In the 1960s, if you introduced a new product to America, 90% of the people who viewed it for the first time believed in the corporate promise. Then 40 years later if you performed the same exercise, less than 10% of the public believed it was true. The fracturing of trust is based on the fact that the consumer has been let down.

Post-9/11, we saw an immediate uptick in the amount of people in our stores, all over the country. People wanted that human connection. We are not going to fracture the Starbucks experience.

Sports was a great equalizer. It didn't have color. It didn't matter whether you were rich or poor, black or white. It really shaped me in many ways to be able to deal with a lot of different personalities and different cultures. Sports were the common thread.

To be an enduring, great company, you have to build a mechanism for preventing or solving problems that will long outlast any one individual leader.

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

My passion. My commitment. This is the most important thing in my life other than my family.

Starbucks is not an advertiser; people think we are a great marketing company, but in fact we spend very little money on marketing and more money on training our people than advertising.