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Howard Schultz has often credited Bill Gates Sr. for helping him buy Starbucks in the past.
Schultz served as Starbucks’ CEO from 1987 to 2000. (Photo Credits: Instagram)
William H. Gates Sr, the father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, helped Howard Schultz buy the coffee company in 1987, the former CEO has revealed.
It wasn’t an easy journey for Schultz, who transformed Starbucks from a small coffee bean retailer into a global empire. Born into a poor working-class family, Schultz joined Starbucks as the director of marketing.
“I met the founders, and over the course of a year, I persuaded them to hire me,” he said on the How I Built This podcast. While Schultz initially left the coffee company in 1983 to start his own venture, he came back after Starbucks founder Jerry Baldwin decided to sell it for $3.8 million.
Schultz was the first person to come to Jerry’s mind who offered him a 90-day exclusive to raise the money. “I was extraordinarily excited,” he said in the podcast. However, his excitement was short-lived, as when the young entrepreneur was raising funds, a sudden meeting left him feeling betrayed.
“We have a competitive buyer. One of your investors from Il Giornale has shown up and offered me $4 million cash with no due diligence,” Schultz recalled, as being told by the founder at the time. “I can remember that moment as if the world had just ended. I knew who it was. The person at the time — there were three business titans in Seattle — and he was one of them… I didn’t know what to do,” he continued.
Well, that’s where Bill Gates Sr. came to the rescue. A couple of days after Jerry Baldwin broke the news, a friend of Schultz mentioned a senior partner whom he believed could help with the issue. Unaware of who the partner was, Schultz ended up walking into the office of Bill Gates Sr. and told him the entire incident.
Having taken note of all the details, Gates Sr. took him for a walk and arrived directly at the titan’s office. “Now, Bill Gates Sr. is six-foot-seven, and, in the mid-80s, he was in his prime. He was a force. We walked into that office, and all I remember him saying is, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself that you’re going to steal this kid’s dream. It’s not going to happen. You and I both know this is not going to happen,” Schultz quoted Gates Sr as saying.
He also recalled how Gates Sr. intimidated the titan to “stand down.” And that was it. Howard Schultz eventually bought Starbucks for $3.8 million, serving as the CEO from 1987 to 2000, after which he stepped down briefly and then returned again in 2008. This is not the only time that the Starbucks CEO has opened up about the role of Bill Gates Sr. in the company’s dynamics.
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Delhi, India, India
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