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The Journal.

The Inside Story of Starbucks’s CEO Drama

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Daily News, Business News, News

4.25.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2024

⏱️ 19 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Last week, Starbucks ousted its CEO Laxman Narasimhan and replaced him with Brian Niccol, the current leader of Chipotle. Lauren Thomas reports on the dramatic leadership change, as Starbucks struggles to turn around its business and contend with activist investors. Further Listening: - Can Chinese Customers Rescue Starbucks? - The Underdog Coffee Bean That’s Making a Comeback Further Reading: - Inside Starbucks’s Surprising CEO Firing and Hiring Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Our colleague Lauren Thomas covers shareholder activism and recently that's

0:10.5

meant reporting on Starbucks. But long before that, Lauren tried to make it in the

0:16.8

Frappuccino business. My first job, funny enough, was actually working at a Starbucks in North Carolina.

0:26.0

Bring us to what that was like.

0:28.0

Great experience. I mean I feel like everyone should at some point have a job like working in either retail or restaurants teaches you many life skills.

0:37.0

And Lauren learned she wasn't fast enough.

0:41.0

Especially when it came to the Frappuccinos, anything that like required extra steps, like, yeah, I was taking my time and the

0:49.5

worst thing was like to look over your shoulder and you saw the line of cups there waiting to be filled.

0:55.8

You know, that's like the pressure's on.

0:58.0

That's the worst thing from both sides of the counter though.

1:00.7

Well 100%. And recently, Starbucks the company has been about as successful as Lauren the Burista.

1:12.0

What three adjectives would you use to describe Starbucks performance this year?

1:19.0

Ooh, um, copy, underwhelming, and, um,

1:25.0

flat, weak, uncaffinated, decaffinated.

1:30.0

Decaffinated.

1:32.0

Decaf!

1:35.2

A lot of unrest was brewing.

1:37.9

Customers were complaining, earnings were falling.

1:41.4

Then the old CEO called out new management strategy and

1:45.2

shareholders started agitating.

1:50.3

It all led to a major shakeup last week.

1:57.0

So last week, in a pretty abrupt twist to everyone that had been following along the

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