Howard Schultz
Chairman Emeritus, Starbucks. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
executivefounderinvestorauthor@HowardSchultz ↗schultzfamilyfoundation.org ↗
Howard Schultz acquired Starbucks in 1987 and served multiple stints as its chief executive officer, expanding the business into a global coffeehouse chain. He also co-founded the venture capital firm Maveron and has authored several business books.
2shows
2appearances
71statements
31resolved
18supported
1contradicted
58%fully supported
77said about them ↓ Everything Howard Schultz said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Schultz: Starbucks closed 900 stores, 90% open under a year
“We closed 900 stores, and 90% of them had been open less than a year.”
Schultz: Store retraining shutdown cost Starbucks about $24 million
“I think we estimated about twenty-four million dollars that day, in terms of lost sales and labor.”
Schultz: 2008 store manager summit cost Starbucks about $30 million
“By the way, this event cost about thirty million dollars at a time when we didn't have the money.”
Schultz: Starbucks originally resold Peet's Coffee in Starbucks bags in 1971
“Now what is not known is that when Starbucks opened in the Pike Place Market in 1971, they were using Pete's Coffee. No one knows that. That's new. Because they were not roasting coffee. So they were bringing coffee from San Francisco to Seattle. They were not…”
Schultz: World War II GI rations drove post-war low-quality coffee adoption
“World War II and the GIs were kind of the impetus for that kind of quality coffee, or not quality coffee, to exist and have any kind of run after the war.”
Schultz: Starbucks ran into financial trouble after acquiring Peet's Coffee
“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. And they did. Unfortunately, Starbucks buys Pete's, and they get into financial trouble.”
Schultz: Bill Gates did not know his father saved the Starbucks acquisition
“Bill did not know the whole story. He didn't know any of it. He didn't know what his father had done for me. He's hearing it for the first time.”
Schultz: Childhood trauma led to strict zero-debt rule at Starbucks
“No, it was totally my childhood. My parents were always in debt. Bill collectors were always calling. And no, there was, we never had any debt the entire time. Never.”
Schultz: Starbucks beverage retail achieved roughly 80% gross margins early on
“The ability to source and roast coffee And put that through the supply chain of a beverage gave us probably at the time an 80% gross margin.”
Schultz: Starbucks store model targeted 2:1 sales-to-investment and 20% operating profit
“The model basically was a sales to investment ratio of two to one. And a operating profit of 20%.”
Schultz: Starbucks should have secured an exclusive on the modern sip lid
“Howard Schultz should have said to them, I want an exclusive on that lid. Because that lid became the standard for the world. If I would have just understood that.”
Schultz: Starbucks spent zero dollars on marketing in its early days
“We didn't spend any money on marketing. Zero. It was no money for market in the cup. The iconic cup became a badge of honor because people were doing something that was new and novel and walking in the street with it”
Schultz: Starbucks Granted 14% of Base Pay in Stock Options Pre-IPO
“Ultimately we gave 14% of everyone's base pay in the form of stock options at the end of the year based on the strike price. And I had to do it the year before the IPO.”
Schultz: Costco Co-Founder Jeff Brotman Invested in Starbucks' 1987 Buyout
“First, Jeff Brotman invested in Starbucks in the round to buy Starbucks.”
Schultz: Goldman Sachs rejected leading Starbucks' 1992 IPO for being too small
“We got turned down by Goldman Sachs.”
Schultz: Starbucks and Pepsi launched bottled Frappuccino via 50/50 JV
“Subsequently, Craig Weatherup and I, on a napkin, I swear, shook hands and created a multi-billion dollar business For Pepsi and Starbucks and a fifty-fifty JV and bottle Frappuccino.”
Schultz: Belinda Wong is Starbucks' most valuable person
“Maybe the most valuable person in the company, from my view.”
