According to myprimetime.

com, Starbucks was a popular coffee bean store

located in Seattle that had been buying many of the Hammarplast Swedish drip
coffeemakers that were being sold in New York City by Howard Schultz but little did he
know that Starbucks would become the giant multi-national corporate powerhouse it is
today.
Schultz was born in a Brooklyn housing project in 1952 and lived there until a
Michigan Football Scholarship got him out . After graduation he worked odd jobs for a
while.
On this trip to Seattle, Schultz discovered that he loved selling coffee and the
owners who chose and roasted the beans. He was also marveled by their desire to educate
others to become coffee connoisseurs.
When Schultz returned from that trip he said God, what a great company, what a
great city. Id Love to be a part of that
After months and months of pleading, Schultz was hired as the Director of
Marketing and Operations in 1982. That same year he had an epiphany after a trip to
Italy. He observed that coffee shops were almost on every single block. (approximately
200,000 in Italy) Also, he noted the fact that they served not only great espresso, but as
meeting places.
He brought his idea back to Seattle, but the owners refused to get into the
restaurant business. Schultz left Starbucks and started his own place called Il Giornale
It was wildly successful and with the money he earned there, he bought Starbucks for
$3.8 million dollars one year later.
In the companys expansion period in the 90s, Schultzs main goal was to serve
a great cup of coffee. The one thing he wanted to build with Starbucks was a company
with soul.
Also Schultz revolutionized the way employees were treated based on his fathers
experiences after he was laid off due to an injury and had no workmans compensation or
much to show for when he died. Schultz insisted that all employees working more than
20 hours a week received comprehensive health coverage even for unmarried spouses.
Schultz also offered stock-options. This led to increased loyalty to employees and
therefore low worker turnover in spite of low wages.
According to CBS News, there are now over 11,000 Starbucks Stores in 37
countries which is according to Schultz an unbelievable number to me to be honest with
you. Also as unbelievable is the number of customers each week. 40 Million to be exact
drinking a total of 227 million gallons of coffee a day.
The Seattle roasting plant receives beans shipped in from 28 countries. They will
roast 2 million pounds of beans a week and this process will repeat in 4 other plants
across the country.
$10,000 invested at the start of Starbucks would be worth $5 million today. This
could be the fact that Starbucks is part of the American landscape with cameo
appearances on Oprah, The Simpsons, and Jeopardy. However Starbucks employs grand
marketing techniques by calling a small a tall and you can get a tall in a variety of
different ways. At the time of this articles writing in late April 2006, there are more than
55,000 possible drink combinations.
Schultz likes to tell people that Starbucks is just a simple coffee company, but
behind closed doors, theres a Starbucks laboratory inventing next years drinks.

Some people do not find Starbucks to be just a simple coffee company.

Starbucks is believed to be killing the Mom and Pop coffee shop, however Starbucks
only has about 7 percent of the market share. However this didnt stop a group of
anarchists who trashed a Seattle location in an anti-globalization riot. There is a
criticismthat Starbucks is homogenizing the world; youre taking the culture out of
places in China and Japan and Americanizing them.
However, Starbucks is theatre, and the audiences have taken Schultz all the way
to the bank with almost $1 billion.
According to David Bolliers book Aiming Higher Schultz has no intent to slow
down and looks to the past to guide him. Metaphorically, we have to keep our eye on the
rearview mirror as well as the road in front of us. Schultz desires to remain true to take
care of our peopleand focus on one customer at a time.