Eric Koston left Lakai after 3 years: 17 years later, who really lost?

On April 13, 2009, Lakai posts a fake press conference on YouTube. At the mic, Eric Koston announces he's leaving. He's 33, he's a part-owner of the brand, and he just gave it a part in a video people waited years for. And he's going to Nike SB.

Three years at Lakai, not one more. On paper, it's wild: the guy who owns a piece of a skater-run company jumps to the swoosh giant. Seventeen years later, we have the distance to call it. Who lost what in that move?

May 2006: Koston ditches éS for his friends' brand

To understand the exit, you have to go back to the entrance. In the mid-2000s, Koston is éS's top rider. The headliner: the brand even runs a yearly contest in his name, the "Eric Koston éS Game of SKATE".

Lakai is something else. The brand was founded in 1999 by Mike Carroll and Rick Howard, the two heads of Girl Skateboards. Skaters making shoes for skaters. Koston has ridden for Girl since 1993. The match was written.

After months of rumors, he signs in May 2006. Lakai announces it with a video, and Koston would also become a part-owner of the brand. His first pro models drop in December 2006. In August 2007, Independent even releases its very first shoe collab with him: the Koston Select.

Picture your shop window back then. The most technical guy in street, on the same team as Carroll, Howard, Marc Johnson and Guy Mariano. On paper, it was the perfect squad.

April 13, 2009: goodbye by fake press conference

The exit comes in spring 2009. Lakai doesn't hide it, it stages it. The video posted on its channel is called "Farewell Frost Announcement", dated April 13, 2009. The idea: a fake press conference, in the same spirit as the video that announced his arrival.

The skit parodies a news moment everyone remembers: the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George W. Bush during a press conference in December 2008. For a shoe brand exit, the joke lands perfectly.

On the terms, let's be clear: no amount has ever been made public. We don't know what Nike put on the table, and we won't make it up. What we do know is what Nike SB did right away. The brand launches a signature shoe, the Eric Koston 1, and a customer contest called "Mr. Control It All". No trial period. Koston arrives as a signature rider from day one.

After Fully Flared: what Koston was looking for at Nike

Why 2009? Look at the calendar. On November 16, 2007, Lakai drops Fully Flared - 2007, its first full-length video. Four years of filming, a release pushed back several times, and a big part of the hype came from Koston joining the team. The film takes Video of the Year at the Transworld Awards.

Once the video is out, the team starts moving. In March 2008, Alex Olson leaves for Vans and Anthony Pappalardo for Converse. The company has hit its peak. For Koston, the question gets simple: what's left to build here?

He answered it himself a few years later, while presenting his second Nike shoe. And the answer isn't about money or friends. It's about tools.

I've copied so many Nike shoes, I tried to mimic them as close as possible using the best those companies, éS and Lakai could do. But we couldn't totally execute it. — Eric Koston, at the launch of the Koston 2

That's the whole story. Koston wasn't leaving his friends. He was leaving a technical ceiling. At Nike, he says he gets access to technology, design and a marketing machine he calls crazy himself.

Behind the scenes: no beef, and Girl stays under his feet

What stands out is the lack of war. No score-settling interview, no public shots. Lakai itself produces the goodbye video. And the Girl family keeps its rider.

Because Koston only leaves the shoe. In 2009, in a video breaking down his setup, he's still riding a Girl 8 1/8 deck, Independent trucks and Spitfire wheels. He's still part-owner of Fourstar, the clothing brand started with Guy Mariano in 1996. He stays in the house. He just changes shoes.

At Nike SB, he finds a kid he knows well. He's the one who brought Paul Rodriguez onto Girl in 2002. P-Rod had moved to Nike SB in 2005. Four years later, the master follows the student.

Koston 1, 2, 3: the career that never stops

What follows looks like one long line without a foot down. The Koston 1 in 2009. The Koston 2 in March 2013, with a "#thelegendgrows" campaign where he shows up in an ad next to Tiger Woods. He even gets a golf version out of it, launched in London.

In 2016, the Koston 3 Hyperfeel comes out with a Flyknit collar borrowed from Nike's soccer line. It's one of the first skate shoes to try that collar. Exactly the kind of piece Lakai couldn't have made. In September 2022, he still gets a Blazer Mid with his name on it.

And he didn't just sit on royalties. In November 2015, Girl announces that Koston and Mariano are leaving the team after 22 years, since day one. In December 2016, the two launch Numbers, their own board brand. The ownership he left behind at Lakai, he went and rebuilt somewhere else.

Lakai after Koston: 3 changes of hands in 10 years

For the brand, the story is harder. In 2011, Lucas Puig leaves for Adidas, and Mike Mo Capaldi joins DC in December. In 2014, Lakai leaves Girl's distribution to go under HUF, in the portfolio of an investment fund, Altamont Capital. During the filming of The Flare, released in 2017, Mariano and Marc Johnson walk away too.

In 2017, Lakai is sold to TSI Holdings along with HUF. Then in October 2024, the company Inversal buys the brand. According to Shredder, Carroll and Howard are let go, and all employees and riders are removed. The founders are out of their own brand.

The market followed Koston's lead. Nike SB started signing riders from skater-owned brands, like Sean Malto leaving Etnies in 2012. éS, Koston's old home, went on hiatus in 2012. Some held out, like Emerica, which refused to become Nike for 28 years. But the balance of power had shifted.

Koston left a skater-owned brand. Fifteen years later, the brand lost its skaters. — What the 2009 exit was telling us

Verdict: who really lost in 2009?

Koston first. He lost something real: his stake in a brand run by skaters. For a rider of his generation, that was the holy grail. But he won everything else. Three numbered signature shoes, the technical means he'd been asking for since his éS years, and more than ten years of shoes with his name on them. Then he got ownership back with Numbers. On balance, he wins. Clearly.

Lakai next. It lost its most bankable name right after building its biggest video around him. It kept its soul for a few more years, then changed hands three times. Koston's exit didn't sink Lakai. It showed that a skater-owned brand could no longer keep its stars against Nike's resources.

And you, in all this? You lost an idea: that a rider at the top always stays with his friends' company. You gained shoes nobody else knew how to make. That's the real lesson of 2009. Switching brands isn't betrayal. It's choosing what you want to build, and accepting what you leave behind.

Want to see where he started? Read our Eric Koston portrait, and dive back into the 2000s videos that watched him move from one brand to the next.