The entrepreneurial opportunity in America is alive and well.

Everyone starts strong. Success comes to those with unwavering commitment to be at the end.

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.

Despite the fact that Starbucks has grown to be a large company. We've always played music in our stores and has always acted as an opportunity to create a mood in our stores. And customers started asking, "What song are you playing and can I buy that?" . And we said "No." And that was kind of the catalyst for beginning to look at music. We started out with our own compilations and after the success of that. We had the courage to say, "Let's produce our own record." and the first record was with Ray Charles before he unfortunately passed away.

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

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.

If it Captures Your Imagination, it will captivate others.