“The premium single-cup segment is the fastest-growing business within the global coffee industry.”

Great companies are defined by their discipline and their understanding of who they are and who they are not.

Authentic brands don’t emerge from marketing cubicles or advertising agencies. They emanate from everything the company does.

Success is empty if you arrive at the finish line alone.

In this ever-changing society, the most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart.

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.

We woke up one day, and all the sudden Starbucks was in the middle of this political crossfire between the people who want to bring a gun into Starbucks and the people who want to prevent it. It is a very difficult, fragile situation.

Cutting prices or putting things on sale is not sustainable business strategy.

A great business has to have a conscience. You have to know who you are and who you are not.

At an early age, my mother gave me this feeling that anything is possible, and I believe that.

People want guidance, not rhetoric. They need to know what the plan of action is, and how it will be implemented. They want to be given responsibility to help solve the problem and authority to act on it.

Sometimes you have to create the thing you want to be part of.

But when you really believe-in yourself, in your dream-you just have to do everything you possibly can to take control and make your vision a reality. No great achievement happens by luck.

My parents really wanted me to get out of New York, be exposed to other people, other ways of life.

Europe has always represented a major strategic opportunity to achieve our goal of creating and building an enduring global brand.

We have no patent on anything we do and anything we do can be copied by anyone else. But you can’t copy the heart and the soul and the conscience of the company.

In life, you can blame a lot of people and you can wallow in self-pity or you can pick yourself up and say listen, I have to be responsible for myself.

Don’t miss no meals & mind the business that pays you!

In the business world, and in life, there are inherent complexities. It is critical to keep plans and communication simple.

An architect’s most useful tools are an eraser at the drafting board and a wrecking ball at the site.

He’s always asking: ‘Is that new? I haven’t seen that before.’ It’s like, Why don’t you mind your own business? Solve world hunger. Get out of my closet.

Building becomes architecture only when the mind of man consciously takes it and tries with all his resources to make it beautiful, to put concordance, sympathy with nature, and all that into it. Then you have architecture.

It is good to have competition.

Whether on the battlefield or in the business world, leaders must be comfortable accepting some level of risk.

Poetry is a verdict, not an occupation.