Memo: Why Nike Needs Air

The year was 1984, and Nike needed a change.

Now a corporation with revenues that exceed the GDP of all but 80 or so of the world’s countries, Nike nearly 39 years ago executed one of the most important business decisions in history. On October 26, 1984, Michael Jordan agreed to a partnership that would alter the sports business for an entire generation. There is something sort of Orwellian about this year, when a shoe brand with $919 million in sales became one of the most powerful corporations on earth. To accomplish this, they signed an unproven NBA rookie to a contract format that had yet to exist in sports.

A New York Times report, eight long months after Jordan’s signing, detailed the company’s distress. It would snap out of it in two years’ time with the help of the NBA rookie.

Nike’s earnings declined 29 percent in the fiscal year 1984, the first drop in 10 years. ”Orwell was right: 1984 was a tough year,” Philip H. Knight, Nike’s co-founder, chairman and chief executive, said in the company’s annual report. Yet 1985 is even tougher. In its two most recent quarters Nike had its first losses ever.

Today, Nike isn’t just a shoe and apparel manufacturer. Its advertising and public relations strategies contribute to the national consensus. The company’s impact extends far beyond sport; it has reached the stratosphere of culture, economics, and even politics. It’s as much a part of the fabric of America as the flag’s fibers themselves.

The year is 2023. And Nike is still more recognizable than the names of many American presidents. But there’s been a seismic shift.

1985: Michael Jordan vs. 2023: Tiffany x Nike Capsule

While sports has never been bigger as a business, it requires more investment by corporations like Nike to match the influence that it once maintained. Today, a Nike swoosh or Michael Jordan logo is on every MLB, NBA, and NFL uniform and countless more within the NCAA’s ecosystem.

The decline in the influence of professional athletes and the waning of Nike’s share of that influence are two interrelated phenomena. When Lebron James broke the all-time NBA scoring record, it should have moved the sales needle for Nike. Instead, his participation in the promotion of Nike’s Tiffany collaboration was more likely to pay dividends than a special “scoring title” edition of Lebron’s shoes. He’s the company’s highest-profile (active) star athlete. But it was just another passing moment; Phil Knight sat on the sideline looking morose and bored by the spectacle before him. He’d seen a lifetime of those moments and they’ve lost relevance over the decades. In fact, he all but created the economy for moments-turned-advertisement. In Nike and Omniversal Brand, I explained:

To many, Michael Jordan is Nike’s greatest athlete. To others, it’s Kobe Bean Bryant, Cristiano Ronaldo, Tiger Woods, or Serena Williams. For me, it’s Steve Prefontaine. Nike’s first athlete set the stage for decades of the brand’s rebellious and counterintuitive thinking. The spirit of Pre lives on.

So let’s explore how the decline of athletes’ influence and Nike’s waning influence are connected and what factors have contributed to these changes.

Founded in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports, Nike was inventive from the beginning. Over the years, it’s become one of the biggest and most recognizable brands in the world. However, in recent years, the company has faced declining influence and has struggled to maintain its position as a leader in the athletic apparel industry.

One of the biggest factors contributing to that decline of Nike’s influence is increasing competition from enterprise brands and direct-to-consumer brands, alike. In recent years, new and innovative athletic apparel companies have emerged, offering consumers a wider range of choices and forcing Nike to adapt to changing market demands.

Companies such as Under Armour, Adidas, and Puma have all made significant gains in market share, challenging Nike’s dominance in the industry. These companies have been able to offer consumers high-quality products at more affordable prices. Nike’s response has been to move further up market, leaving the average consumer behind. Additionally, the increasing popularity of athleisure brands like Lululemon has also had an impact on Nike’s influence. But each of the aforementioned still struggle with a similar problem: professional athletes are less of the attention equation than they were just a decade prior.

With the rise of social media, the rise of the commercially-viable musician, and the increasing number of athletes, it has become much easier for talented (and untalented) individuals to become celebrities and gain a large following. This has resulted in a saturation of the market, making it more difficult for individual athletes to stand out and maintain their influence. As momentum has shifted away from athlete influence, their efficacy of has waned. Look no further than the current struggles at Adidas:

The company’s messy split last year with the musician Kanye West, which could knock about €1.2 billion off full-year sales, and €500 million off its operating profit — an even greater loss than Adidas had calculated just four months ago. (NYT)

This explanation would have been unfathomable when Jordan still played. A rapper’s canceled partnership influenced €1.2 billion off full-year sales? While Nike is pivoting to luxury and monopolizing professional sports, smaller companies are beating Goliath with a smoothed stone. We covered this in a recent member brief on the developing phenomenon.

