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 35 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 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 had about seven months until insolvency in 2008
“I knew that we had about seven months left, if we continued on this track, where we would be insolvable.”
Maveron told Serena & Lily they wouldn't even fund Starbucks in 2008
“In fact, Maveron, who was, you know, came from the money of Starbucks, they told us that if Starbucks had walked in their door right now, they wouldn't fund them.”
Schultz: Legacy Coffee Giants Were Too Arrogant to See Retail Coffee Opportunity
“I think the large companies just never believed that you could build a national company and brand around selling coffee in the cup. I don't, I just think they were naive, maybe arrogant, and they gave us a lot of runway.”
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: Bill Gates Sr. forced rival bidder to withdraw Starbucks offer
“And all I remember him saying is, you should be ashamed of yourself. That you're gonna steal this kid's dream. It's not gonna happen. You and I both know this is not gonna happen. And within 10 minutes, he told them to stand down, we're walking out of this off…”
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: Needing consultants means a company does not know its business
“If we have to hire a consultant, it means that we don't really know our business.”
La Colombe was founded to supply an expected American fine dining renaissance
“We had a deep, deep belief that there would be this restaurant renaissance in America. There was gonna be this huge inflow of French and Italian high-level cuisine, and that the coffee in America wasn't going to accommodate it. Coffee in America was just dedic…”
Scott Svenson: Starbucks amplified the operational dysfunctions of small startups at scale
“What we found was all of the challenges and the imperfections and the dysfunction that we had in our small little company were just amplified on a bigger scale at Starbucks”
Scott Svenson: Category leadership outweighs the collateral damage of hyper-growth
“Whatever mistakes we made, whatever collateral damage, if you will, there comes from going too fast would be more than made up for by winning in this category and having All the advantages that come from being that market share leader over time, being the Star…”
Scott Svenson: Starbucks pushed to replicate US playbooks abroad without adapting
“There was a lot of momentum organizationally to simply replicate in a new market what they had success doing elsewhere”
Starbucks acquiring Tazo drove independent coffee roasters to buy Numi instead.
“It was actually a great opportunity for us, because coffee roasters and the food service didn't want to support necessarily Starbucks, so they wanted who's the new kid on the block, and Numi was a great fit, so we actually were able to take advantage of that o…”
Schultz: Starbucks Founders' Early Vision Was Only Expanding to Portland
“And their dream, and nothing against them, their dream at the time was to expand to Portland, Oregon. That was their big idea.”
Schultz: Coffee shops function as a 'third place' between work and home
“I started realizing that this is a third place between home and work. But the beverage was the draw.”
Schultz: Starbucks introduced the caffè latte to Seattle in 1985
“Overnight, we had hundreds of customers every day, and we introduced cafe latte to the city of Seattle, basically.”
Schultz: Growth Is Not a Business Strategy
“And so growth became the strategy of the company, and growth is not a strategy.”
Justin's secured squeeze pack placement inside Starbucks grab-and-go boxes
“The first thing that happened was we got into Starbucks. With a squeeze pack. And they put us into a bistro box, which is, we're still there. It's like their protein plate, little grab and go.”
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.”
McGowan: Crumbl has more TikTok followers than Starbucks and Nike combined
“Starbucks and Nucky combined, I think we have more than both of those combined, yeah.”
Svenson: Seattle Coffee Company had 68 stores and 50 in UK pipeline when acquired
“At the time we sold to Starbucks, we had 68 locations, but we had 50 locations in our UK pipeline for the next year, and we had a whole bunch of stores we were going to be opening internationally.”
Scott Svenson: Seattle Coffee Company raced for real estate to defend against Starbucks
“We knew that it was a market share game. We knew that we had to get out and secure the right real estate and build the brand, and in our real, in our market, they talk about the first mover advantage, and we had to secure that first mover advantage so that if …”
Scott Svenson: Seattle Coffee Company explored US acquisitions to rival Starbucks
“We had signed up with partners in the Middle East, and South Africa, and Southeast Asia, and had plans to go to Northern Europe, and actually had had conversations with several brands in the U.S., Well-known brands about us acquiring them to create a, an entre…”
Scott Svenson: Seattle Coffee Company's early food sales tripled Starbucks' share
“Starbucks food sales at the time were eight to 10% of sales, and ours were 25%.”
Kharraz: Zocdoc validated early wireframes in Starbucks for $5 gift cards
“You know, we, what we started doing is actually mocking up the site and how we imagined it back then in PowerPoint and just the image of a website. Yeah, wireframe. Exactly. We would, And then we'd go to Starbucks and we'll chat up strangers and say, hey, here…”
Starbucks expanded S'well distribution to over 10,000 global store locations
“That's right. So I think 10,000 stores in the U.S. And Canada, 25 countries in Europe, all over Asia, Russia, South Africa.”
Starbucks required Schultz to raise $600K before releasing $200K seed investment
“And Starbucks put a little contract in there, which was, you have to raise 600,000 dollars to use our 200.”
Schultz: Starbucks originally served zero cups of coffee in stores
“No, there was no service of any cup of coffee at any Starbucks So it was just pounds of coffee for home use.”
Schultz: Starbucks and Peet's were once a single company
“Many people don't realize that Pete's and Starbucks were one company two years prior to that.”
Schultz: Jerry Baldwin offered Starbucks for $3.8M at one-time sales
“The person who should buy Starbucks is you, and so the price is one-time sales, six stores, 3.8 million dollars, which was You know, it was fantastic news. And I'll give you a 90 day exclusive to try and come back to me with 3.8 million dollars.”
Starbucks rejected Todd Carmichael as a barista before he founded La Colombe
“What I really wanted to do, and this probably exposes the kid in me, but I wanted to be a barista. I wanted to be the cool kid, right? And Starbucks wouldn't let me do it. You know, come on, I mean, I was a flannel-wearing farm boy, you know, I cut my own hair…”
Scott Svenson: London coffee venture depended on Starbucks' success in New York
“Starbucks had expanded to New York, and the hypothesis we had was, well, gosh, if it works in New York, given how international and diverse that city is, it'll work in London.”
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”
Tsai Left Starbucks After 'Meets Expectations' Review Despite Frappuccino Launch Success
“At the end of the year he gave me my performance review, and it was Meets Expectations, and I just thought, this is not a place where I'll be successful, even though I have so much admiration for Howard and the company and the brand. So I left.”
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…”