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Whatever You Do, Don't Play It Safe. Don't Do Things The Way They've Always Been Done. Don't Try To Fit The System. If You Do What's Expected Of You, You'll Never Accomplish More Than Others Expect.

-Howard Schultz

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Whatever You Do, Don't

Howard Schultz

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Whatever You Do, Don't Play It Safe. Don't Do Things The Way They've Always Been Done. Don't Try To Fit The System. If You Do What's Expected Of You, You'll Never Accomplish More Than Others Expect.

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Certainly The Caffeine In Coffee, Whether It's Starbucks Or Generic Coffee, Is Somewhat Of A Stimulant. But If You Drink It In Moderation, Which I Think Four Or Five Cups A Day Is, You're Fine.

Passionate Conviction ... Sparks Romances, Wins Battles, And Drives People To Pursue Dreams Others Wouldn't Dare. Belief In Ourselves And In What Is Right Catapults Us Over Hurdles, And Our Lives Unfold.

I Can't Imagine A Day Without Coffee. I Can't Imagine!

I Conduct My Life With An Expectation That People Will Do The Right Thing. Yet Even With All My Experience, I Am Still Surprised When They Do Not.

Our History Is Based On Extending The Brand To Categories Within The Guardrails Of Starbucks.

This May Sound A Bit Naive, But I Got Here By Believing In Big Dreams.

Many Companies Today Are Reducing Hours Of Full-time People To Get Under The Minimum So They Don't Have To Pay Health Care Costs. I Just Shake My Head Because That's Not Going To Build Long-term Value And Trust With Your People.

To Stay Vigorous, A Company Needs To Provide A Stimulating And Challenging Environment For All These Types: The Dreamer, The Entrepreneur, The Professional Manager, And The Leader. If It Doesn't, It Risks Becoming Yet Another Mediocre Corporation.

My Passion. My Commitment. This Is The Most Important Thing In My Life Other Than My Family.

When We Love Something, Emotion Often Drives Our Actions. This Is The Gift And The Challenge Entrepreneurs Face Every Day. The Companies We Dream Of And Build From Scratch Are Part Of Us And Intensely Personal. They Are Our Families. Our Lives. But The Entrepreneurial Journey Is Not For Everyone. Yes, The Highs Are High And The Rewards Can Be Thrilling. But The Lows Can Break Your Heart. Entrepreneurs Must Love What They Do To Such A Degree That Doing It Is Worth Sacrifice And, At Times, Pain. But Doing Anything Else, We Think, Would Be Unimaginable

California, In A Sense, Is Almost Starbucks' Largest Country, With Almost 3,000 Stores.

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.

Don't Buy Preground Coffee.

I Don't Have Any Secret Sauce And I'm No Smarter Than Anyone Else. I Will Say I Have Surrounded Myself With Unbelievable Talent That Has Made My Job Easier.

Starbucks Has Changed The Rules Of Engagement For The Music Industry.

My Parents Really Wanted Me To Get Out Of New York, Be Exposed To Other People, Other Ways Of Life.

At Its Core, I Believe Leadership Is About Instilling Confidence In Others.

Confidence In Others

Authentic Brands Don't Emerge From Marketing Cubicles Or Advertising Agencies. They Emanate From Everything The Company Does.

My Son Is Trying To Be A Sports Writer, And My Daughter Is A College Student. She Wants To Be A Comedy Writer, And She's At Film School. I Discouraged Both Of Them Early On From Getting Involved In Starbucks. I Didn't Think It Would Be Fair; Plus, They Didn't Have Any Interest Anyway.

Success Is Something That Has To Be Earned Every Day.

Starbucks Has A Role And A Meaningful Relationship With People That Is Not Only About The Coffee.

The Companies That Are Lasting Are Those That Are Authentic.

I'm In A Different Position Than Most Ceo's. I'm A Founder. I'm Not A Hired Ceo. Now, I Can Be Fired By The Board, But Most Ceo's Are Hired By The Board.

Managing And Navigating Through A Financial Crisis Is No Fun At All.

When You're Building A Business Or Joining A Company You Have To Be Transparent, You Can't Have Two Sets Of Information For Two Sets Of People.

Don't Be Threatened By People Smarter Than You.

Inspiring Business

If You Want To Achieve Widespread Impact And Lasting Value, Be Bold.

