The subtitle of the book is 'How Starbucks Fought for it's Life Without Losing it's Soul'. When a business executive writes about his own company, and tells you the story of coming back to take over the company to save it, one needs to expect some amount of narcissism in such a phoenix rising from the ashes tale--and not one that is going to tell any of the gritty details about how that happened--at least not any details that are not already public. So it could be a disappointing story, or one that reeks of self-interest. There are all of those qualities in this book to be sure, but there is a good story underneath it all as well. That that in order to continue to be on the cutting edge, you need to keep changing, keep looking for the next greatest thing, and not be content with what you have. Starbucks might not have the soul that it thinks it has, but there are a number of pages devoted to doing the right thing. Paying a fair price for coffee. Making sure that farmers get that money, rather than someone else further up the food chain.
The slavish devotion to brewing the perfect cup of coffee is perhaps a bit oversold here,. but these are coffee billionaires, we will aloow them their idiosyncrasies. The thing that I took away from it is to maintain your creative spirit in all your endeavors--to keep making changes, examining what is good and what needs to be updated or changed or discarded, and keeping it fresh. A very interesting read.
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