Howard Schultz was born to a German-Jewish family on July 19, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York. He and his five-member family lived in a crowded two-bedroom apartment in a tall housing building inhabited by low-income workers. His father, Fred Schultz, was a Second World War veteran who undertook various jobs, but neither found his place in any of them nor ever had a plan for his life.

Young Howard had no plans, either, except his wish to run away from the misery he and his family faced every day. Even at the age of twelve, he started to earn money in order to contribute to the low family finances.

He loved sports, and that is precisely what made it possible for him to make his wish come true and flee poverty. Thanks to his quarterback position in his high-school soccer team, he was awarded a scholarship to Northern Michigan University, thousands of kilometres away. Four years later, he became the first family member with a college degree.

Although he had no clear vision of which direction to follow even after this, the fact that he had managed to escape Brooklyn encouraged him to keep on dreaming. After his college graduation, he stayed in Michigan, working at a ski lodge. However, after a year, he returned to New York and started to work as a salesperson with Xerox. “I sold a lot of machines and outperformed many of my peers,” he remembers. “But I can't say I ever developed a passion for word processors.”

He moved to Hammarplast, a Swedish housewares company, and became Vice President responsible for their US operations. At that moment, only 6 years after graduation, he was earning quite well, owned a Manhattan apartment and was renting a small cottage in Hampton. “So no one, especially my parents, could understand why I was getting antsy. But I sensed that something was missing. I wanted to be in charge of my own destiny.”

In 1981, while still working for the Swedish company, Howard noticed that one of his customers, a retailer from Seattle, enthusiastically performed his job related to a special line of coffeemakers. Therefore, he flew to Seattle in order to investigate the whole thing more closely. There he encountered a scene he fell in love with immediately. At the shop’s entrance, a violinist was playing Mozart. Once he opened the door, a heady aroma of coffee reached out and drew him in. “I stepped inside and saw what looked like a temple for the worship of coffee,” he said later. Inside, he noticed containers with coffee beans from all over the world, and, at that time, most people still believed that coffee came from a can, not a bean. He immediately realized that this shop and this city were his Mecca. This was the place where he wanted to be and the business he wanted to dedicate his life to. The rest is history… the entrepreneurship history of billionaire Howard Schultz.

However, the beginning was hard and Howard had to overcome numerous difficulties on his way. Despite his proven capabilities and enthusiasm, this company didn’t want to hire him. The owners thought that his New York style and the big plans he had could jeopardize the “culture of beauty in small things” they cherished. Yet it wouldn’t have been Shultz had he accepted “No” as an answer so easily. He persisted, came back, and finally persuaded the owners to hire him as a Marketing Director.

Starbucks’ potential was recognized in 1988 by Howard Schultz, CEO of the restaurant, who still holds the position. In the same year, Schultz purchased Starbucks and began breaking into new markets outside Seattle. He opened two new restaurants – in Vancouver and Chicago. Only four years later, there were Starbucks chain restaurants at 165 different locations! It is interesting that, in the nineties, at least one new Starbucks restaurant opened almost every day. The first Starbucks restaurant outside North America opened in Tokyo in 1996, while two years later, Starbucks acquired Seattle Coffee Company, transforming all their shops into Starbucks.

This was not the end to Starbucks’ expansion. The first restaurant in Latin America, in Mexico City, opened in 2002, while Starbucks became the majority owner of Diedrich Coffee in 2006. The first restaurant in China opened in 2000, soon followed by a protest by the Chinese people against Starbucks opening in their country, since it clashed with their cultural beliefs, resulting in the restaurant closing in 2007. Nevertheless, this didn’t prevent Starbucks from positioning itself in the Chinese market, and 750 Starbucks chain restaurants were operating in China in 2012, with a plan to open the same amount again by the end of 2015. There are more than two thousand of these restaurants in China today. At the end of 2010, Starbucks debuted its operations at sea. Royal Caribbean opened two restaurants on its cruisers - Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, the two largest commercial ships in the world.

In his book “Pour your heart into it”, he later wrote: “Life is a series of near hits. But a lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It’s joyful anticipation of each new day and accepting responsibility for your own future. You should see what other people don’t see, and pursue that vision, no matter what they tell you.” And Shultz certainly did have a vision, a huge vision. Because how many of you would give up a luxurious New York life, good pay, a company car, deluxe apartment and prestige? And all that just to go and work for a small Seattle-based company, a chain of four coffee shops.

Not long afterwards, he went on a business trip to Milan, Italy. There he ran into an espresso bar and “lost his mind” for the second time. However, this time, it was not only about the coffee, but the people he saw there and the family atmosphere which exuded energy, music and friendship. This was an emotional experience for him and he instantly knew he had to take that spirit of an Italian café over to the US. He believed he could manage that. When he proposed this to the owners, they resisted at first, but, as already said, Schulz was determined and loyal to his vision, hence he finally succeeded. The owners sold him their small company, which he transformed into Starbucks, which currently has more than 7,500 shops throughout the world and generates sales quoted in billions of dollars.

Headed by Schultz, Starbucks is not only a successful company but a symbol of all that is good in corporate America: integrity, honesty and deep empathy for its employees and customers. To the customers, it is trying to be “a third place”, next to their work and home, where good coffee and pleasant music create a good atmosphere which they can enjoy. Schultz says: “We are not in the coffee business serving people, but in the people business serving coffee.”

He also says: “Success should not be measured in dollars: It’s about how you conduct the journey, and how big your heart is at the end of it.” Today, Schultz, a famous billionaire who escaped Brooklyn in order to run one of the most successful companies, wishes to inspire people to pursue their dreams: “I come from common roots, with no silver spoon, no pedigree, no mentors. I dared to dream big dreams, and then I willed them to happen. I’m convinced that most people can achieve their dreams and beyond if they have the determination to keep trying.”

Nowadays, Starbucks can be found at 22,766 locations in 65 countries, with more than half of this number of restaurants in the USA. This restaurant chain generates annual revenue of more than 16 billion dollars and employs around 200,000 employees worldwide. Starbucks ranks as the 52^nd most valued brand in the world (taking second place in the restaurant category immediately after McDonald’s). Starbucks restaurants offer over 87,000 combinations of various beverages. Starbucks uses more than 350 million litres of milk per year, enough to fill 155 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Furthermore, one of the unbelievable figures is that Starbucks chain restaurants use more than 2.5 billion paper cups annually!