If You Look At Coffee, Tea, Food And Juice, We Think There Are Inherent Opportunities. If You Look At Health Bars Or Grab-and-go Products That Are In Our Stores, We Think We Can Significantly Enhance Them And Make Them More Widely Available.

Effective Leaders Share Two Intertwined Attributes: An Unbridled Level Of Confidence About Where Their Organizations Are Headed, And The Ability To Bring People Along.

Beverages Have To Be Created. And They're Created By Looking At What Trend Is In, Say, The Fashion Industry - What Color's Hot Right Now.

We Need To Reinvent Food At Starbucks. Less Could Be More.

We Think Of Starbucks Not As A Coffee Company But A Media Company.

People In Washington Need To Put Their Feet In The Shoes Of Working Americans.

When Companies Fail, Or Fail To Grow, It's Almost Always Because They Don't Invest In The People, The Systems, And The Processes They Need.

There's A Metaphor Vincent Eades Likes To Use: "if You Examine A Butterfly According To The Laws Of Aerodynamics, It Shouldn't Be Able To Fly. But The Butterfly Doesn't Know That, So It Flies.

Customers Don't Always Know What They Want. The Decline In Coffee-drinking Was Due To The Fact That Most Of The Coffee People Bought Was Stale And They Weren't Enjoying It. Once They Tasted Ours And Experienced What We Call "the Third Place" ... A Gathering Place Between Home And Work Where They Were Treated With Respect.. They Found We Were Filling A Need They Didn't Know They Had.

I Think If You're An Entrepreneur, You've Got To Dream Big - And Then Dream Bigger.

It's One Thing To Dream, But When The Moment Is Right, You've Got To Be Willing To Leave What's Familiar And Go Out To Find Your Own Sound.

There's An Energy And Excitement When You're Building A Company. You Have So Much Tail Wind. You're Planting New Seeds. But It's Also Scary, Because There's No Safety Net.

I Was Working Probably At The Age Of 10, When I Had My First Paper Route. I Had Every Different Kind Of Job You Could Possibly Imagine As A Young Kid.

My Kids Probably Started Drinking Coffee In Their Late Teens.

There Are Moments In Our Lives When We Summon The Courage To Make Choices That Go Against Reason, Against Common Sense And The Wise Counsel Of People We Trust. But We Lean Forward Nonetheless Because, Despite All Risks And Rational Argument, We Believe That The Path We Are Choosing Is Right And Best Thing To Do. We Refuse To Be Bystanders, Even If We Do Not Know Exactly Where Our Actions Will Lead.

I Never Took Classic Business Classes In College, So I Don't Have The Background That Any Of The People Running Large Companies Have.

I'm Much More Concerned About America Than The Democratic Party.

A Great Business Has To Have A Conscience. You Have To Know Who You Are And Who You Are Not.

We Are Deeply Saddened By The Tremendous Loss Of Life And Devastation Caused By Hurricane Katrina, .. Starbucks Has A Long Tradition Of Striving To Bring Together People And Communities Where We Do Business. We Extend Our Heartfelt Condolences To The Bereaved Families And Many Others Impacted By This Natural Disaster; Our Prayers And Thoughts Are With All The Families Who Have Lost Loved Ones.

We Are Witnessing A Seismic Change In Consumer Behavior. That Change Is Being Brought About By Technology And The Access People Have To Information.

Customers Have Different Need States And Life Experiences.

Life Experience

When We Began Starbucks, What I Wanted To Try To Do Was To Create A Set Of Values, Guiding Principles, And Culture.

Guiding Principles

I Think What We're Lacking In Society, Not Only In The U.s. But Also Around The World, Is To Find Heroes Once Again And To Celebrate These Kind Of People.

It's Ironic That Retailers And Restaurants Live Or Die On Customer Service, Yet Their Employees Have Some Of The Lowest Pay And Worst Benefits Of Any Industry. That's One Reason So Many Retail Experiences Are Mediocre For The Public.

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 We Are Living In A Time Where The Consumer Has Lots Of Choices, Whether It's Coffee, Newspapers Or Whatever It Is. And There Is Parity In The Market Place And As A Result Of That The Consumer Is Beginning To Make Decisions, Not Just On What Things Cost And The Convenience Of It.

Work Should Be Personal. For All Of Us. Not Just For The Artist And Entrepreneur. Work Should Have Meaning For The Accountant, The Construction Worker, The Technologist, The Manager And The Clerk.

