The chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Starbucks tells how he and his team built a small Seattle company into a nationwide business phenomenon through such anti-corporate principles as community-mindedness and employee-ownership.
Amazon.com Review
Since 1987, Starbucks’s star has been on the rise, growing from 11 Seattle, WA-based stores to more than 1,000 worldwide. Its goals grew, too, from the more modest, albeit fundamental one of offering high-quality coffee beans roasted to perfection to, more recently, opening a new store somewhere every day. An exemplary success story, Starbucks is identified with innovative marketing strategies, employee-ownership pro… More >>
Pour Your Heart into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time
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As a person who has watched starbucks over the years, the book is nothing but self serving, this from a guy who I would describe as the ultimate carpet bagger. He was a plastic salesman, who made his way into a true coffee company and turned it into a greedy profit motivated company. This from a man who does not really care about coffee but profits.
The chapter where he says that he struggled for capital, which ordinary person can get such an impressive line of investors, certainly Mr. Shultz did have his connections.
It is interesting to note that most of his so called “principles” that he has proclaimed in his book are all pretty much abandoned in the name of profits. An example is their introduction of coffee into supermarkets and their marketing deal with Kraft Foods (Maxwell house).
I guess the average person who reads the book cant really read between the lines, for those who know the coffee industry, this book is more comedic rather than any real insight into the company.
All in all a really self serving book by a guy who knew how to hustle…he turned Starbucks which used to be a company owned by true lovers of coffee into a company owned by greed.
Rating: 1 / 5
A foolish, self-indulgent self-promotion, filled with cliches and boring details about the history of one man’s successful effort to sell coffee made from low quality, burned coffee beans at exhorbitant prices. Astonishing primarily for its gall– presenting the founder as a man of vision and commitment to social values– while his real achievement is packaging inferior merchandise and pushing it without mercy on an unsophiticated market.
Rating: 1 / 5
It’s amazing to me that Howard grew up in Brooklyn yet claims that the day the first cup of espresso was served in Seattle in the early 80′s was the first time Americans ever tasted Italian espresso. Now why do you suppose he never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to Little Italy to stop in at any number of the old cafes that have espresso bars? I grew up in the Boston area and moved there in 1975 and then to the North End, the Italian section, and weekly stopped in at the decades-old Cafe Vittoria on Hanover Street for cappuccino and moccacino…long before Howard Schultz got his hands on Starbucks!
Rating: 1 / 5
DOnt believe everything you read! I warn you beforehand, this book is really enjoyable but does it tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth? No!!! NO!!! NO!!!
A more profit hungry company you can’t find on this planet. He tries to hide this fact by talking about “passion for coffee”, “coffeee quality” and “The Starbucks experience”. Come on, we who work in the coffee industry knows the real facts. It’s not this big mystery or an difficult art! IF you ever compared an real barista in Italy and one of Starbucks Im pretty sure that the Italian Barista would walk away as the winner!
Starbucks = big mouth + profit hungry
So what about the book? Well its really good from a business point of view. Everything on how it is to start a company, grow a company to how to deal with diffculties. I enjoyed this book very much.
But be a critic, dont believe everything you read! Howard Schultz is a sinner when it comes to business ethics!!! ITs pretty obvious if you read the book that Share holders value is what Starbucks is about. NO, customers arent their first priority…even though they try to convince you of that in almost every chapter!
OPEN YOUR EYES!!! DONT BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ!!!
Rating: 4 / 5
First of, this is a marketing propoganda written by Howard Shulz to impart familiarity and intimacy for his company. To this extent, it is an emotional, inspiring, and enthusiastically well written piece, and it successfully leaves me understanding the company all the more. It is a great read and very fun to read. I feel a certain understanding for Starbucks now… but… it is true?
I was too young to experience what Starbucks was like back in the good old 80′s when it all got started and I didn’t wasn’t much of a coffee drinker during the 90′s. I’m not sure what it was like in the past, but I know for a fact that on the majority, Starbucks of present falls far below the ideal and vision that Howard Shulz paints in this book.
The idea and vision is so picturesque when you read it that you almost forget about the actual experience of your most recent visit at a local Starbucks. I’ve visited some Starbucks in which the espresso drinks were too sweet, coffee was not brewed correctly, and the baristas just plain rude. Often times, I don’t get greeted. Nor do I get a thank you for your patronage. Don’t get me wrong there are some great employees working there, but on the whole, they fail to live up to the expectations presented in this book.
Where’s the romance? The camaraderie he envisioned in his original Starbucks? Maybe it existed long ago, but it certainly does not exist anymore. The romance of hearing milk frothed is no longer romantic or even “cool.” The baristas lack the qualities that Shulz portrayed in the Italian baristas.
There’s no sense of the romance at all.
Read this book for the enjoyment of it, and come away knowing that a disparity exists between Shulz’s romantic vision of the espresso experience and the actual experience of today.
If you hope to start your own coffee shop or any business for that matter. I would highly recommend this book for its attempt and success at providing vision and guidance and experience in starting your own coffee shop (or business). In that respect, you will be richer for reading the book.
But just don’t read it and believe that the ideals envisioned in this book still stands as it is today. Starbucks is far from this picture of perfection. They must crack down on quality and go back to its roots – the EXPERIENCE. 4 stars for a very enjoyable and inspiring blend of fiction/non-fiction!
Rating: 4 / 5