The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 62 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Schultz: Starbucks sold no prepared coffee beverages until around 1985-1986
“Starbucks coffee company from 1971 until around 8586, only sold pounds of coffee. There was no beverage.”
Schultz: Starbucks JV Partners Run Operations While Starbucks Controls Roasting and Design
“Starbucks is responsible for roasting the coffee, for all the recipes which are consistent with Starbucks worldwide, A co design of the store where we're designing the store with the JV or the licensed partner, and they control all the operations.”
Schultz: Starbucks had 11 stores and 100 employees at end of 1987
“August of 87. We bought the six Starbucks stores. We had the three old Eldranales, and there were two stores under construction. So at the end of the calendar year, we had 11 stores And a hundred employees in 1987.”
Schultz: Starbucks has only sourced the highest tier of Arabica coffee since 1971
“There's mainly two types of agricultural coffee grown for commercial use. Robusta beans, low-end coffee, primarily in instant coffee, and high-grade Arabica coffee. But even within the Arabica coffee, there's significant segments of quality and integrity, and …”
Schultz: Starbucks Never Issues Individual Retail Franchises
“There are not, no individual licensed franchises of any kind, unless it's certain real estate that we can't get, that we want access to. Like, a roadway on a highway in Switzerland, or something odd.”
Gilbert: Approximately 70% of Starbucks drink sales are now iced beverages
“What is it, 70% of drinks are now iced beverages, and it was when you started, zero percent.”
Rosenthal: Jeff Bezos and Jim Sinegal first met at a Bellevue Starbucks
“Do you know where Jeff Bezos and Jim Senegal met for the first time? Not in a Costco, in the Starbucks, in the Barnes and Noble, in Bellevue.”
Schultz: Starbucks' first espresso pilot reached 500 daily customers within a week
“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 probably had two to 30…”
Gilbert: Starbucks had zero publicly traded coffee comps at its 1992 IPO
“I was looking up, I was trying to figure out, you know, your public comps at the time. I think there were zero publicly traded coffee companies, not bean companies, not retailers, not coffee house chains.”
Schultz did 100 Starbucks earnings calls as CEO, mostly unscripted
“I did a hundred quarterly conference calls as CEO. A hundred.
That's a lot of earnings prep, because each one of those has, what, two weeks before it of.
The truth is, the majority of those were no script.”
Gilbert: Frappuccinos Generated 7% of Starbucks Revenue in 1996
“The year after it launched, in 1996, Frappuccinos were seven percent of revenue.”
Schultz: Starbucks struggled and lost money in China for nearly a decade
“We struggled in China for almost a decade. Lost money. There was tremendous pressure inside the company of close China.”