Construction Workers

Despite The Fact That Starbucks Has Grown To Be A Large Company. We've Always Played Music In Our Stores And Has Always Acted As An Opportunity To Create A Mood In Our Stores. And Customers Started Asking, "what Song Are You Playing And Can I Buy That?" . And We Said "no." And That Was Kind Of The Catalyst For Beginning To Look At Music. We Started Out With Our Own Compilations And After The Success Of That. We Had The Courage To Say, "let's Produce Our Own Record." And The First Record Was With Ray Charles Before He Unfortunately Passed Away.

We Have No Patent On Anything We Do And Anything We Do Can Be Copied By Anyone Else. But You Can't Copy The Heart And The Soul And The Conscience Of The Company.

Victory Is Much More Meaningful When It Comes Not Just From One Person, But From The Joint Achievements Of Many.

When You're Surrounded By People Who Share A Passionate Commitment Around A Common Purpose, Anything Is Possible.

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.

Sometimes You Have To Create The Thing You Want To Be Part Of.

The Lifeblood Of Job Creation In America Is Small Business, But They Can't Get Access To Credit.

I Never Wanted To Be On Any Billionaires List. I Never Define Myself By Net Worth. I Always Try To Define Myself By My Values.

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.

Anybody Can Leverage Celebrity For Profit.

In This Ever-changing Society, The Most Powerful And Enduring Brands Are Built From The Heart. They Are Real And Sustainable. Their Foundations Are Stronger Because They Are Built With The Strength Of The Human Spirit, Not An Ad Campaign. The Companies That Are Lasting Are Those That Are Authentic.

At Starbucks 0 As In Any Business, In Any Life - There Are So Many Hectic Moments During The Day When We Are Simply Trying To Do The Job, Trying To Put Out The Fires, Trying To Solve Any Number Of Small Problems, That We Often Lose Sight Of What It Is We're Really Here To Do.

Often, Organizations Need Bold, Grand Gestures To Galvanize People Towards A New Mission Or Refocus Their Attention.

Cutting Prices Or Putting Things On Sale Is Not Sustainable Business Strategy. The Other Side Of It Is That You Can't Cut Enough Costs To Save Your Way To Prosperity.

The Issue Of Managing Through A Crisis Is You Have To Be Decisive Even If You Don't Have Perfect Information.

Everyone Starts Strong. Success Comes To Those With Unwavering Commitment To Be At The End.

Post-9/11, We Saw An Immediate Uptick In The Amount Of People In Our Stores, All Over The Country. People Wanted That Human Connection. We Are Not Going To Fracture The Starbucks Experience.

Every Step Of The Way, I Made A Point To Underpromise And Overdeliver. In The Long Run, That's The Only Way To Ensure Security In Any Job.

Hiring People Is An Art, Not A Science, And Resumes Can't Tell You Whether Someone Will Fit Into A Company's Culture.

If You Pour Your Heart Into Your Work, Or Into Any Worthy Enterprise, You Can Achieve Dreams Others May Think Impossible.

When You Start A Company, It's A Singular Focus. You Have The Wind At Your Back.

Remember: You'll Be Left With An Empty Feeling If You Hit The Finish Line Alone. When You Run A Race As A Team, Though, You'll Discover That Much Of The Reward Comes From Hitting The Tape Together. You Want To Be Surrounded Not Just By Cheering Onlookers But By A Crowd Of Winners, Celebrating As One.

To Be An Enduring, Great Company, You Have To Build A Mechanism For Preventing Or Solving Problems That Will Long Outlast Any One Individual Leader.

Success Is Empty If You Arrive At The Finish Line Alone.

If It Captures Your Imagination, It Will Captivate Others.

In Anything We Do, Any Endeavor, It's Not What You Do; It's Why You Do It

One Of The Fundamental Aspects Of Leadership, I Realized More And More, Is The Ability To Instill Confidence In Others When You Yourself Are Feeling Insecure

I Realize That Idealism Is Out Of Sync With The Cynicism Of Our Age. Skepticism Has Come To Be Synonymous With Sophistication, And Glibness Is Mistaken For Intelligence. In Such An Atmosphere, Why Bother Aiming High? Far Too Many People Don't. I Just Want To Reassure People To Have The Courage To Persevere, To Keep Following Their Hearts Even When Others Scoff. Don't Be Beaten Down By Naysayers. Don't Let The Odds Scare You From Even Trying.

