post by listless »

alexpotato wrote: post #219

There is a great article [0] that has some interesting points about this: - Nike used to be very "male coded" e.g. "Be like Mike" - So much so that they were one of the only companies where men bought more clothes than women - The powers that be wanted to go after the "Adjacent Whale" (explained in the article) that was the female consumer - They ended up alienating their core customer base while competing poorly wit…

This makes sense from a business perspective. If your primary customers are men, you wanna branch out of that real quick. I think something like ~80% of all consumer spending in the US is done by women. You gotta go after that. That's an ENORMOUS market to just leave on the table.

That said, I fail to see how trying to attract more women alienated men. I just don't buy that culture war as a reason. I remember Nike doing some things that were a bit annoying that I wished they would just stay out of, but I still bought their shoes. The only thing more insufferable than the culture war is taking part in said culture war.

Re: Nike exits the S&P 100 after 18 years and a $200B market-cap wipeout

#370

Post by jimmydddd »

illiac786 wrote: post #361
jarym wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We keep reading different variations of the same story over and over - different companies and industries but make the same fatal mistakes. 1) Let the 'spreadsheet people' take over, every decision is now allegedly based on 'data' 2) Kill the innovation because they can’t put a $ value on it 3) Rake in a few years of fast profits and soak in glory 4) Company implodes, CEO rides into the sunset, board that should have…

Is it what happened at Nike? I did not folly it very much

As best I can tell, main narratives are: 1) Nike decided to sell direct from their Web site and pulled shoes from Foot Locker to save on their cut. Foot Locker filled the empty shelves with Hoka. 2) Nike decided to stop innovating for performance, and focused on being a fashion brand. Hoka provided more cushioning, which runners were asking for. 3) Nike just kept rehashing old models with minor tweaks instead of coming out with new designs. 4) Nike kept its prices high.
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