☕ STARBUCKS’ BACK STORY:

Born on July 19, 1953, Schultz grew up in the Bayview Houses, a subsidized public housing complex in a working-class neighborhood. His father, Fred Schultz, a diaper service delivery driver, fell on a sheet of ice and broke his ankle and hip. In the 1960s blue-collar economy, this was a catastrophe. Fred had no health insurance, no worker’s compensation and no severance. He was fired, and the family was plunged into destitution. Witnessing his father ‘broken’ and discarded by the system instilled in Howard a fierce resolve to build a different kind of company, one that would treat its employees with the dignity his father was denied. This trauma is the direct origin of Starbucks' comprehensive health coverage and stock options for part-time workers. Schultz escaped Canarsie via sports, earning an athletic scholarship to Northern Michigan University (NMU). Although he traveled there to play football, he did not make the team, yet he stayed to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Communications in 1975.

In 1979, he started working a Swedish manufacturer of drip coffee makers and kitchenware. It was in this capacity, reviewing sales logs in his New York office, that he noticed a statistical anomaly: a small retailer in Seattle named ‘Starbucks Coffee Tea and Spice’ was ordering more plastic cone filters than major department stores. Intrigued, Schultz flew to Seattle in 1981 and lobbied them to hire him. In 1982, he joined Starbucks as the Director of Retail Operations and Marketing.

In 1983, Schultz traveled to Milan, Italy, for a trade show. While walking the streets, he observed the Italian espresso bars. He saw that they were not just selling coffee; they were selling ‘theater’ and ‘community’. The baristas greeted customers by name.

Schultz returned to Seattle fueled by an epiphany: Starbucks shouldn't just sell beans; it should sell the beverage and the experience. The founders rejected this vision. Frustrated but undeterred, Schultz left ‘Starbucks’ in 1985 to found his own coffee chain, ’Il Giornale’.

’ll Giornale’ was the prototype for the modern Starbucks. It played opera music, had standing bars, and used Italian nomenclature. In 1987, the original Starbucks founders decided to sell their retail unit to focus on Peet's Coffee. With the financial backing of investors, including Bill Gates Sr. (yep, the father of the Microsoft founder), Schultz purchased Starbucks for $3.8 million and merged it with ‘Il Giornale’, retaining the Starbucks name.

From 1987 to 2000, Schultz served as CEO, overseeing one of the most aggressive retail expansions in history. He took the company public in 1992. In 2000, believing the company was self-sustaining, Schultz stepped down.

By 2007, Starbucks was in crisis. Rapid expansion had diluted the brand. The introduction of automatic espresso machines (which blocked the customer's view of the barista) and flavor-lock packaging (which removed the aroma of coffee from the stores) had sterilized the Starbucks experience. He came back as CEO to save the situation. In a move that cost the company nearly $6 million in lost revenue, Schultz closed all 7’100 U.S. stores for three hours on a Tuesday afternoon in February 2008. The purpose was to retrain 135’000 baristas on the art of pulling a perfect espresso shot. The turnaround was successful, and Starbucks stock rebounded significantly over the next decade.

At around that same period, in 2008, a desperate Howard Schultz visited Apple headquarters to seek advice from Steve Jobs on how to navigate a corporate turnaround. During a walk around the Cupertino campus, Schultz poured out his heart about the structural problems at Starbucks. Jobs stopped, looked him dead in the eye and screamed: "You go back to Seattle and you fire everyone on your leadership team!" Schultz, stunned, asked, "Who's going to do the work?". Jobs reiterated: "I just told you. Go fire all those people". Schultz didn't listen immediately. Months later, Jobs told him: "You're six months late”. While Schultz didn't pull the trigger immediately, Jobs turned out to be right. Schultz later admitted that within six to nine months of that meeting, almost every member of that original leadership team had left the company or been replaced.

As of 2025, Schultz holds the title of Chairman Emeritus. Though technically retired, his shadow looms large. After his handpicked successor, Laxman Narasimhan, struggled to maintain momentum, the board appointed Brian Niccol (formerly of Chipotle) as CEO in 2024.