We want passion for our business.. workers who can interpret and execute our mission, who want to build a career, not just take a temporary job.

When you're surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible.

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.

In times of adversity and change, we really discover who we are and what we're made of.

We need to reinvent food at Starbucks. Less could be more.

Early on I realized that I had to hire people smarter and more qualified than I was in a number of different fields, and I had to let go of a lot of decision-making. I can't tell you how hard that is. But if you've imprinted your values on the people around you, you can dare to trust them to make the right moves.

If you put on a lousy production with white actors, it's lousy. There is a problem, or can be, at this stage of our social evolution, with mixing the casts. It may not be a question of race so much as class. You would rarely find a black man in a high executive position where he was swinging his weight around.