Hatfield, Parker, and an army of designers, engineers, and data scientists were listening. And after 28 years of brainstorming and 11 years of R&D, after many false starts, delays, and blown deadlines, after the vanquishing of internal skepticism, after innumerable prototypes, iterations, and redesigns, Nike’s automatic electronic self-lacing shoe is scheduled to ship to stores this holiday season. The company is calling the technology “adaptive fit,” and the sneaker is the HyperAdapt 1.0—each shoe has a sensor, battery, motor, and cable system that adjusts fit based on an algorithmic pressure equation. When a foot is inserted, the shoe tightens automatically until it senses friction points. There are a pair of buttons near the tongue to adjust fit as needed. That such high tech shoes, with a likely (though still TBD) high price tag to match, would be desirable in a country that spends billions a year on sneakers was almost taken for granted. That Hatfield, now Nike’s vice president of creative concepts and probably the world’s most celebrated designer of shoes, a human icon inside a corporate one, would lead the team behind them was only expected. And while no one will say how much the company has spent on the shoe’s development—“a considerable amount of R&D dollars” is as specific as Parker, now the company’s CEO, will get—Hatfield believes the HyperAdapt is the first step in a revolution in adaptive footwear and thus worth every red cent. “We’re talking about a project that’s maybe the most difficult in the history of footwear,” Hatfield says. “I’m more excited about this than any project I’ve ever been involved with.”