Howard Schultz begged the founders of Starbucks to turn their Seattle bean shop into an Italian espresso bar, and they said no. He left, built his own coffee bars, fought off one of his own investors and bought Starbucks for 3.8 million dollars in 1987. Twenty years later the chain he had built was losing its customers and most of its share price, so he came back, shut more than seven thousand American stores for an evening of espresso training and closed hundreds for good. This episode follows the whole story: Pike Place, Milan, Il Giornale, Bill Gates Senior, the leaked memo, the training night, the cuts, New Orleans and the recovery.
Founder Stories tells the story of one founder per episode, told plainly and in order.