Schultz: Consulted daily with Michael Dell before returning as Starbucks CEO
“On that holiday, a friend of mine
Not, I didn't know he was there, but it was Michael Dell was there. And I must've talked to him almost every day about the transformation of Starbucks. And he was going through a similar thing at Dell almost at the same time. …”
Schultz: 10-11 daily customers per store could reverse negative comps
“And then I had this economic formula of how many customers it would take per store to turn comps around. And the number was low. It's like less than 10 per day or 11 per day.”
Schultz: Starbucks secured China approval to insure employees' parents and grandparents
“Belinda decided that she could go to the government and go to an insurance company and come back to Starbucks and get government approval for Starbucks to do the first, do something had never been done before and provide health insurance to the parents and gra…”
Schultz: Third-wave coffee competitors expanded the market rather than taking Starbucks' business
“There has always been stories that all these competitors were going to steal business from Starbucks, but from. 1983 to all the way today, the consumption, especially coffee is still a small amount relative to the macro opportunity. So all those people have ex…”
Schultz: Starbucks baristas consistently make 100,000 different beverage variations
“I think I, the number that people use inside the company is a 100,000 different variations of beverages that are being made consistently. A 100,000 different beverages.”
Schultz: McDonald's and fast-food coffee copycats expanded the total coffee market
“Well, not only that, but every food company, every retail food business from McDonald's on, took a page out of Starbucks, went to school on us, put espresso machines in their stores, and started doing coffee beverages. That also expanded the market.”
The other half of the tape: Howard Schultz's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 70 times in 32 episodes across the shows. 7 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Guy Raz 41Scott Svenson 7Sarah Kauss 7Vicky Tsai 6Daniel Ek 3Ben Gilbert 2Maxine Clark 1Jamie Dimon 1
Statements about Howard Schultz, by other people (7)
Clark: Great merchants aggregate and sell existing products rather than invent them
“I didn't create any of this, I didn't invent any of these parts. The I just brought the parts together, which is what a great merchant does. Like Jeff Bezos didn't write the books. He just put the books together on a platform that you could, we all could buy a…”
Schultz was rejected by 217 of 242 investors for initial $1.6M round
“For the initial 1.6 million that you raised for Il Giornale, you talked to 242 investors, 217 of which said no.”
Errett: Howard Schultz urged Maveron to slow investments in fall 2007
“I will never forget it was the fall of 2007, and we had an investment meeting in Seattle, and he walked in and he said, we need to slow down our investments.”
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.”
Ek: Starbucks was one of the largest CD retailers in the US
“Starbucks and Howard Schultz was actually one of the biggest retailers of CDs. In the U.S.”
Tsai Presented China Frappuccino Launch to Starbucks Board for Howard Schultz
“Howard was super happy with it and had me present to his board of directors”
Howard Schultz Offered Tsai Any Job at Starbucks to Prevent Her Departure
“Howard Schultz found out, and he called me on my mobile phone and asked me to come in and meet with him. So I went back to his office, and it was the week that my furniture was, you know, already on a truck to San Francisco. And he kept on being like, why? Why…”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
How I Built This 63
Acquired 7
2026 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2025 12 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
2024 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2023 11 mentions in 3 episodes 4 per episode
2021 8 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
2020 24 mentions in 9 episodes 3 per episode
- S'well: Sarah Kauss
- Tatcha: Vicky Tsai
- Panera Bread/Au Bon Pain: Ron Shaich (2018)
- How I Built Resilience: Live with Sadie Lincoln
- Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole
- How I Built Resilience (Special Edition): Guy Raz
- How I Built Resilience: Live with Tony Xu and Marcia Kilgore
- Sweetgreen: Nicolas Jammet and Jonathan Neman
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2020 →
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2017 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Howard's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACQUIREDLEDGER | Chairman Emeritus, Starbucks | 1 | 53 | 59% 13/22 | full record on Acquired → |
| HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Chairman Emeritus, Starbucks | 1 | 18 | 56% 5/9 | full record on How I Built This → |