The Puget Sound Business Journal reports that three-time former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz – who remains on the coffee company’s board of directors – is planning his next business venture, and says that food will be central to the initiative.
Schultz said recently that he has four or five ideas, would like to take advantage of his skills as a “merchant,” and “it’ll have something to do where food will be at the centerpiece.”
“Starbucks is in the rearview mirror, but always close by,” Schultz said. “I’d like to paint another canvas. I don’t know what that is, yet. But, I have some creative ideas … “I’m a curator of things, and ideas, and products and categories. So, what I see is some brick-and-mortar concept that would be complementary to my skill base — curation and merchandising capability.”
KC’s View:
F. Scott Fitzgerald is often quoted as writing that “there are no second acts in American lives.” He wrote it in 1932, and the line often is cited in conversations (or columns) about whether people can reinvent themselves. I think the general consensus is that if Fitzgerald was right in 1932, the sentiment doesn’t hold up today – we live in a world where often there are lives that play out in multiple acts.
It is interesting, though. I was perusing the internet looking for some context for the Fitzgerald quote, and discovered that he first wrote it in a 1932 essay entitled “My Lost City,” which was about New York. (The line also shows up in a different context in his unfinished manuscript for the novel, “The Last Tycoon.”) But what he wrote actually was this:
“I once thought that there were no second acts in American lives, but there was certainly to be a second act to New York’s boom days.”
No question that Starbucks and Schultz have seen boom days. It remains to be seen whether Starbucks can successfully retain its perch in the segment that in many ways it invented. And I remain reasonably sure that it is at least possible that Schultz could end up bering CEO there one more time.
Whatever happens, there is no question in my mind that Schultz can have another business adventure. And, whatever happens, I’ll show up – while I’ve expressed some skepticism about his recent behavior and motives, he remains one of the most interesting and influential business executives of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
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