Top 180 Howard Schultz Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “I conduct my life with an expectation that people will do the right thing. Yet even with all my experience, I am still surprised when they do not.”

— Howard Schultz

102. “To stay vigorous, a company needs to provide a stimulating and challenging environment for all these types: the dreamer, the entrepreneur, the professional manager, and the leader. If it doesn’t, it risks becoming yet another mediocre corporation.”

— Howard Schultz

103. “Europe has always represented a major strategic opportunity to achieve our goal of creating and building an enduring global brand.”

— Howard Schultz

104. “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.”

— Howard Schultz

105. “When it comes to Starbucks, I take every threat very personally.”

— Howard Schultz

106. “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.”

— Howard Schultz

107. “Who wants a dream that’s near-fetched?”

— Howard Schultz

108. “Starbucks is in my blood. It is such a part of me that letting it unravel simply was not an option.”

— Howard Schultz

109. “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.”

— Howard Schultz

110. “While their service is ending, our responsibility is just beginning!”

— Howard Schultz

111. “Our history is based on extending the brand to categories within the guardrails of Starbucks.”

— Howard Schultz

112. “My biggest concern is that America is drifting towards mediocrity and that people don’t recognize – and by people I’m meaning Washington – don’t recognize the sense of urgency and the fact that I don’t think this is a crisis anymore. I think it’s an emergency.”

— Howard Schultz

113. “I think we are living in a time where the consumer has lots of choices, whether it’s coffee, newspapers or whatever it is. And there is parity in the market place, and as a result of that, the consumer is beginning to make decisions, not just on what things cost and the convenience of it.”

— Howard Schultz

114. “The leaders in Washington have got to come together in a bipartisan way and do the right thing for the people who are being left behind. We cannot have an America that is only based on the wealthy.”

— Howard Schultz

115. “Work should be personal. For all of us. Not just for the artist and entrepreneur. Work should have meaning for the accountant, the construction worker, the technologist, the manager and the clerk.”

— Howard Schultz

116. “Don’t buy preground coffee.”

— Howard Schultz

117. “Anybody can leverage celebrity for profit.”

— Howard Schultz

118. “I do feel, in a sense, the rules of engagement for citizenship has changed, and we must encourage other people to speak up and to take action.”

— Howard Schultz

119. “Many companies today are reducing hours of full-time people to get under the minimum so they don’t have to pay health care costs. I just shake my head because that’s not going to build long-term value and trust with your people.”

— Howard Schultz

120. “I never took classic business classes in college, so I don’t have the background that any of the people running large companies have.”

— Howard Schultz

121. “Starbucks being an extension of peoples home and work. The sense of community, human connection. That appears to be as relevant in Turkey, China, Japan and Spain as it is here in America. And Starbucks I think is creating something for people all over the world that has not existed before.”

— Howard Schultz

122. “I’m much more concerned about America than the Democratic Party.”

— Howard Schultz

123. “There’s this myth that has been exacerbated by others that Starbucks means a $4 cup of coffee, which is not true.”

— Howard Schultz

124. “Victory is much more meaningful when it comes not just from one person, but from the joint achievements of many.”

— Howard Schultz

125. “I probably have about four or five cups of coffee a day. I make myself an espresso macchiato when I wake, which is a shot of espresso and just a dollop of steamed milk. Then, if I’m going to do some work at home, I would make myself a French press. It’s the best way to make conventional coffee.”

— Howard Schultz

126. “My parents really wanted me to get out of New York, be exposed to other people, other ways of life.”

— Howard Schultz

127. “The Starbucks customer and the Teavana customer are two very different customers, two different need states that are highly complimentary.”

— Howard Schultz

128. “Everyone must have a shot at the American Dream.”

— Howard Schultz

129. “I think people will walk into the Starbucks store and overnight recognize the significant difference between what Starbucks represents day-in and day-out and all the other coffee companies that have been serving coffee in India for so many years.”

— Howard Schultz

130. “We can’t wait for Washington. Business leaders are going to have to galvanize their own constituencies and do everything they can to demonstrate confidence in the economy, and I think that can be contagious.”

— Howard Schultz

131. “It’s ironic that retailers and restaurants live or die on customer service, yet their employees have some of the lowest pay and worst benefits of any industry. That’s one reason so many retail experiences are mediocre for the public.”

— Howard Schultz

132. “People in Washington need to put their feet in the shoes of working Americans.”

— Howard Schultz

133. “I think the most important thing that I think everyone in America must have is belief that wherever they live, whatever station they have in life, that the American dream is alive and well. I think the fracturing of trust and confidence is in the American dream.”

— Howard Schultz

134. “The future of America is not an entitlement. We have been given a treasure chest of gifts and opportunities, but some people are being left behind, and success is not sustainable unless it is shared.”

— Howard Schultz

135. “Starbucks is rekindling America’s love affair with coffee, bringing romance and fresh flavor back to the brew.”

— Howard Schultz

136. “Starbucks trying to build a different kind of company around the balance of profitably and benevolence. A social conscience. And that isn’t a program it has to be a way of life.”

— Howard Schultz

137. “The response to the Starbucks brand has been phenomenal in our international markets.”

— Howard Schultz

138. “In the course of the year I spent trying to raise money, I spoke to 242 people, and 217 of them said “no.”

— Howard Schultz

139. “The lifeblood of job creation in America is small business, but they can’t get access to credit.”

— Howard Schultz

140. “I could not allow us, or myself, to drift into a sea of mediocrity after so many years of hard work.”

— Howard Schultz

141. “I honestly never dreamed at the time that I would one day own the Starbucks and or be in a position where we would have more than 10,000 stores around the world. It has just been an incredible journey for all of us.”

— Howard Schultz

142. “If Vancouver did not succeed as Starbucks from ’87 on, our entire international business, which is now thousands of stores and a significant amount of growth and profit, may not have existed.”

— Howard Schultz

143. “You cant build any kind of organization if youre not going to surround yourself with people who have experience and skill base beyond your own.”

— Howard Schultz

144. “Great companies are defined by their discipline and their understanding of who they are and who they are not.”

— Howard Schultz

145. “To be an enduring, great company, you have to build a mechanism for preventing or solving problems that will long outlast any one individual leader.”

— Howard Schultz

146. “We need to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers. That is my new battle cry. Live and breathe Starbucks the way our customers do.”

— Howard Schultz

147. “At an early age, my mother gave me this feeling that anything is possible, and I believe that.”

— Howard Schultz

148. “The premium single-cup segment is the fastest-growing business within the global coffee industry.”

— Howard Schultz

149. “My son is trying to be a sports writer, and my daughter is a college student. She wants to be a comedy writer, and she’s at film school. I discouraged both of them early on from getting involved in Starbucks. I didn’t think it would be fair; plus, they didn’t have any interest anyway.”

— Howard Schultz

150. “When you’re building a business or joining a company, you have to be transparent; you can’t have two sets of information for two sets of people.”

— Howard Schultz