Starbucks, every mention
316 scenes, the whole family · ← back to Starbucks
tap a year for its mentions
every year anyone Howard Schultz 161Ben Gilbert 122David Rosenthal 27Jason Calacanis 3Daniel Ek 2Andrew Marks 1
Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where Starbucks comes up
Vanguard: The communist capitalist who saved investors a trillion dollars (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 1:30 Ben Gilbert General Motors, Nike, Starbucks, Lockheed Martin, Visa, Apple,
Coca-Cola: The Complete History & Strategy (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 18:27 Ben Gilbert When they're sitting down in the social gathering space, because drug stores at that time were sort of the Starbucks of this time.
- ▶ 3:21:07 David Rosenthal Yeah, it's like a Starbucks competitor.
- ▶ 3:21:32 David Rosenthal I'm pretty sure we talked about with Howard on our Starbucks episode, the Starbucks Pepsi partnership with Frappuccino, right?
Trader Joe’s: Hawaiian shirts and counter positioning (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 3:20:33 Ben Gilbert Starbucks.
Mars Inc. - The Chocolate Story (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 3:10:12 Ben Gilbert Starbucks.
- ▶ 3:10:15 Ben Gilbert Checkout counters at Starbucks.
- ▶ 3:10:19 Ben Gilbert And it fits with Starbucks brand ethos.
- ▶ 3:31:00 Ben Gilbert It's just like our Starbucks episode, too.
Starbucks (with Howard Schultz) · Acquired
- ▶ 0:47 Ben Gilbert Seven years ago, David and I did an episode on the Starbucks IPO.
- ▶ 0:53 Ben Gilbert That episode was a mere one hour and 24 minutes, and Starbucks is a ninety billion dollar institution in our world that deserves the full acquired treatment.
- ▶ 1:15 Ben Gilbert Howard started working at the small chain of three Starbucks stores in 1982, eventually buying it and becoming CEO.
- ▶ 1:23 Ben Gilbert As you probably know, he is effectively the founder of the Starbucks we know today that exists on every corner of the earth.
- ▶ 1:30 Ben Gilbert I come to you, David, and listeners, as an unabashed Starbucks fan.
- ▶ 1:35 Ben Gilbert In this tumultuous time for the company, I am absolutely pulling for them in every way possible, and that is going to come through in our conversation.
- ▶ 1:42 Ben Gilbert You may have seen the news recently that they had a very rough last quarter with a key metric that you may remember from previous episodes as same-store sales.
- ▶ 1:51 Ben Gilbert These dropped, and their stock price plummeted as a result.
- ▶ 1:56 Ben Gilbert This is on top of a tumultuous pandemic era and some of their stores unionizing and a change in leadership.
- ▶ 2:02 Ben Gilbert We thought that this would be the perfect time to sit down with Howard and unpack, why did Starbucks work in the first place?
- ▶ 2:12 Ben Gilbert What can other founders and business leaders learn from what got them here?
- ▶ 2:16 Ben Gilbert And although he is no longer CEO, where do they go now?
- ▶ 2:34 Ben Gilbert But Starbucks is different.
- ▶ 2:35 Ben Gilbert Today they're in over 80 countries with 39,000 stores across the world.
- ▶ 2:40 Ben Gilbert They're even huge in China, a country that didn't consume very much coffee until Starbucks arrived.
- ▶ 2:45 Ben Gilbert They are a bank-scale financial institution as well.
- ▶ 2:48 Ben Gilbert At any given time, Starbucks holds 1.7 billion dollars that customers have loaded onto gift cards, but not yet spent.
- ▶ 2:55 Ben Gilbert So how did they go from one store selling beans, not even drinks and cups, just beans, to the default meeting place in communities everywhere?
- ▶ 5:16 Ben Gilbert I've spent 23,000 dollars at Starbucks since 20 11.
- ▶ 5:22 Ben Gilbert So, we want to start with Starbucks one point oh, and listeners may know that there were three founders of Starbucks.
- ▶ 5:36 Ben Gilbert So take us back, you know, in the Starbucks prehistory before you arrived, how did the company start?
- ▶ 6:21 Howard Schultz And Jerry Baldwin and Zev became so interested and intrigued with what Pete's was doing, and given the fact that they were from Seattle, decided they would try and bring Starbucks coffee in the form of Starbucks to Seattle, Washington.
- ▶ 6:38 Howard Schultz Now what is not known is that when Starbucks opened in the Pike Place Market in 1971, they were using Pete's Coffee.
- ▶ 6:56 Howard Schultz They were not calling it Pete's, they were calling it Starbucks.
- ▶ 6:58 Ben Gilbert So it was Pete's Coffee in Starbucks bags.
- ▶ 7:09 Howard Schultz Uh, I, I get the sense that there was some kind of fallout between the three of them, and Zev Siegel eventually left the company.