Overnight The Digital Age Had Changed The Course Of History For Our Company. Everything That We Thought Was In Our Control No Longer Was. But Within A Year We Had Invested In Social Media And Digital Experts. Now Starbucks Is The Number One Brand On Facebook.

I Think The Most Important Thing That I Think Everyone In America Must Have Is Belief That Wherever They Live, Whatever Station They Have In Life, That The American Dream Is Alive And Well. I Think The Fracturing Of Trust And Confidence Is In The American Dream.

When I Returned As Ceo In 2008, Starbucks Had Forgotten That Meaningful Innovations Balance An Organization's Heritage With Modern-day Relevance And Market Differentiation, So We Had To Reorient. In One Brainstorming Session, We Visited And Observed Great Retailers, Then Asked Ourselves, 'if Starbucks Did Not Exist, What Type Of Coffee Experience Would We Create?

People Want To Be Part Of Something Larger Than Themselves. They Want To Be Part Of Something They're Really Proud Of, That They'll Fight For, Sacrifice For, That They Trust.

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.

Commodity Prices

But When You Really Believe-in Yourself, In Your Dream-you Just Have To Do Everything You Possibly Can To Take Control And Make Your Vision A Reality. No Great Achievement Happens By Luck.

The Response To The Starbucks Brand Has Been Phenomenal In Our International Markets.

Always Challenge The Old Ways.

I Really Believe That You Cannot Use The Stock Market As A Proxy For The Economy.

In Life, You Can Blame A Lot Of People And You Can Wallow In Self-pity Or You Can Pick Yourself Up And Say Listen, I Have To Be Responsible For Myself.

Starbucks Trying To Build A Different Kind Of Company Around The Balance Of Profitably And Benevolence. A Social Conscience. And That Isn't A Program It Has To Be A Way Of Life.

I Think The Currency Of Leadership Is Transparency. You've Got To Be Truthful. I Don't Think You Should Be Vulnerable Every Day, But There Are Moments Where You've Got To Share Your Soul And Conscience With People And Show Them Who You Are, And Not Be Afraid Of It.

Starbucks Is Committed To Evolving And Enhancing Our Customer Experience With Innovative And Wholesome Food Offerings.

In This Ever-changing Society, The Most Powerful And Enduring Brands Are Built From The Heart.

Cutting Prices Or Putting Things On Sale Is Not Sustainable Business Strategy.

Business Strategy

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.

Sometimes The Difference Between Winning And Losing Is Will. The Will To Make It Happen.

If You Don't Love What You're Doing With Unbridled Passion And Enthusiasm, You're Not Going To Succeed When You Hit Obstacles.

Success Is The By-product When You Work Toward The Target.

If You Put On A Lousy Production With White Actors, It's Lousy. There Is A Problem, Or Can Be, At This Stage Of Our Social Evolution, With Mixing The Casts. It May Not Be A Question Of Race So Much As Class. You Would Rarely Find A Black Man In A High Executive Position Where He Was Swinging His Weight Around.

We Need To Put Ourselves In The Shoes Of Our Customers. That Is My New Battle Cry. Live And Breathe Starbucks The Way Our Customers Do.

Starbucks Has Stores In America In Many, Many Communities That Are Governed By Many, Many Different Municipalities. Starbucks Cannot Dictate To A Municipality In Cincinnati Or Kansas City Or Sacramento How Or Why Or When There Should Be A Recycling Program.

Everyone Must Have A Shot At The American Dream.

The Hardest Thing About Being A Leader Is Demonstrating Or Showing Vulnerability. And That Has A Lot To Do With Trust.

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.

I'm Optimistic About The Country; I'm Optimistic About The American People.

We Want Passion For Our Business.. Workers Who Can Interpret And Execute Our Mission, Who Want To Build A Career, Not Just Take A Temporary Job.

Starbucks Is Not An Advertiser; People Think We Are A Great Marketing Company, But In Fact We Spend Very Little Money On Marketing And More Money On Training Our People Than Advertising.

Our Mission Statement About Treating People With Respect And Dignity Is Not Just Words But A Creed We Live By Every Day. You Can't Expect Your Employees To Exceed The Expectations Of Your Customers If You Don't Exceed The Employees' Expectations Of Management.