Read More: The Euro DTCs Invade

But perhaps the greatest factor contributing to Nike’s decline is the changing consumer attitudes towards the company itself. In recent years, Nike has faced criticism for its labor practices and its impact on the environment. From using sweatshops in developing countries to producing its products while contributing to environmental degradation; this is no longer a fair tradeoff to the modern consumer. Enes Kanter Freedom, an NBA player, is the personification of this consumer shift:

He calls himself more than an athlete. He calls himself a human rights activist or freedom fighter, so I was just very disappointed in him choosing money and business over his morals, values, and principles. Obviously, he signed with a company like Nike that pretty much use slave labor and sweatshops in China, and he talks about all the problems that are happening around the world, but when it comes to one specific topic, China, he stays silent. And that is hypocrisy, so that’s why I want to expose it.

As such, this has led to a negative perception of the brand among consumers, who are becoming more conscious of the ethical, socio-political, and environmental impact of the products they purchase. Nike is attempting to address some of its issue. Recall the declining interest in star athletes? Pop star Billie Eilish has replaced the gridiron star.

Nike and American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish have come together to unveil the brand-new Air Force 1 Low sneaker, as part of their commitment to sustainability. 

Nike is still one of the largest and most recognizable brands in the world despite the changing world around it. It’s no coincidence that the upcoming biographical film about Phil Knight’s most important business decision is on the horizon.

Nike needs “Air” to remind consumers that sports matter, athletes matter, and that they are a more reliable bellwether than their pop cultural counterparts. It will premiere in 3,000 movie theater screens and then follow with streaming accessibility (on Amazon) in more than 240 countries.

The 1985 New York Times case study on Nike concluded with a sentiment that is still applicable, 38 years later: “The question now is whether management can keep Nike pointed in the right direction. Nike thinks it is ready to run again. But the race will be tougher this time.”

By Web Smith | Edited by Hilary Milnes with art by Alex Remy 

Deep Dive: The Amazon ‘Para-State’

In a laughable attempt at creative writing, some six years ago I co-wrote the beginnings of a science-fiction narrative in which Amazon becomes a nation that supersedes the United States of America and its laws. In that story, every citizen had its own identifying Prime account. Your economic class was determined by how much or little you spent through the Prime program – it served as a proxy for taxes contributed to a central government. Humor me for a moment:

I imagine a dystopian 2024. Robert “Bob” Zhose, Founder and CEO of North America’s largest eCommerce company, lords over a coveted subscription product with over 150 million members. It’s a subscription that determines your economic class and access to basic supplies, medication, security, and national citizenship.

Zhose runs for President and wins the popular vote by leveraging a vast majority of his 150 million members against the two parties’ popular candidates. In 2024, he becomes America’s 46th president after eight years of shifting internet regulation, the consolidation of the federal government, the shuttering of most media, and the establishment of a commerce monopoly.

Of course, “Zhose” went on to change the rules governing a corporation’s power, one of the first American examples of a digital overlay overwhelming a physical landscape.

And then I gave up on the story. Part of it was a lack of time and ability. The other part was that it didn’t seem so science fictional after a while. Amazon’s dominance of the landscape led me to write about its monopolistic practices and its defenses against antitrust litigation. In 2018’s The Age of Conglomeration, I began:

Monopoly is not a suitable term for what Amazon is in the process of accomplishing. A monopoly is defined as the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service. There is no term for a corporation becoming the supply or the trade.

The report frequently cited then-professor and academic writer, Lina Khan. She wrote a number of legal scholarship on matters of antitrust – especially in the context of Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Of my favorite are Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox and, specifically, The Chicago School Approach to the Department of Justice’s analysis of antitrust matters. I explained:

After Reagan’s Antitrust Explosion of 1982, elements of the law began to shift from structuralism and toward consumer welfare. […] Amazon built its business around the belief that as long as consumer prices were low, antitrust laws wouldn’t apply. Lina Khan went on to say: “Due to a change in legal thinking and practice in the 1970s and 1980s, antitrust law now assesses competition largely with an eye to the short-term interests of consumers, not producers or the health of the market as a whole; antitrust doctrine views low consumer prices, alone, to be evidence of sound competition.”

