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.

But when you really believe-in yourself, in your dream-you just have to do everything you possibly can to take control and make your vision a reality. No great achievement happens by luck.

We have no patent on anything we do and anything we do can be copied by anyone else. But you can't copy the heart and the soul and the conscience of the company.

Anybody can leverage celebrity for profit.

Effective leaders share two intertwined attributes: an unbridled level of confidence about where their organizations are headed, and the ability to bring people along.

We think of Starbucks not as a coffee company but a media company.

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