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.

We are witnessing a seismic change in consumer behavior. That change is being brought about by technology and the access people have to information.

China traditionally has been a tea-drinking country but we turned them into coffee drinkers.

We will never-and I mean never-turn our backs on our employees.

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.

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.

Believe in your dreams and dream big. And then after youve done that, dream bigger.