Today, Lina Khan is no longer an academic, she’s the feared chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Shortly after she was appointed to the FTC in 2021, Amazon filed a petition that claimed “she should be recused in investigations of the company, in light of her extensive past criticisms of Amazon.” She wasn’t removed, but despite her wide-ranging influence on such matters, she’s had less of an impact on Amazon’s standing than one might expect.

Amazon, today, is closer than ever to lording over that fictional nation that I envisioned when I journeyed on that creative writing project in 2017.

Screen Shot 2018-07-05 at 10.39.53 PM
The title of the fictional work (2018, Rights of 2PM.inc)

Vice Media’s recent report on Amazon’s economic power is entitled: “Amazon Is Now a ‘Para-State’ Governing Global Commerce, Researcher Says.” With the changes caused by ATT and the iOS 14.5 upgrade, it’s only emboldened Amazon, which currently ranks in the top five advertising companies:

This is not just the result of Amazon’s shifting rules, according to the report, but its total dominance of seller ad data, which it charges sellers access to.

We have covered retail media in depth. Amazon’s use of third-party sellers to fuel this first-party data trove is quite the oversight on our part; I’d never thought of it that way. Amazon is harvesting data by collecting vendors into a system, handling logistics for them (reducing cost of entry), and serving as the outwardly-appearing vertical operation to the customers of Amazon Prime.

Here’s what you may not understand about Amazon’s third-party marketplace system: there may not be a more powerful economic engine on the planet. It spans the globe, including China (40% of marketplace sellers). It has become so powerful that it’s reduced legitimate entrepreneurs to operating like gig workers. In a 51-page report by Data & Society called “Trickle Down Monopoly,” it explained the engine behind Amazon’s shift from traditional marketplace to effective retail dictatorship. On page 15:
Amazon tried to acquire and imitate eBay several times (Stone 2013). And, between 1998 and 2000, it experimented with several live auction features. But the form that marketplace finally took was to merge third-party merchants with Amazon’s first-party retail business. First- and thirdparty goods now appeared in a single catalog. And, crucially, goods had “single listings.” On eBay, a search for, say, a teddy bear could turn up a dozen pages of the same teddy bear, offered by different merchants. On Amazon, a search for that teddy bear would turn up a single page, even if multiple sellers were supplying it behind the scenes. In order to make that possible, Amazon had to develop a single set of standards for tracking goods within the Amazon catalog, its warehouses, and logistics network.
This system was devised by Rebecca Allen, an Amazon engineer that developed the ASIN system or Amazon Standard Identification Numbers. The Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) is a unique identifier assigned to products listed on Amazon’s Marketplace platform. The incorporation of the ASIN numerical system changed Amazon’s marketplace in several ways.
  • Improved product search and discovery: The ASIN system allowed Amazon to create a more organized and efficient product catalog, making it easier for customers to find the products they are looking for. This improved the customer experience and made Amazon a more attractive marketplace for shoppers.
  • Increased visibility for third-party sellers: With the ASIN system, third-party sellers were able to list their products in the Amazon catalog, making them easier to find for potential customers. This increased visibility for third-party sellers and made it easier for them to reach new customers and grow their businesses on Amazon.
  • Improved product data accuracy: The ASIN system ensured that product data, such as product titles and descriptions, was accurate and consistent. This improved the quality of product data in Amazon’s catalog, making it easier for customers to find the information they needed and make informed purchasing decisions.
  • Enhanced product and seller performance tracking: The ASIN system allowed Amazon to track the sales and performance of individual products and sellers, allowing the company to make data-driven decisions about which products and sellers to promote and which to de-prioritize.
  • Streamlined product management: With the ASIN system, Amazon was able to manage its product catalog more efficiently, making it easier for the company to maintain accurate product data and ensure that products were listed correctly.

The incorporation of the ASIN numerical system was a significant change for Amazon’s marketplace. It improved product search and discovery, increased visibility for third-party sellers, improved product data accuracy, enhanced product and seller performance tracking, and streamlined product management. It was a system that made it easier to be a third-party retailer and even easier to enjoy consuming the products sourced by those independent entrepreneurs. According to the report’s citation of Brad Stevens’ 2013 book The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, the original vision for the Amazon marketplace was more traditional:

When they started, Amazon marketplace functioned mostly like a catalog—an online version of the Sears Roebuck catalog from the 1890s, or of Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog, where Amazon’s first engineer, Shel Kaphan, had worked as a high school dropout in the late 1960s.

Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee, has become a light advocate of breaking up Amazon’s monopoly. Notably, Amazon discarded his original vision. In the early days of Amazon, the company focused primarily on selling its own products and fulfilling orders through its own warehouse. However, as Amazon grew, it became increasingly difficult for the company to manage its inventory and keep up with the demand for products. This is when Amazon started to explore new business models that would allow the company to sell a wider range of products without having to manage the inventory itself.

In 2000, Amazon launched its Marketplace platform, which allowed third-party sellers to offer their products for sale on the Amazon website. This was a significant moment in Amazon’s history as it marked the beginning of the company’s transformation into a third-party marketplace. The Marketplace platform was a game-changer because it allowed Amazon to offer a much wider range of products to its customers without having to manage the inventory itself.

Over the years, Amazon has continued to refine and improve its Marketplace. In 2005, the company introduced the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program, which allowed third-party sellers to store their products in Amazon’s warehouses and have Amazon handle the shipping and customer service for their products.

Today, Amazon’s Marketplace is a massive operation, with hundreds of thousands of third-party sellers offering millions of products to customers around the world. The Marketplace is a critical part of Amazon’s business, accounting for a significant portion of the company’s total sales.

Amazon has often been compared to its own country due to the size, scale, and influence it has over various aspects of modern life. The company’s Marketplace and the first-party data that is fueling its advertising business have made Amazon’s multi-national power seem more realistic. Its reach knows no bounds, and despite its many frustrations by sellers, it is nearly impossible to thwart. While Amazon has reported diminished growth in its retail business, the advertising business is crashing the duopoly of Meta and Google. It’s also undermining critics’ position that it has become a retail monopoly. Meanwhile, Amazon’s size, scale, and influence continues to grow.

Cambridge Sociologist Dr Montserrat Guibernat once defined a nation as: “a human group conscious of forming a community, sharing a common culture, attached to a clearly demarcated territory, having a common past and a common project for the future and claiming the right to rule itself.” (1996) Well:

Economy: Amazon has a massive economic impact, generating billions of dollars in revenue each year and employing hundreds of thousands of people. It also has a significant impact on the broader economy, with its business dealings affecting the economies of many countries around the world.

Infrastructure: Amazon has built a vast and sophisticated logistics network, with warehouses, delivery centers, and transportation hubs spread out across the globe. This infrastructure is key to the company’s success and makes it possible for Amazon to offer fast and reliable delivery to its customers.

Culture: Amazon has a unique culture and way of doing business, which is centered around innovation, efficiency, and customer obsession. This culture has been instrumental in the company’s success and has helped to shape the company into the behemoth it is today.

Impact: Amazon has a significant social impact, both in the way it operates its business and the impact its business has on society. For example, Amazon’s delivery network has made it possible for people to receive packages within hours of ordering them, which has changed the way people shop and receive goods.

Rules and regulations: Amazon has its own set of rules and regulations for its marketplace, which govern how sellers can list and sell products on the site. These rules and regulations are enforced by Amazon and are designed to ensure a fair and trustworthy marketplace for buyers and sellers.

Vice called it a “para state.” FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan views it as a threat. And media organizations cite its power to impact personal, regional, and national economies. John Herrman, a writer of New York Magazine wrote this in the last week of January 2023:

The company’s decades of aggressive investment and execution have resulted in the creation of a service without credible direct competitors: a commerce platform with more than 150 million subscribers, backed by a singular logistics empire that employs hundreds of thousands of people, with more market share than its next 14 competitors combined.

In fact, the only clear indication that Amazon does not have power above and beyond the typical corporation is ChatGPT’s response to the question at hand: “Amazon is a multinational technology company headquartered in Seattle, United States. It is not a country. The idea of a company becoming a country is not a concept that is recognized or supported by any existing political or legal systems.”

It is not a serious notion to believe that Amazon is seeking nationhood but it begs the question? Does it need to be? So far, Amazon has resisted the offensive by the U.S. Government and its most fervent antitrust agent: Lina Khan. But there was a flaw in ChatGPT’s answer, specifically the part about existing systems.

