That era has passed. Only leaders with exceptional skills and a high degree of adaptability can save companies and make them prosper now. I'm afraid we don't have that kind of leadership at our disposal.
21 replies (most recent on top)
If you’re a CxO with no strategy and no plan for growth there’s only one answer in the near term. Cut costs and pray they don’t fire your a-s.
@e8 you said that once you burn your integrity you don't get it back ever.
intelligent people see what the 'top' is doing and have probably changed their viewpoints of society”
We have VPs with no integrity and they get away with it. People with inappropriate relationships. People promoting their friends and family but they maintain their status because nobody wants to say anything. This doesn’t change our view on society. It changes our view on Nike and the leaders and Sr. Leaders that do everything they can to protect these unethical leaders. Look around and tell me you don't know of a leader that has violated our code of conduct but there they are with a job and a title they don’t deserve.
You do realize that many individuals (not all of whom are wealthy) own the securities at investment management firms, right?
I have a Fortune 500 401K with Vanguard and Nike is part of that portfolio.
I agree with your premise though.
Key Ownership Details (as of early 2025/2026 reports):
Phil Knight & Family: Hold approximately 17-22% of total shares and control over 97% of Class A shares, which elect the majority of the board.
Vanguard Group: Holds roughly 7.1%-7.2% of total shares.
BlackRock: Holds roughly 5.7%-5.9% of total shares.
blackrock and vanguard own a piece of each other
they are a monopoly
90% percent of the market is owned by 10% of the population
@ dm+1 exactly how our area is set up and it’s served us well for years. We’re efficient, work well together, accountable in our roles, and only work on priorities within budgets. We’re always looking to eliminate low value work.
@a7 I mean the employees of were doing that for a long time at Nike. Hiring relatives to double dip as ftes. Def doing shady things with etws so 🤷♂️
@dm who cares about moral. A small percentage of Nike can find other jobs. Everyone else can complain and not do sh--e. Like honestly there still people that got hired with 0 skills that are just related to someone's friend
@e8 Nike only hired competent people accidentally, and then never listened to them
@c0
once you burn your integrity
you don't get it back ever
intelligent people see what the 'top' is doing
and have probably changed their viewpoints of society
GT needs a headcount reduction but replacing NA teams of 3 with ITC teams of 6 (+ an infrastructure dude + a testing girl + 2-3 layers of support teams + an incident response team + …….)
Engineering has never been more bloated and less capable. We used to hire people that were good at their jobs and able to wear every hat. Now ITC can’t even wear a single hat well. Engineering failures are sold as complexity and used as an excuse to hire more failures.
@cx everything I have heard matches to a T what you’re calling out. It’s either big bandaid rip off, limits on increases (if any at all) or attrition.
The challenge right now is moral is already massively down and we need to win back customers, both bad spots to be in. It’s like being stalled out on the rail road tracks and the train is coming.
Shareholder value keeps going up
Yes layoffs stink. Yes they cause longterm damage. And yes Nike’s current state was caused by poor leadership between 2019 - 2024.
Unfortunately at this point layoffs are also necessary. Nike is currently staffed for 8% perpetual growth and margins in the high 40’s. As we all know however growth is barely trending positive and margins are now flirting with the high 30’s. This means SG&A needs to be reduced in fairly dramatic fashion, and the way you do that is by reducing headcount.
It’s the classic dilemma of “You only have a couple of choices and none of those choices are good.” Some companies get creative and implement policies like “Everyone will take a 5% salary haircut but that will prevent us from having to lay anyone off.” Or they implement some other tactics that cause widespread pain but do not result in anyone losing their jobs.
With large companies like Nike though it’s difficult to get buy-in on collective sacrifice. Most people would rather chance that they won’t be on the eventual layoff list rather than agree to “take one for the team”. While I don’t agree with that myself, it is nonetheless a rational take on the matter. In addition, retaining staff isn’t just about salaries since taxes and benefits also add considerable employee costs.
I’m genuinely surprised Nike layoffs haven’t already been larger. By my accounting Nike would need to shed at least 5% of headcount to stabilize margin decompression. I’m not predicting layoffs of that magnitude. I don’t have anymore insight on Nike’s layoff plans than any of you. I’m only saying that’s what would need to happen to effectively cut costs.
“May the odds be ever in your favor.”
Layoffs su-k but Nike GT is still a heavily bloated organization with lots pretending to do busywork 🤷 - Surely you cannot deny that?
You linked the old one from the Parker era lol
https://www.cohenmilstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/First-Amend-Complaint-In-re-Nike-Securities-Litigation-2025-02-10.pdf
This is the ongoing class action activity
I disagree in the context of many publicly traded companies
All these malicious tech investments, conflicts of interest, board incentives, legally questionable work orders and endless kingdom building is designed to siphon money from the public to corpo rats.
https://www.cohenmilstein.com/case-study/in-re-nike-inc-securities-litigation/
It baffles me how SEC and the parasitic relationship with ACN did not make it to the lawsuit yet or the whole RAT debacle with cognizant and his Indian consulting buddies in mainland India.
Hopefully they would be able recover some money for the actual shareholders, your ESPPs, 401k's and pension funds who were allegedly defrauded by J the Don, AC, HON, MF and RAT and his kohls cronies.
Nike is in its current state thanks to those malicious investments, you are being laid off, your ESPPs and RSU's are diminished and your 401k's are down because of what happened between 2019-2024
Even if the CEO wanted to fix things the situation is entirely out of control. The instant he starts protecting the company he will have to deal with a hostile revolt. Data will be deleted, programs will get broken, IP will be (has been) stolen and sold.
Do we keep bleeding from the throat? Do we cut off an arm and a leg? Could the company even survive while we took a year digging out all the traps?
You can’t spell “hiring kickbacks” without “offshoring” and you can’t spell “offshoring” without “layoffs”. ITC leadership sees the political writing on the wall and is squeezing as hard as they can before the tap closes in a few years.
“AI Automation” narrative. I laugh everytime I hear that.
@a7 that sounds right
also, amzn is doing layoffs left right and center, so I guess it's just 'the thing to do now'?
They are not saving anything.
They are siphoning money into their pockets and the majority shareholder's pockets
without any care for the actual workers or the long term health of the company.
If the company fails,
the skillless executives will just move to a different company,
and the majority shareholder will sell their shares just beforehand.