Let’s stop pretending this latest round of layoffs at Nike has anything to do with "market headwinds" or "strategic realignment." Call it what it actually is: a massive, multi-million dollar admission of incompetence by a leadership team that couldn’t manage a lemonade stand, let alone a global icon.
For the past few years, the C-suite has sat safely in their glass fortresses in Beaverton, completely detached from reality, high on their own supply of corporate buzzwords. They drove innovation into a ditch, ki-led our wholesale relationships just to chase vanity DTC metrics, and watched product quality tank while sneaker culture passed us by.
And who pays the price for their catastrophic, multi-billion-dollar strategic blunders? Never the executives, of course.
Instead of accountability, we get cold, cowardly corporate memos delivered just in time to ruin people's lives, written by cowards who will still collect their obscene performance bonuses while thousands of hardworking people—the actual soul and engine of this company—are tossed out like old inventory. They outsource our jobs, gut our institutional knowledge, and replace talent with endless layers of yes-men and overpriced consultants who wouldn't know a great product if it hit them in the face.
You can slap "Just Do It" on every wall on campus, but let’s be honest: the only thing this leadership team is world-class at doing is failing upward.
To everyone packing up their desks today: you built a legendary brand in spite of the people running it. Don't let these suits make you feel small for getting discarded by a company that lost its way the moment it forgot who actually made it great.