When a former group of British colonies became its own nation – a united group of states – it relied on existing political and legal systems but also subsequent treaties and diplomatic agreements to establish what hadn’t been done in history. But who needs traditional political power when a multinational monopoly can be had instead.

By Web Smith | Edited by Hilary Milnes with art by Alex Remy and Christina Williams  

Memo: The Greatest App Ever Scrolled

It’s one of the most impressive media properties in the world and one of the best (and most obscure) examples of linear commerce that I’ve stumbled upon (move over, Michelin). But you won’t find many success stories written about it.

Today, its track record, growth, and technology are on par with many of the strongest technology companies in the United States. It has one ownership group, no venture capital, and – with the exception of one 2013 New York Times article – it has gone virtually unnoticed by business or mainstream media. And still it is home to one of the largest online communities in the world. With just 165 employees (many of whom could work for any major tech company), it is responsible for over 545 million users and 5.5 billion app opens. Over 497 million videos have played through the app, it has 2,600 translations to cover as many formats and languages as it can. It sounds world changing to me. There are only few precedents for this type of reach.

Take a step back into time for a moment to understand the significance of the YouVersion Bible App.

The Gutenberg press is in part to thank for the boom in European literacy, the Italian Renaissance, the scientific revolution, the Age of Enlightenment, and Protestant Reformation (Martin Luther was once the world’s most published author). Gutenberg’s invention allowed for the mass production of books for the first time in human history. In 1455 Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg printed 180 copies of the Bible and from there, made history. In the larger scope, Biblical scholars now consider YouVersion to be a key player in the next third in how the book is consumed:

  • scroll to codex
  • codex to the 15th century printing press
  • printing press to digital media

Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes, industries, and denominations. This report on an unheralded little mobile application headquartered in Edmund, Oklahoma may shock you, guide you, or even encourage you. It’s not objective; the app has played a major role in my previous year of deep thought and reflection. From that 2013 report on the then-eight year old company, here is a standout quote by former Kleiner Perkins investor, Chi-Hua Chien:  

This is a remarkable tech startup by any measure.

Now the managing partner of Goodwater capital, Chien went on to compare YouVersion to then-hot companies Pinterest and Path, a now-defunct social media network that garnered wide praise, 50 million users (in 2013), and a $500 million valuation. At a tenth of the size of the app at the center of this report, it begs the question: what can we learn from its trajectory? Regardless of belief, this business deserves the Harvard Business case study treatment. This will have to suffice in the meantime.

The YouVersion Bible app, which was first launched in 2007, has had a significant impact on the growth of Life.Church and Christianity as a whole. Bobby Gruenewald, the CEO and founder of YouVersion and Life Church’s Pastor and Innovation Leader, has all of the pedigree of your traditional Silicon Valley entrepreneur:

As one of the leading voices in the Church on innovation and the use of technology, Gruenewald has been featured in The New York Times, TechCrunch, CNN, and more. Prior to joining the Life.Church team in 2001, he started and sold two technology companies as well as served in advisory capacities for various startups and venture capital funds.

Life.Church was founded in 1996 by Craig Groeschel, a leader that impresses with every book, sermon, podcast, and leadership session I have observed by him. Under Groeschel’s leadership Gruenewald left traditional business to work for Life.Church, and seven years later with Tory Storch, he co-founded YouVersion. The side project became one of the foremost media companies and spiritual development tools on earth. Here is Groeschel in an earlier interview on the genesis of the YouVersion app:

As our team thought about how Gutenberg’s invention revolutionized the accessibility and distribution of Scripture hundreds of years ago, we wondered how technology might be able to do something similar for our generation. So, we launched a website specifically designed to create community around the Bible. The only problem was — it didn’t work.

As a last-ditch effort, we offered a mobile version of the site and engagement took off. Shortly after, we heard Apple would be launching something called “apps.” With the momentum of the mobile site, we asked ourselves, “What if the Bible could be one of the first apps in the App Store?” We had a 19-year-old guy on staff create the first version of the YouVersion Bible App, and within three days we saw it downloaded on 83,000 devices.

The app has made the Bible accessible to millions of people worldwide through its free and user-friendly platform. It offers various versions of the Bible, reading plans, and devotionals, which have encouraged individuals to engage more with the scriptures on a daily basis. Additionally, the app’s social features, such as the ability to share verses with friends, have facilitated personal connections and helped to spread the message of the gospel.