- ▶ 8:03 David Rosenthal Was Starbucks buying it for use in their-
- ▶ 8:11 Howard Schultz Starbucks coffee company from 1971 until around 8586, only sold pounds of coffee.
- ▶ 8:33 Howard Schultz The sun was out, there was snow on the mountains, the clean, fresh air, and I walked into the Pike Place Market, and I walked into the Starbucks store, and I was blown away by the experience, the, the romance of coffee, the education, and…
- ▶ 8:52 Howard Schultz I had never met Jerry Baldwin, the founder, who was the CEO at the time, and I became interested and intrigued with what Starbucks was doing and asked if I could meet Jerry.
- ▶ 9:14 Howard Schultz Starbucks had three stores at the time, only three, and over the course of the next year or so, I became more and more interested and intrigued with the possibility of leaving New York City.
- ▶ 9:33 Howard Schultz Maneuvered my way into a job working for Starbucks, and so Sherry and I drove to Seattle, Washington on Labor Day weekend in our old Audi car with a golden retriever,
- ▶ 9:47 Howard Schultz And we came here because I was offered the job as the head of marketing for Starbucks when they were getting ready to open their fourth store in 1982.
- ▶ 10:00 Howard Schultz The interest that the company had in me at the time, I think, was they were really interested in expanding, but their, their dream or, or the plan at the time was, could we expand to Portland, Oregon?
- ▶ 10:12 Howard Schultz Remember, so it was a tiny company.
- ▶ 10:33 David Rosenthal I mean, there were these three soon to be four Starbucks bean stores here in Seattle.
- ▶ 10:53 Howard Schultz Retailer that was kind of at the same size and scale as Starbucks, both equal at the same time.
- ▶ 11:04 Howard Schultz It was not no good food to speak of, and Starbucks was a true pioneer where they were educating customer after customer about what good coffee tastes like.
- ▶ 11:20 Howard Schultz And so Starbucks actually started establishing a mail order business as a result of all the people who were coming into Seattle.
- ▶ 11:27 Howard Schultz And I think if I remember, there was so many points that I can remember where people were talking about Starbucks way outside of Seattle as if it was some kind of
- ▶ 13:26 Howard Schultz Which is the low-grade coffee that Starbucks was never involved in.
- ▶ 13:45 Howard Schultz But even within the Arabica coffee, there's significant segments of quality and integrity, and Starbucks has always played from 1971 to today at the highest level.
- ▶ 14:36 Ben Gilbert So you show up at Starbucks, you know, you know a little bit about the market because you've been a, a supplier of theirs, but you happen to be a pretty talented salesman from your, your time at Xerox.
- ▶ 17:43 David Rosenthal Do you think having that background at Xerox, did that give you a piece of perspective that helped build Starbucks to what it is today?
- ▶ 20:33 Howard Schultz But it wasn't the business that Starbucks was in, and I walk in like a normal person that's never seen this before, and I am just like, I'm in a black and white movie, and all of a sudden everything was color, and it was so rich.
- ▶ 21:06 Howard Schultz What's happening in Italy is the business that Starbucks has to be in.
- ▶ 21:29 Howard Schultz On the corner of Fourth and Spring in Seattle, and it was the sixth Starbucks store, and out of about 1200 square feet, I got a hundred feet, and I designed and opened the coffee bar, worked behind the counter as a barista, and Starbucks…
- ▶ 22:22 Howard Schultz Now between 83 and 85, Jerry Baldwin, because of his love of Pete's and his relation with Alfred Pete, had an opportunity for Starbucks to acquire Pete's Coffee Company.
- ▶ 22:35 Howard Schultz And they did.
- ▶ 22:37 Howard Schultz Unfortunately, Starbucks buys Pete's, and they get into financial trouble.
- ▶ 23:03 Howard Schultz The opening of the fourth and spring coffee bar inside of Starbucks.
- ▶ 23:07 Ben Gilbert Starbucks number six.
- ▶ 23:13 Howard Schultz I said, I'm going to leave Starbucks.
- ▶ 23:22 Howard Schultz So Jerry says, Starbucks does not want to open up coffee bars, but we will invest in Il Drenali.
- ▶ 23:33 Howard Schultz Yeah, so before they get into financial trouble, Starbucks is an investor.
- ▶ 23:38 Howard Schultz I've always thought he did that so I would sell and market Starbucks coffee in the coffee bar, which I would have done anyway.
- ▶ 23:46 Howard Schultz So, Starbucks makes an investment.
- ▶ 24:20 Ben Gilbert And only Starbucks and a couple other people have committed.
- ▶ 30:03 Howard Schultz Starbucks and Pete's gets into financial trouble and the debt to equity was north of six to one for a company.
