Starbucks has expanded significantly in China, growing from 500 stores in 2011 to nearly 7,000 today, with a new store opening every 15 hours in 2017.

In 1999, Starbucks aimed for 2,000 stores by the year 2000 and achieved that goal a year early, opening its first store in Beijing during that time.

Starbucks was originally a small-time Seattle roaster that only sold beans before I took over and expanded it.

In 2008, I returned to Starbucks amidst a financial crisis, where the market cap had plummeted from $30 billion to less than $7 billion, and we faced negative sales growth for the first time in our history.

Starbucks was seven months away from insolvency, and I had to communicate the gravity of our situation to employees, emphasizing that we were trying to save the company.

In 1982, I joined Starbucks as the head of marketing when they were preparing to open their fourth store, still focused solely on selling coffee beans.

The success of Starbucks in Japan was unexpected; we opened our first store there in August, and it became an instant hit, leading to 2,000 locations.

I proposed giving stock options to every employee, which was a groundbreaking idea at the time, and we announced that we would give 14% of everyone's base pay in stock options, which changed the culture of Starbucks and made everyone partners.

The introduction of Starbucks in grocery stores was a key strategy to capture additional revenue and build brand awareness beyond our coffee shops.