Pour Your Heart Into It
by Howard Schultz and Dori Jones Yang
Schultz's account of taking Starbucks from a Seattle bean shop to a national brand: the Italian espresso-bar epiphany, raising money when nobody believed, the decision to give part-timers health benefits and stock, and the fights over growth. It is a founder's story with a point of view about building a company people want to work for.
Read it if…
you want a founder memoir about culture and values as strategy.
Skip it if…
you want the later Starbucks story; see Onward.
Three things you will actually use
- Treat employees as partners and the customer experience follows.
- Growth that outruns culture breaks the company.
- Values are a business decision, not a slogan.
Do this first
Read the chapter on benefits for part-timers and ask what your equivalent would be.
Our verdict
Culture as strategy, told by the founder.
Compare with other Entrepreneurship books
Invent and Wander
Jeff Bezos with Walter Isaacson · Entrepreneurship
The operating philosophy, unfiltered.
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