Managing a business, small or large, today requires an extremely disciplined, thoughtful approach with regard to the pressure that people are under.

Do I take criticism of Starbucks personally? Of course I do.

Managing a business, small or large, today requires an extremely disciplined, thoughtful approach with regard to the pressure that people are under.

My mother taught me something at a young age - she said 'you are the company you keep.' To define yourself by some label or some level of resources - that's pretty shallow.

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.

The growth of the company and the license that Starbucks has is to participate in other food and beverage opportunities. We have a global business... and in many parts of the world, tea is much, much bigger than coffee, and we're going to bring tea and bring our capability and our understanding of what we've done for coffee to tea.

Sometimes the difference between winning and losing is will. The will to make it happen.