Managing A Business, Small Or Large, Today Requires An Extremely Disciplined, Thoughtful Approach With Regard To The Pressure That People Are Under.

The Premium Single-cup Segment Is The Fastest-growing Business Within The Global Coffee Industry.

We Would Take Something Old And Tired And Common - Coffee - And Weave A Sense Of Romance And Community Around It. We Would Rediscover The Mystique And Charm That Had Swirled Around Coffee Throughout The Centuries.

The Growth Of The Company And The License That Starbucks Has Is To Participate In Other Food And Beverage Opportunities. We Have A Global Business... And In Many Parts Of The World, Tea Is Much, Much Bigger Than Coffee, And We're Going To Bring Tea And Bring Our Capability And Our Understanding Of What We've Done For Coffee To Tea.

Good Results Is Not An Entitlement. It Has To Be Earned And Earned Each Individual Working Day Via The Lens Of Humility.

The Success Of The Starbucks Has Been Based On This Balance Between Profitability And A Social Conscience. Everywhere We're Doing Business, Were Trying To Manage The Business Through The Lens Of Humanity.

I Was Taken By The Power That Savoring A Simple Cup Of Coffee Can Have To Connect People And Create Community.

While Their Service Is Ending, Our Responsibility Is Just Beginning!

In Times Of Adversity And Change, We Really Discover Who We Are And What We're Made Of.

I Think Growth Covers Up Mistakes.

Entrepreneurs Must Love What They Do To Such A Degree That Doing It Is Worth Sacrifice And, At Times, Pain. But Doing Anything Else, We Think, Would Be Unimaginable.

Starbucks Is In My Blood. It Is Such A Part Of Me That Letting It Unravel Simply Was Not An Option.

Great Companies Are Defined By Their Discipline And Their Understanding Of Who They Are And Who They Are Not.

I Think That Sometimes The Difference Between Winning And Losing, Success And Failure, Is This Gray Line Between Will, Passion And Self-belief That Says, 'i'm Going To Do This'.

China Traditionally Has Been A Tea-drinking Country But We Turned Them Into Coffee Drinkers.

There's This Myth That Has Been Exacerbated By Others That Starbucks Means A $4 Cup Of Coffee, Which Is Not True.

Most Business People Today Are Not Going To Invest In The Uncertainty That Exists In America.

The Evolving Social And Digital Media Platforms And Highly Innovative And Relevant Payment Capabilities Are Causing Seismic Changes In Consumer Behavior And Creating Equally Disruptive Opportunities For Business.

Great Companies That Build An Enduring Brand Have An Emotional Relationship With Customers That Has No Barrier. And That Emotional Relationship Is On The Most Important Characteristic, Which Is Trust.

Characteristics

My Mother Taught Me Something At A Young Age - She Said 'you Are The Company You Keep.' To Define Yourself By Some Label Or Some Level Of Resources - That's Pretty Shallow.

Company You Keep

I've Traveled Around The World, And What's So Revealing Is That, Despite The Differences In Culture, Politics, Language, How People Dress, There Is A Universal Feeling That We All Want The Same Thing. We Deeply Want To Be Respected And Appreciated For Our Differences.

Success In The United States Is Not An Entitlement In China. You Have To Go There And Earn It, And Earn It The Right Way.

We Are Not In The Coffee Business Serving People, We Are In The People Business Serving Coffee.

Who Wants A Dream That's Near-fetched?

With A Population Of More Than 600 Million People, An Emerging Middle Class That Is Driving Strong Consumption, And A Robust And Resilient Economy, Southeast Asia Presents A Compelling Growth Opportunity For Starbucks.

More Than Anything Else, Technology Will Pave The Way For Innovative Change At Starbucks. The Bulk Of Starbucks' Innovation Over The Next Several Years Will Be Technology-focused.

We Will Never-and I Mean Never-turn Our Backs On Our Employees.

When It Comes To Starbucks, I Take Every Threat Very Personally.

The Starbucks Customer And The Teavana Customer Are Two Very Different Customers, Two Different Need States That Are Highly Complimentary.

It's Ironic That No Matter Where I Go, I Meet People From Brooklyn. I'm Proud Of That Heritage. It's Where I'm From, Who I Am.

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.

Do I Take Criticism Of Starbucks Personally? Of Course I Do.

