China traditionally has been a tea-drinking country but we turned them into coffee drinkers.
Great opportunities can be and have been created during tough economic times.
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.
Any business today that embraces the status quo as an operating principle is going to be on a death march.
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.
Europe has always represented a major strategic opportunity to achieve our goal of creating and building an enduring global brand.
Starbucks has changed the rules of engagement for the music industry.
Starbucks is committed to evolving and enhancing our customer experience with innovative and wholesome food offerings.
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.
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.
There's this myth that has been exacerbated by others that Starbucks means a $4 cup of coffee, which is not true.
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 think many start-ups make mistakes because they are focusing on things that are farther ahead, and they haven't done the work that has built the foundation to support it.
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.
Managing and navigating through a financial crisis is no fun at all.
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.
People have come to me over the years and said to me: 'I admire the culture of Starbucks. Can you come give a speech and help us turn our culture around?' I wish it were that easy. Turning a culture around is very difficult to do because it's based on a series of many, many decisions, and the organization is framed by those decisions.
Turning a culture around is very difficult to do because it's based on a series of many, many decisions, and the organization is framed by those decisions.
London, a city where creativity and innovation have always flourished, provides a significant home for Starbucks and a significant gateway into Europe.
Often, organizations need bold, grand gestures to galvanize people towards a new mission or refocus their attention.