“Customers must recognize that you stand for something.”

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.

The hardest thing about being a leader is demonstrating or showing vulnerability. And that has a lot to do with trust.

When you’re surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible.

This may sound a bit naive, but I got here by believing in big dreams.

Always challenge the old ways.

We are witnessing a seismic change in consumer behavior. That change is being brought about by technology and the access people have to information.

I never wanted to be on any billionaires list. I never define myself by net worth. I always try to define myself by my values.

Whatever you do, don’t play it safe. Don’t do things the way they’ve always been done. Don’t try to fit the system. If you do what’s expected of you, you’ll never accomplish more than others expect.

If you pour your heart into your work, or into any worthy enterprise, you can achieve dreams others may think impossible.

People around the world, they want the authentic Starbucks experience.

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

Believe in your dreams and dream big. And then after you’ve done that, dream bigger.

The challenge of the retail business is the human condition.

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

The most sensible thing to do to people you hate is to drink their brandy.

If you do not care about your end user immensely, especially in the next few years, your brand will die.

The incredible brand awareness and bottom-line profits achievable through social media marketing require hustle, heart, sincerity, constant engagement, long-term commitment, and most of all, artful and strategic storytelling.

It’s still so rare for anyone to be personally acknowledged by a brand that the impact of such a simple, polite gesture on a customer’s buying habits could be huge.

Do you know when people really become spiritual? It is when they become the slaves of God and are branded with His sign, which is the sign of the Cross, in token that they have given Him their freedom.

Our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff, like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand or empowering passionate employees and customers, will happen on its own.

If you don’t have the confidence to own the worth of your brand and share it unapologetically, you won’t make a massive impact.