The Rules Of Engagement Around Building A Brand Have Changed Significantly Over The Past 10 To 15 Years. Where Companies At One Time Could Spread Their Message Through Traditional Marketing, Consumers Now Seek An Enduring Emotional Connection With The Companies They Patronize. The Foundation Of That Connection Is The Most Important Characteristic Of Building A World-class Brand: Trust. Trust With Your People And Trust With Your Customers.

Even Though People Are Under Economic Pressure, They Still Want To Support Those Brands With Values That Are Compatible With Their Own.

Risk More Than Others Think Safe.

Loyal Customers

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.

When I First Discovered In The Early 1980s The Italian Espresso Bars In My Trip To Italy, The Vision Was To Re-create That For America - A Third Place That Had Not Existed Before. Starbucks Re-created That In America In Our Own Image; A Place To Go Other Than Home Or Work. We Also Created An Industry That Did Not Exist: Specialty Coffee.

And With The Right Mentor, Don't Be Afraid To Expose Your Vulnerabilities. Admit You Don't Know What You Don't Know. When You Acknowledge Your Weaknesses And Ask For Advice, You'll Be Surprised How Much Others Will Help.

While We Are A Coffee Company At Heart, Starbucks Provides Much More Than The Best Cup Of Coffee—we Offer A Community Gathering Place Where People Come Together To Connect And Discover New Things.

Companies Should Not Have A Singular View Of Profitability. There Needs To Be A Balance Between Commerce And Social Responsibility... The Companies That Are Authentic About It Will Wind Up As The Companies That Make More Money.

Don't Settle! Embrace A Dream--and Keep Dreaming. Don't Be A Bystander. Take It Personally.

Be Bold, But Be Fair. Don't Give In. If Others Around You Have Integrity, Too, You Can Prevail

On Balance, I Am A Supporter Of The Minimum Wage Going Up. We've Got To Be Very Careful What We Wish For Because Some Employers - And There Could Be A Lot Of Them - Will Be Scared Away From Hiring New People Or Creating Incremental Hours For Part-time People As A Result Of That Wage Going Up.

We Woke Up One Day, And All The Sudden Starbucks Was In The Middle Of This Political Crossfire Between The People Who Want To Bring A Gun Into Starbucks And The People Who Want To Prevent It. It Is A Very Difficult, Fragile Situation.

My Biggest Concern Is That America Is Drifting Towards Mediocrity And That People Don't Recognize - And By People I'm Meaning Washington - Don't Recognize The Sense Of Urgency And The Fact That I Don't Think This Is A Crisis Anymore. I Think It's An Emergency.

I Was Born On The Other Side Of The Tracks, In Public Housing In Brooklyn, New York. My Dad Never Made More Than $20,000 A Year, And I Grew Up In A Family That Lost Health Insurance. So I Was Scarred At A Young Age With Understanding What It Was Like To Watch My Parents Lose Access To The American Dream.

Early On I Realized That I Had To Hire People Smarter And More Qualified Than I Was In A Number Of Different Fields, And I Had To Let Go Of A Lot Of Decision-making. I Can't Tell You How Hard That Is. But If You've Imprinted Your Values On The People Around You, You Can Dare To Trust Them To Make The Right Moves.

I Believe Life Is A Series Of Near Misses. A Lot Of What We Ascribe To Luck Is Not Luck At All. It's Seizing The Day And Accepting Responsibility For Your Future. It's Seeing What Other People Don't See And Pursuing That Vision.

Business Leaders Cannot Be Bystanders.

Business Leaders

It's Different When You're Trying To Turn Something Around, Especially Something That You Built, At A Time When So Many Constituents - The Media, Wall Street, Competitors, Ex-employees - Are All Saying That Starbucks's Best Days Are Behind It, And That Schultz Is Never Going To Be Able To Bring It Back.

In The 1960s, If You Introduced A New Product To America, 90% Of The People Who Viewed It For The First Time Believed In The Corporate Promise. Then 40 Years Later If You Performed The Same Exercise, Less Than 10% Of The Public Believed It Was True. The Fracturing Of Trust Is Based On The Fact That The Consumer Has Been Let Down.

In Many Places Where Coffee Is Grown, Deforestation Is A Major Issue. With Starbucks' Position In The Marketplace And The Respect And Relationships We Have, We Can - And Have, In Some Cases - Been Able To Educate And Influence People.

