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people furiously clicking away on keyboards and scribbling ideas on napkins might be working to create the next Google, Alibaba, or Facebook, or composing a novel or a piece of music. Maybe they're falling in love with someone sitting next to them. Or making a friend.
If home is the primary or “first” place where a person connects with others, and if work is a person's “second place,” then a public space such as a coffeehouse—such as Starbucks—is what I have always referred to as the “third place.” A social yet personal environment between one's house and job, where people can connect with others and reconnect with themselves. From the beginning, Starbucks set out to provide just such an invaluable opportunity.
So when some refer to Starbucks’ coffee as an affordable luxury, I think to myself,
Maybe so
. But more accurate, I like to think, is that the Starbucks Experience—personal connection—is an affordable necessity. We are all hungry for community.
By 2000 Starbucks had achieved what I believed we could: We had evolved millions of people's relationships with coffee, from what they drank to where and when they drank it. We did so in a way that made me, as well as our partners and shareholders, proud. Even as we lost money in the early years, Starbucks established two partner benefits that, at the time, were unique: full health-care benefits and equity in the form of stock options for every employee. This was an anomaly. No company had ever extended these two benefits to part-time workers who worked at least 20 hours a week. To my knowledge, we were the only private company—and later the only public company—to do so. In addition to distinguishing us as a great place to work and helping us attract top talent, acting with this level of benevolence helped us build trust with our people and, as a result, long-term value for our shareholders.
Our intent to create a unique community inside the company as well as in our stores has, I think, separated us from most other retailers. Starbucks has always cared about what the customer can and cannot see.
Chapter 3
Surfacing
Work should be personal. For all of us. Not just for the artist and the entrepreneur. Work should have meaning for the accountant, the construction worker, the technologist, the manager, and the clerk.
Infusing work with purpose and meaning, however, is a two-way street. Yes, love what you do, but your company should love you back. As a merchant, my desire has always been to inspire customers, exceed their high expectations, and establish and maintain their trust in us. As an employer, my duty has always been to also do the same for people on the other side of the counter. For our partners. This latter responsibility has driven me for many, many years.
When I was 7 years old, I came home from school one winter day and saw my father sprawled on a couch with a cast from his hip to his ankle. My dad was an uneducated war veteran, and while he was very proud, he never really found his spot in the world. He held a series of really rough blue-collar jobs to support our family, never making more than $20,000 a year. He'd been a truck driver, a factory worker, and even a cab driver for a while, but his current job was the worst. He drove a truck picking up and delivering cloth diapers. That week Dad had fallen on a sheet of ice and broken his hip and his ankle, and for a blue-collar worker in 1960 there was no worker's compensation. No health-care coverage. No severance. My dad was simply sent home after his accident and dismissed by the company. I never imagined I would one day be in a position to run a company a different way. But I did believe, even then, that everyone deserved more respect than my parents had received. By the time my father passed away in 1988 from lung cancer, he had no savings or pension. Just as tragic, in my mind, was that he never found fulfillment or meaning in his work.
As
If home is the primary or “first” place where a person connects with others, and if work is a person's “second place,” then a public space such as a coffeehouse—such as Starbucks—is what I have always referred to as the “third place.” A social yet personal environment between one's house and job, where people can connect with others and reconnect with themselves. From the beginning, Starbucks set out to provide just such an invaluable opportunity.
So when some refer to Starbucks’ coffee as an affordable luxury, I think to myself,
Maybe so
. But more accurate, I like to think, is that the Starbucks Experience—personal connection—is an affordable necessity. We are all hungry for community.
By 2000 Starbucks had achieved what I believed we could: We had evolved millions of people's relationships with coffee, from what they drank to where and when they drank it. We did so in a way that made me, as well as our partners and shareholders, proud. Even as we lost money in the early years, Starbucks established two partner benefits that, at the time, were unique: full health-care benefits and equity in the form of stock options for every employee. This was an anomaly. No company had ever extended these two benefits to part-time workers who worked at least 20 hours a week. To my knowledge, we were the only private company—and later the only public company—to do so. In addition to distinguishing us as a great place to work and helping us attract top talent, acting with this level of benevolence helped us build trust with our people and, as a result, long-term value for our shareholders.
Our intent to create a unique community inside the company as well as in our stores has, I think, separated us from most other retailers. Starbucks has always cared about what the customer can and cannot see.
Chapter 3
Surfacing
Work should be personal. For all of us. Not just for the artist and the entrepreneur. Work should have meaning for the accountant, the construction worker, the technologist, the manager, and the clerk.
Infusing work with purpose and meaning, however, is a two-way street. Yes, love what you do, but your company should love you back. As a merchant, my desire has always been to inspire customers, exceed their high expectations, and establish and maintain their trust in us. As an employer, my duty has always been to also do the same for people on the other side of the counter. For our partners. This latter responsibility has driven me for many, many years.
When I was 7 years old, I came home from school one winter day and saw my father sprawled on a couch with a cast from his hip to his ankle. My dad was an uneducated war veteran, and while he was very proud, he never really found his spot in the world. He held a series of really rough blue-collar jobs to support our family, never making more than $20,000 a year. He'd been a truck driver, a factory worker, and even a cab driver for a while, but his current job was the worst. He drove a truck picking up and delivering cloth diapers. That week Dad had fallen on a sheet of ice and broken his hip and his ankle, and for a blue-collar worker in 1960 there was no worker's compensation. No health-care coverage. No severance. My dad was simply sent home after his accident and dismissed by the company. I never imagined I would one day be in a position to run a company a different way. But I did believe, even then, that everyone deserved more respect than my parents had received. By the time my father passed away in 1988 from lung cancer, he had no savings or pension. Just as tragic, in my mind, was that he never found fulfillment or meaning in his work.
As
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