Howard Schultz is the businessman who turned Starbucks from a small Seattle shop selling coffee beans and equipment into the world's largest coffeehouse chain. He did not found the company, but for decades, as the long-serving Starbucks CEO, he championed the Italian espresso bar and the idea of the cafe as a "third place" between home and work. This is the factual story of Howard Schultz and Starbucks: how a marketing director became the face of modern coffee culture, and why his name is so closely tied to the green mermaid logo.
Who is Howard Schultz?
Howard Schultz was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1953 and grew up in public housing in the Canarsie neighborhood. He was the first in his family to attend college, and after graduating he worked in sales and marketing, including a stint with the housewares company Hammarplast, which sold European-made coffee makers. It was there that he noticed a small Seattle retailer placing unusually large orders for drip coffee makers. Curious, he flew west to see the shop for himself.
That shop was Starbucks. Founded in Seattle in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl, the original Starbucks sold roasted whole beans and brewing equipment rather than drinks by the cup. Schultz joined the company around 1982, in his late twenties, as director of retail operations and marketing. At the time there were only a handful of stores, all in the Seattle area.
The Milan trip that changed everything
In 1983, Schultz traveled to Milan on a buying trip and was struck by the city's espresso bars. He has described watching baristas pull shots, call out drinks, and greet regulars by name, all inside spaces that felt like neighborhood living rooms. The ritual, the craft, and the sense of community were, in his telling, as important as the coffee itself.
He returned to Seattle convinced the same model could work in the United States, and pushed Starbucks to serve espresso drinks alongside its beans. The original founders, who wanted to keep the business focused on selling coffee to take home, were not persuaded. That disagreement set the stage for Schultz to strike out on his own.
Il Giornale and buying Starbucks
Schultz left Starbucks in 1985 to build his own chain of Italian-style coffee bars. He named it Il Giornale, after a Milanese newspaper, and opened the first location in 1986 after raising money from investors. The cafes served espresso drinks and aimed to recreate the atmosphere he had admired in Italy.
Then the pieces came together. In 1987, the original owners decided to concentrate on their Peet's Coffee business and sold the Starbucks retail operation. Schultz, backed by his investors, bought it and merged it with Il Giornale, rebranding everything under the Starbucks name. Reports at the time put the deal in the low millions, a modest sum by the standards of the company Starbucks would later become. From that point, the Howard Schultz story and the Starbucks story are essentially the same story.
Building the "third place"
With the company in his hands, Schultz set out to scale the espresso-bar experience. The guiding idea was the "third place," a comfortable social space distinct from home (the first place) and work (the second place). Cafes were designed for lingering, with seating, music, and later free Wi-Fi, and the menu expanded well beyond black coffee into lattes, cappuccinos, flavored drinks, and seasonal specials.
Growth was rapid. Starbucks took its stock public in 1992, using the proceeds to fund aggressive store openings across the United States and, eventually, around the world. Many observers credit Schultz-era Starbucks with popularizing espresso drinks for a mass audience and ushering in what is often called the "second wave" of coffee, the wave that helped set the stage for the craft-focused third wave of coffee that followed. The chain became a fixture of daily routines and a reference point for coffee culture around the world.
Howard Schultz as Starbucks CEO: multiple stints
One of the more unusual features of the Howard Schultz story is that he served as Starbucks CEO more than once, stepping away and returning as the company's needs changed. Exact dates vary slightly between sources, and some count his chairman role separately, but the broad timeline is well documented.
| Year (approx.) | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1971 | Starbucks founded in Seattle as a bean-and-equipment shop |
| 1982 | Schultz joins as director of retail operations and marketing |
| 1983 | Milan buying trip sparks the espresso-bar vision |
| 1985 | Leaves Starbucks to plan his own coffee-bar chain |
| 1986 | Opens the first Il Giornale coffee bar |
| 1987 | Buys Starbucks and rebrands Il Giornale under the Starbucks name |
| 1992 | Starbucks goes public on the stock market |
| ~2000 | Steps down from the CEO role for the first time |
| 2008 | Returns as CEO during the financial crisis |
| 2017 | Hands over the CEO role again, staying on as chairman |
| 2022-2023 | Returns once more, as interim CEO, during a leadership transition |
His 2008 return is the most cited. With the chain struggling amid the global financial crisis and rapid over-expansion, Schultz retook the top job and moved to steady the business. In a widely reported moment, he briefly closed thousands of US stores on a single afternoon to retrain staff on pulling espresso, a signal that he wanted to refocus on quality and the in-store experience. He returned again, on an interim basis, in 2022 before a new chief executive took over the following year.
Cultural impact and criticism
Schultz's influence on everyday coffee habits is hard to overstate. Terms like "barista," "grande," and "latte" entered mainstream vocabulary in many English-speaking markets largely through Starbucks, and the company's cafe template has been imitated by chains and independents alike. He also wrote several books about his approach to business and leadership, and became a prominent, if polarizing, public figure.
That prominence brought criticism, and a balanced account should note it. The company's fast expansion drew complaints that ubiquitous stores could crowd out independent cafes and dilute the very experience Schultz prized. During his later years at the company, Starbucks faced a high-profile wave of union organizing under the banner of Starbucks Workers United; Schultz publicly opposed unionization, and labor regulators reviewed a number of complaints about the company's conduct toward organizers. The specifics of those disputes have been contested by the parties involved, so they are best treated as an ongoing debate rather than a settled verdict.
Beyond coffee, Schultz explored a run for US president as an independent ahead of the 2020 election before deciding against it, and his considerable Starbucks stake made him a billionaire. He has also directed philanthropy toward causes such as veterans' support and youth employment through a family foundation.
Where Schultz fits in the bigger picture
It helps to separate three things that often get blurred together: Howard Schultz the person, Starbucks the brand you order from today, and Starbucks the company and its business operations. Schultz is the individual whose choices shaped the other two, but he is not the whole of either. For the drinks, sizes, and menu as they stand now, see our Starbucks brand guide; for a fuller look at the company and its cafe model, see Starbucks the coffee company and cafe explained.
Whatever one makes of the chain, Howard Schultz remains one of the defining figures in how the modern world drinks coffee. He took a single Italian idea, the espresso bar as a gathering place, and scaled it until it felt ordinary. That is a rare kind of influence, and it is why his name still comes up almost any time people talk about the business of coffee.