- ▶ 30:12 Howard Schultz Jerry comes to me and says, Jane and I, his wife are going to move to California and we're going to keep Pete's and I'm going to sell Starbucks.
- ▶ 30:27 Howard Schultz and he says, I think you're the person to buy Starbucks.
- ▶ 34:44 Howard Schultz And he says, Howard Schultz is going to acquire a Starbucks coffee company and he's never going to hear from you again.
- ▶ 35:14 Howard Schultz And he said, you're gonna buy Starbucks Coffee Company, and my son and I are gonna help you.
- ▶ 37:10 Ben Gilbert And this is, you know, 2015 or something, so Starbucks, like, you would think.
- ▶ 38:35 Howard Schultz We bought the six Starbucks stores.
- ▶ 38:53 David Rosenthal Meanwhile, the original Starbucks folks, they've now gone down to California.
- ▶ 39:08 Ben Gilbert Il Giornale buys the Starbucks stores, rebrands Il Giornale Incorporated as the Starbucks Corporation.
- ▶ 39:16 Ben Gilbert The original Starbucks buys, you know, had owned Pete's, and now needs a new name, so it rebrands the company Pete's.
- ▶ 39:23 Ben Gilbert So Pete's was actually Starbucks, Starbucks was actually Il Giornale.
- ▶ 40:08 Ben Gilbert The Starbucks company with the six stores, when they bought Pete's with that six to one debt to equity ratio, basically backed themselves into a corner where now they had these big debt service payments to make.
- ▶ 40:31 Ben Gilbert And so when you're in that situation, Starbucks
- ▶ 40:52 Ben Gilbert I was gonna ask you, was that informed by the, the, what you had seen with the Starbucks situation, or more your childhood?
- ▶ 41:15 David Rosenthal You've alluded to kind of a stigma, at least amongst potential investors and the original Starbucks founders of, like, the restaurant business.
- ▶ 41:22 David Rosenthal What did the economics of the business, of the coffee bar business, look like when you bought the Starbucks stores?
- ▶ 42:11 Howard Schultz The morning rush was getting bigger, the need for more labor, and I could sense that the business that Starbucks was in was going to be significantly in the back, and the beverage and the romance of the theater, and the third place was the…
- ▶ 43:10 Ben Gilbert And so when you say lightning in a bottle, there's a cultural lightning in a bottle, but there's also this, like, ridiculous business model where the way it shows up is your stores, basically from this point forward for all of Starbucks's…
- ▶ 44:50 Ben Gilbert And to be clear, like, the era of Starbucks we are in right now, you produce drip coffee, and you produce espresso, and you can put that espresso in frothed milk, and those, that's basically your options.
- ▶ 47:11 Howard Schultz There was a brilliant, brilliant guy who was the architect of the name Starbucks, named Terry Heckler in Seattle.
- ▶ 48:10 Howard Schultz And someone at Starbucks, I don't know who it was, started writing names on the cup, writing names, and it just became standard.
- ▶ 48:21 Howard Schultz So much of Starbucks success came from customers asking for things we weren't doing, and Starbucks employees who became partners in 91,
- ▶ 49:16 Howard Schultz And I've always thought in so many ways, Starbucks became the first experiential brand at scale.
- ▶ 54:15 Ben Gilbert Everything was just these little cities, these small markets, and there's this great quote that you have at the end of the meeting that says, the company since 1971 has been growing at a very, very slow pace.
- ▶ 54:27 Ben Gilbert As a result of that, you combine Il Giornale and Starbucks together, we're gonna take your six stores that you've built in 17 years, and we're gonna go to 26 in one year, and we're gonna go to over a hundred in five years.
- ▶ 55:23 Howard Schultz And at one point, I think they had more stores than we did because of the franchising opportunity.
- ▶ 55:40 Howard Schultz Howard Behar should be credited with so much of the cultural texture and the tapestry of the humanity of the company.
- ▶ 56:04 Howard Schultz And of course he and Oren were so instrumental into the loneliness that exists as a entrepreneur and their ability to help me build the company that you know today.
- ▶ 56:22 Ben Gilbert And for anyone who was a partner at Starbucks sort of knows what I'm talking about, and anybody else outside has no idea.
- ▶ 56:56 Ben Gilbert And obviously that became a huge tenet of Starbucks as we knew it through the nineties and 2000.
- ▶ 57:15 Howard Schultz He was the only MBA in the company, but he was the wise man who behind the doors could say to me and Howard, you're both full of shit.
- ▶ 57:58 Ben Gilbert Cause he was basically training all these operators, the, the, the sort of management fleet of the company.
- ▶ 1:00:23 Howard Schultz The halo on Starbucks from Seattle to Vancouver and Chicago was nothing.
page 1 of 4 · 100 scenes per page · newest episode first next →