As a result of these features and the overall growth of iPhone and Android usage over the last fifteen years, Life.Church and many other Christian organizations have been able to reach and impact more people than ever before. Like the Gutenberg Press, the app has been instrumental in promoting biblical literacy, fostering spiritual growth, and strengthening the faith of its users. It has also helped break down geographical barriers and connected people from diverse backgrounds, allowing them to engage with one another and share their faith journeys. It’s no coincidence that Groeschel and Life.Church now steward over 35 physical locations with 85,000 members, according to Outreach Magazine, the authority on tracking fast-growing churches.

Both the Gutenberg Bible and the YouVersion app have played a major role in increasing access to the Bible and making it easier for people to study and engage with the Christian faith. They have also had a profound impact in this way.

Let’s look at this from a purely business perspective.

Technology is in Life.Church’s DNA. Because of Groeschel’s ability to think and hire smart people, the church is likely the largest in the world. The YouVersion Bible App was formative in the trajectory of the church’s growth and its ability to raise funds for debt-free expansion. The app’s social features have helped democratize access to the Bible and other tools that were never centrally-located prior to YouVersion. These features have contributed to a more engaged and connected Life.Church community, ultimately leading to its growth. What’s even more impressive is the financial technology built within the mobile app.

Smooth, in-app eCommerce functionality with subscription capability.

With Apple Pay, Paypal, and other one-click tools, the app supports its own growth without the continued investment from Life.Church (it is reported that the app’s initial investment exceeded $20 million). Imagine: just a few years after the growth of Facebook from college campus to college campus, Groeschel felt compelled to pitch a world-changing mobile app to his first campus in Edmund, Oklahoma. Still, there are plans for more.

In a 2021 article in the New York Times on Facebook’s intentions for integrating more religious content into its platform, Gruenewald explained:

Facebook’s outreach was the first time a major technology company wanted to collaborate on a development project. Obviously there are different ways they ultimately, I am sure, will serve their shareholders. From our vantage point, Facebook is a platform that allows us to build community, and connect with our community and accomplish our mission. So it serves I think everybody well.

His point of contact at the company (now Meta) was Nora Jones, who served as Meta’s direct of global faith partnerships. On January 19, she left Meta to join YouVersion as the Chief Content Officer. Hiring Jones and other pedigreed executives from Fortune 500 companies is all a part of the plan, according to Gruenewald. The article goes on:

Currently, 165 people work on the app, said Gruenewald, and there are plans to double the team in the next few years.

It’s a remarkable story of an alternative to the growth customs of any organization, one whose success story from a two-car garage in 1996 is already enlightening and encouraging enough.

Over the last 317 consecutive days (at the time of publishing) and counting, this app has quite literally changed how I view the world. I am a product of its numerous “growth hacks.” The app sat dormant on my phone for nearly a decade. Here is a summary of the eight most effective ones:

  • universal access: 2600 versions including 50 English versions
  • UCG: daily devotionals and reading plans
  • feel good: badges for streaks and participation
  • daily reminders: maintain your habit of study, meditation, and prayer
  • audiophile: you can now listen while you work
  • streaks: just like Snapchat but the Bible
  • reason to login: a verse of the day, each day, everyday
  • leadership through love: a team devotional function that helps others around you

The last hack is the one that turned a dormant app into a daily fix for me. A venture-backed entrepreneur in the eCommerce logistics industry reached out to me in December 2021 and said, “Join my men’s devotional group.” I did. And then, weeks later, I kept digging and digging until I decided to drop what was once important to me. I went all=in on really studying and understanding. I began to read what I should have been reading all along.

The Gutenberg press began with a bible and unlocked a tidal wave of secular literary milestones that changed humanity. What lessons from this will be applied to modern business? I suspect that as more people learn of this story, there will be more than a few.

The business of church is incredibly difficult to navigate. Few organizations have the tech-adjacent entrepreneurial spirit that Groeschel cultivated in Oklahoma. It began with what I suspect to be a key question: “What is our Gutenberg press?” That’s a big question that requires a moonshot of an answer. His was to self-fund one of the first 200 free apps in thee Apple app store in 2007. The result is the most far-reaching and powerful media company in the modern church. Over 545 million people later and I think he’s found his answer. I am eternally grateful for it.

By Web Smith | Edited by Hilary Milnes with art by Alex Remy and Christina Williams