Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time

Howard D. Schultz served as the chairman and CEO of the Starbucks Corporation from 1986 to 2000, and then again from 2008 to 2017. USA TODAY has called him “the Bill Gates of Coffee.” This book was written in 1997, just a few years before he first stepped down from the active role of CEO of Starbucks and became its Chairman.

Schultz comes from humble origins and is a self-made billionaire courtesy his stint with Starbucks. He wasn't the creator of the coffee megabrand but took it over and expanded it to the worldwide scale it runs on today. The book does make you wonder where Starbucks would have been if he hadn't envisaged bigger dreams for a company he wasn't even part of.

Schultz is a marketer at his core, and hence he speaks like show more a marketer. He has a little bit of pomposity and comes off as very self-congratulatory. Nevertheless, the book makes for interesting reading, though it isn't the best in its genre. The level of thinking and effort that has gone into building the Starbucks brand is commendable. "Pour Your Heart Into It" reflects his beliefs about keeping the product and consumers first in mind rather than focusing on the bottomline alone.

Of course, the fact that this was written in 1997 makes the book quite incomplete. It doesn't have the information about Schultz's second term as Starbucks CEO after it lost a great deal of its brand name and stock value around the 2008 financial crisis. His second term was marked by some very controversial decisions, which may be covered in his second book, "Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul", published in 2011. I've no plans to read this sequel because it will probably be even more self-aggrandizing.

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Howard Schultz tells his side of the story. Some of his background, joining Starbucks, leaving Starbucks, buying Starbucks and continuing to work with Starbucks. The copy I had came into the libraries in 2007 but was originally published in 1997, before Schultz's 8-year hiatus from managing the company (he returned in 2008 after sales went down under the previous president), and before bombings and riots, so the view is a little rosier than it may be from an independent view and from a smaller viewpoint than is current.

Still it's interesting to see the view of someone who has worked his way up the ladder from being on the breadline to a multi-million business that he seems to have a great enthuaism for. He is a fan of good coffee and show more really seems to want to spread the joy of coffee as far as he can.

However there are moments where the mask slips. Where he talks about unions (he is adamantly anti-union, fine in a small business but sometimes large corporations need someone to keep them in check or to back up people being bullied by management) and in some other places where he basically had to be talked into doing things another way in order to make things work better.

Overall an interesting look at a life consumed by coffee. show less

Too young to ever know a time when Starbucks was a leader in quality of coffee (if there ever was a time) but that's how Howard describes the 70s-80s. The book is pretty apologetic and romantic about the commercialization of the original stores. His and Starbucks' emphasis on ethical treatment of workers (including the unprecedented healthcare and stock options for even part time workers) is interesting.

The first few chapters depicting the origin story were worth the read. The author is too ernest and the voice rubbed off the wrong way. It's just difficult to like big corporations, even if those running the show don't mean any harm.

2 1/2 Sterne

Eine beispiellose Erfolgsgeschichte, aber das Buch war dennoch nicht super interessant
- es wird einem nicht klar, warum der Autor den Drive hatte, solch einen Konzern aufzubauen, anstatt sein Leben zu genießen (Arbeitssucht, Machtstreben, langweiliges Privatleben aber Scheidung nicht möglich, Bedeutungsstreben - ich kann es auch nach der Lektüre des Buches nicht sagen). Das einzige was ich sagen kann, ist, dass es nicht die Liebe zu Kaffee ist.
- es gibt viele Abschnitte, die bestehen nur aus aneinandergereiten Marketing-Phrasen
- in einem Konzern wie Starbucks passiert sehr viel und alles wird kurz beschrieben, aber nichts im Detail
- ich habe wenig gelernt, da dies zu weit entfernt ist von meinem Leben

I found this book to be informative, inspiring and very interesting. It gave me an entirely new perspective on Howard Schultz and a new appreciation for Starbucks and the heartfelt beginnings from which it was founded.

I'm new to management and this book is a very interesting view into how Shultz built a very successful company. It is nice to read about someone who knows that what is best for the employee is what is best for the employer or stock holder.