Starbucks' Bitter Brew | Back in Black | 2

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s 2023 and Howard Schultz’s hand-picked successor as CEO is facing trouble. While employees are voting to unionize, competitors are targeting Starbucks’ perceived weaknesses. Dunkin’ and others are beating Starbucks on price, while McDonald’s hopes to beat Starbucks on speed of service. Starbucks’ bottom-line breaks under that pressure. When it does, Schultz turns against his successor, leading Starbucks’ board to search for yet another leader. The new boss has a new plan, but it sounds old: Turn Starbucks back into the kind of community coffeehouse that Howard Schultz originally built.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wonderly Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of Business Wars Starbucks Bitter Brew early and ad-free right now.
0:08.0	Join Wonderly Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:15.5	It's November 16, 2023, in Chicago.
0:26.9	On bustling North Broadway, baristas on strike walk a picket line in front of a Starbucks store.
0:35.5	Workers at 150 other stores have walked off the job, too.
0:39.6	This is the biggest strike in Starbucks history, and it's being held on a big day for the
0:44.4	coffee chain.
0:45.7	Today is Red Cup Day, an annual event where Starbucks gives customers a free, reusable
0:50.1	red cup with a purchase of a holiday-themed drink.
0:53.6	But here in Chicago and around the country,
0:56.0	Starbucks workers are asking customers to forego their free red cups
1:00.3	and instead join them in what they're calling the Red Cup Rebellion.
1:05.8	A reporter with the Associated Press asks a Starbucks worker
1:09.5	why they're striking on such a busy promotional day.
1:12.4	So we just have basically an infinite amount of drinks and we're understaffed and we're underpaid and
1:17.9	we're sick of it. It's been almost two years to the day since workers formed the first ever
1:22.5	union at Starbucks back in 2021. Soon after that, Starbucks legendary leader Howard Schultz came out of retirement to serve his
1:31.1	third stint as Starbucks CEO and try to stop the union drive in its tracks.
1:37.7	Schultz barnstormed the country with that effort.
1:40.5	He even apologized to employees and said Starbucks had failed them.
1:45.2	He promised the company would do better.
1:47.7	But the unionization drive continued through Schultz's year-long tenure.
	...

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