Howard Schultz
The year was 1983, and the director of marketing for a Seattle-based coffee roasting company was visiting Milan, Italy for the first time. It was there that Brooklyn-born entrepreneur Howard Schultz says he fell in love with the bold flavors of espresso and caffe latte, and the lively, theatrical culture of Italian cafes. That journey became the inspiration behind the eventual transformation of Starbucks, as helmed by Schultz, into a multibillion dollar company with stores worldwide – and the addition to the American vocabulary of the Italian words "grande" and "venti.” Schultz’s new book, From the Ground Up, weaves that story among others that go back to his rough-and-tumble youth in Brooklyn housing projects, his fraught relationship with his father and his mother's own special role in setting him on the path to becoming one of the most influential figures in American business. But Schultz is also using his book and accompanying book tour to advocate his view of our political situation, and to explore the possibility of his own bid for the presidency. We sat down with Howard Schultz for a talk on location, just before his recent event at the flagship Barnes & Noble store in Union Square.