Success is the by-product when you work toward the target.

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.

California, in a sense, is almost Starbucks' largest country, with almost 3,000 stores.

My father had a series of blue-collar jobs and never made more than $20,000 a year. When I was seven, he got injured on a job. That was a very important point - because of the injury, he couldn't walk, and the company he was working for did not pay him. There was no compensation. So there was no money and no food.

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

Americans reading the paper, listening to the news every single day, and all you hear is things are getting worse and worse. And that has a psychological effect on consumer confidence. That's what consumer confidence is.

Even though people are under economic pressure, they still want to support those brands with values that are compatible with their own.