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 Do Feel, In A Sense, The Rules Of Engagement For Citizenship Has Changed, And We Must Encourage Other People To Speak Up And To Take Action.

We Can't Wait For Washington. Business Leaders Are Going To Have To Galvanize Their Own Constituencies And Do Everything They Can To Demonstrate Confidence In The Economy, And I Think That Can Be Contagious.

The Entrepreneurial Opportunity In America Is Alive And Well.

What I Would Say To Young Entrepreneurs Is There's So Many Moments In Your Life Where You Have These Dreams, And People Are Trying To Protect You, And They Say, Perhaps, Friends, Family, Parents Sometimes, They Don't Agree With It, They Think, 'this Is Just Too High Of A Hurdle.' And I Don't Agree With That.

Young Entrepreneurs

I Grew Up In A Working Class Family Where There Was No Health Insurance. I Saw First Hand The Fracturing Of The American Dream And The Bitterness That Comes When There Is No Hope And A Lot Of Despair. So I Wanted To Build The Company, In A Sense, That My Father Never Got A Chance To Work For.

Sports Was A Great Equalizer. It Didn't Have Color. It Didn't Matter Whether You Were Rich Or Poor, Black Or White. It Really Shaped Me In Many Ways To Be Able To Deal With A Lot Of Different Personalities And Different Cultures. Sports Were The Common Thread.

You Must Find Something That You Deeply Love And Are Passionate About And Are Willing To Sacrifice A Lot To Achieve.

The Challenge Of The Retail Business Is The Human Condition.

Human Condition

Success Is Best When It Is Shared.

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.

Success Is Best When Its Shared

I Think There Is Probably No Better Person To Aspire To Emulate Than Steve Jobs And What He Has Done At Apple In Terms Of His Leadership, His Innovation, Not Settling For Mediocrity.

Believe In Your Dreams And Dream Big. And Then After Youve Done That, Dream Bigger.

People Want Guidance, Not Rhetoric. They Need To Know What The Plan Of Action Is, And How It Will Be Implemented. They Want To Be Given Responsibility To Help Solve The Problem And Authority To Act On It.

At An Early Age, My Mother Gave Me This Feeling That Anything Is Possible, And I Believe That.

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.

In The 1960s, If You Were A Blue Collar Worker Or Uneducated, And You Had An Injury On The Job, The Company Basically Dismissed You.

Any Business Today That Embraces The Status Quo As An Operating Principle Is Going To Be On A Death March.

Challenging The Status Quo

I Honestly Never Dreamed At The Time That I Would One Day Own The Starbucks And Or Be In A Position Where We Would Have More Than 10,000 Stores Around The World. It Has Just Been An Incredible Journey For All Of Us.

Starbucks Is Rekindling America's Love Affair With Coffee, Bringing Romance And Fresh Flavor Back To The Brew.

Customers Must Recognize That You Stand For Something.

Stand For Something

Europe Has Always Represented A Major Strategic Opportunity To Achieve Our Goal Of Creating And Building An Enduring Global Brand.

You Cant Build Any Kind Of Organization If Youre Not Going To Surround Yourself With People Who Have Experience And Skill Base Beyond Your Own.

Grow With Discipline. Balance Intuition With Rigor. Innovate Around The Core. Don't Embrace The Status Quo.

My Father Had A Series Of Blue-collar Jobs And Never Made More Than $20,000 A Year. When I Was Seven, He Got Injured On A Job. That Was A Very Important Point - Because Of The Injury, He Couldn't Walk, And The Company He Was Working For Did Not Pay Him. There Was No Compensation. So There Was No Money And No Food.

People Around The World, They Want The Authentic Starbucks Experience.

Social And Digital Media Is A Bullet Train, And That Bullet Train Is Not Coming Home.

Whatever You Do, Don't Play It Safe. Don't Do Things The Way They've Always Been Done. Don't Try To Fit The System. If You Do What's Expected Of You, You'll Never Accomplish More Than Others Expect.

We Have A Big Opportunity In China. We Think The Number Of Stores Here Can Rival The Number In North America.

Starbucks Represents Something Beyond A Cup Of Coffee.

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.

Mass Advertising Can Help Build Brands, But Authenticity Is What Makes Them Last. If People Believe They Share Values With A Company, They Will Stay Loyal To The Brand.

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