Forty-four years ago, Howard Schultz relocated from New York City to Seattle with his wife, Sheri, and their golden retriever, Jonas, in his 1979 Audi. He was moving to a largely unfamiliar city that would later become the birthplace of his vast coffee empire, the brand now known worldwide as Starbucks.
At that time, Sheri was the primary earner with her career in design, Schultz noted in a Wednesday LinkedIn post. However, the trajectory of their lives shifted on September 7, 1982, the day Schultz began a new position “at a place called Starbucks.”
“Back then, the Pike Place Starbucks only sold whole bean coffee,” Schultz recalled. “Today, it’s the most visited Starbucks in the world. The history of the company is bound up in the very foundation, walls, and floorboards of our first store in the city’s historic market.”
That very company would ultimately propel Schultz to billionaire status, with his current net worth estimated at approximately $6.6 billion.
Building the Starbucks empire
Schultz began his tenure at Starbucks in 1982 as the director of retail operations and marketing, a period when the business was merely a small-scale Seattle roaster specializing in whole-bean coffee.
A pivotal moment occurred a year later during a trip to Milan. Schultz was deeply impressed by the culture surrounding Italian espresso bars—the rituals, the sense of community, and the craftsmanship. He returned to Seattle with a conviction that this model could succeed in the United States. This also marked the birth of the “third place” concept, which the company still emphasizes.
However, the original Starbucks leadership was skeptical of the idea, prompting Schultz to depart from the company.
According to his book, Pour Your Heart Into It, he was told, “’You’re out of your mind. This is insane. You should just go get a job.’” He added, “In the course of the year I spent trying to raise money, I spoke to 242 people, and 217 of them said ‘no.’”
After successfully securing funding, Schultz launched his own coffeehouse, Il Giornale, in 1986, and subsequently purchased Starbucks for $3.8 million in 1987. The corporation initiated its public offering in 1992.
This was followed by one of the most significant business expansions in 20th-century America: Starbucks grew from a few stores in Seattle to over 35,000 outlets across 80 nations.
Schultz held the CEO role on three separate occasions: from 1987 to 2000; from 2008 to 2017; and once more briefly from 2022 to 2023, stepping in each time to stabilize the organization.
“I came back this past year because the company really did lose its way, and it lost its way culturally,” Schultz explained in a February 2023 interview with CNN. His final term as CEO was notably characterized by a vigorous and legally disputed campaign against worker unionization.
He departed from Starbucks permanently in 2023, transferring leadership to Laxman Narasimhan, whose tenure as CEO lasted only from April 2023 to August 2024. Brian Niccol, the former CEO of Chipotle, assumed the chief executive role in September 2024.
Nevertheless, Schultz’s impact remains formidable. He transformed a local bean roaster into an international cultural phenomenon. Currently, Starbucks operates more than 32,000 stores in 80 countries, far surpassing competitors like Dunkin’ Donuts, which has roughly 14,000 stores worldwide.
He was also instrumental in popularizing the “third place” concept, an idea that Niccol is now trying to rejuvenate by reintroducing handwritten notes on cups, increasing seating, and providing more reasons for customers to stay in the cafes instead of just taking their orders to go.
Schultz converted a regional bean roaster into a worldwide cultural institution, championing the “third place” concept—the notion that people require a social environment separate from home and work to congregate and interact. He also advocated for employee benefits that were uncommon in the service sector at the time, such as health insurance for part-time staff and a free college tuition initiative.
And although union conflicts were a theme during his third leadership period, Starbucks was nonetheless a pioneer in offering extensive health care to part-time employees, a practice that began in 1988.
“I knew I wanted to build the kind of company my father never got to work for,” Schultz expressed in a 2022 Instagram post. “That year, I decided we would offer full health benefits to eligible full- and part-time Starbucks employees.”
Closing the Seattle chapter
Over a year following his retirement from Starbucks, Schultz concluded it was time to depart Seattle. He revealed in a LinkedIn post this week that he and Sheri were relocating.
“Last year we traveled to dozens of places around the world—places we were too busy to see when building Starbucks and raising kids,” Schultz wrote. “And we have moved to Miami for our next adventure together. We are enjoying the sunshine of South Florida and its allure to our kids on the East Coast as they raise families of their own.”
The timing of his announcement attracted notice as it aligned with Washington state legislators progressing with bills aimed at high-income individuals, including a suggested wealth tax for residents with substantial investment holdings. Schultz’s relocation echoes the moves of California billionaires who have also left the West Coast for Florida, partly due to a proposed one-time 5% tax on billionaires.
The ex-Starbucks CEO alluded to the potential tax in his LinkedIn post without explicitly addressing it.
“It is our hope that Washington will remain a place for business and entrepreneurship to thrive, creating essential opportunity for those in Seattle and the surrounding areas,” he stated.
Similar to other wealthy individuals, Schultz is moving to Miami, where he is said to have purchased a penthouse for $44 million. Florida is a state with no income tax and a flourishing high-end real estate market that has also drawn figures like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison.
Schultz trades a monumental legacy for a waterfront penthouse.
“We will be forever grateful for the memories made in Seattle and the relationships built along the way,” he wrote. “To the family, friends, and partners who made Seattle our home for so many years, thank you.”