If Vancouver did not succeed as Starbucks from ’87 on, our entire international business, which is now thousands of stores and a significant amount of growth and profit, may not have existed.
Success is best when it is shared.
We think of Starbucks not as a coffee company but a media company.
We need to reinvent food at Starbucks. Less could be more.
We have a big opportunity in China. We think the number of stores here can rival the number in North America.
We are witnessing a seismic change in consumer behavior. That change is being brought about by technology and the access people have to information.
This may sound a bit naive, but I got here by believing in big dreams.
You walk into a retail store, whatever it is, and if there’s a sense of entertainment and excitement and electricity, you wanna be there.
The future of America is not an entitlement. We have been given a treasure chest of gifts and opportunities, but some people are being left behind, and success is not sustainable unless it is shared.
Americans reading the paper, listening to the news every single day, and all you hear is things are getting worse and worse. And that has a psychological effect on consumer confidence. That’s what consumer confidence is.
I think Starbucks created a platform and, ultimately, a runway for many other companies to emulate. I suspect if we had not achieved what we have, there would have been many regional brands that would have succeeded. But I’m not sure there would have been a national brand of the scope of Starbucks.
I think people will walk into the Starbucks store and overnight recognize the significant difference between what Starbucks represents day-in and day-out and all the other coffee companies that have been serving coffee in India for so many years.
I probably have about four or five cups of coffee a day. I make myself an espresso macchiato when I wake, which is a shot of espresso and just a dollop of steamed milk. Then, if I’m going to do some work at home, I would make myself a French press. It’s the best way to make conventional coffee.
I do think – as self-serving as it sounds – that I was the right person, given the very, very strong headwind we had from the economy and our own issues, to come back and rewrite the future of the company.
I could’ve just walked away but I never could have forgiven myself to allow Starbucks to drift into mediocrity or not be relevant. I just couldn’t be a bystander.
I am concerned about any attrition in customer traffic at Starbucks, but I don’t want to use the economy, commodity prices or consumer confidence as an excuse.
Growing up I always felt like I was living on the other side of the tracks. I knew the people on the other side had more resources, more money, happier families.
The leaders in Washington have got to come together in a bipartisan way and do the right thing for the people who are being left behind. We cannot have an America that is only based on the wealthy.
People in Washington need to put their feet in the shoes of working Americans.
Starbucks being an extension of peoples home and work. The sense of community, human connection. That appears to be as relevant in Turkey, China, Japan and Spain as it is here in America. And Starbucks I think is creating something for people all over the world that has not existed before.
Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.