Knight's core early team was unusual. Jeff Johnson was so obsessed with the shoes that he named his dog after the brand. Bob Woodell ran operations from a wheelchair after a rock-climbing accident. Bill Bowerman, Knight's old university track coach, would tear apart shoes, study their construction, and rebuild them in his workshop, eventually putting his waffle iron to work on a running sole. None of them had conventional business credentials. All of them cared about the shoes more than about their job titles. Knight writes that he never really managed them in a formal sense. He just made sure they had enough room to do their work and trusted that people who cared this much would find the right answer. The loyalty ran deep in part because Knight was honest with them about how precarious things were. He did not pretend the company was more stable than it was. They chose to stay anyway, which built a different kind of commitment than a comfortable salary could have bought. Knight's principle: find people who care about the work, give them ownership, and get out of the way.