Coffee

However, from my earliest of memories, my mother instilled in me her belief in the American dream and the promise of America. That a good education and hard work will open the doors to a better life, and that provides me with an important lesson to share with you all today. That your station in life does not define you and the promise of America that is for all of us. <br /> <br />When I was 7 years old, I had a defining moment in my life. I came home from school one day and saw my father laid on a couch with a cast from his hip to his ankle. He had a series of terrible blue collar jobs as a high school dropout, army vet, but this particular job he had in 1960 was probably the worst. <br /> <br />He was a truck driver delivering and picking up cloth diapers before the invention of pampers. He fell on a sheet of ice in March of 1960, and in March of 1960, if you were a blue collar, uneducated worker, you were dismissed if you had an accident. No workers’ compensation, no severance, no health insurance and I saw the fracturing of the American Dream and I saw my parents go through hopelessness and despair at the age of 7. And those scars, that shame, that is with me even today. <br /> <br />As a young boy, I could have never imagined that I would one day build a company of my own, let alone a company that would have more than 26,000 stores in 75 countries and employ more than 300,000 people. Thank you. <br /> <br />But from day one, I really wanted to build the kind of company my father never got a chance to work for. A company that honors and respects the dignity of work and the dignity of all men and all women. And that is why we became the first company in all of America to provide comprehensive health insurance 30 years ahead of the affordable care act, as well as ownership in the form of stock options for all of our employees, including part-time people because it is my firm belief that success in business and in life is best when it’s shared. <br /> <br />Starbucks Coffee Company went public in 1992, and from 1992 to 2006, we were on a magical carpet ride in which everything we did turned to gold. But in 2007, the music stopped. We had lost sight of our shared purpose and our guiding principles, in which growth and success began to cover up mistakes and a disease set into Starbucks. That disease, hubris. We lost our way and believe it or not, we almost lost the entire company. <br /> <br />During this cataclysmic period, I was reminded what it means to love something and the responsibility that goes with it, as well as an understanding that leadership and moral courage is not a passive act. <br /> <br />My partners and I took it personally, and we transformed the entire company. We galvanized the entire organization around our core values and servant leadership. Every business, every organization, even every family, must be true to its values and reason for being. Our core purpose and reason for being then and now has always been to achieve the fragile balance between profit and humanity. <br /> <br />Today the equity of the Starbucks br