It’s hard to distill the historic multidecade rise of Nike down to just a few sentences, but humor me. Back in the early ’70s, co-founder and former University of Oregon middle distance runner Phil Knight collaborated with his former coach Bill Bowerman on the so-called “Moon Shoe,” which quickly became the ne plus ultra product for serious joggers. Nike carefully expanded on its success in the performance running space by dominating the burgeoning sneaker industry and then subsequently moved into new categories, applying the same strategy each time: aligning itself with the professionals at the apex of each sport before moving downstream to capture all the value among the amateurs and hobbyists and other aspiring classes.