
Howard Schultz
Schultz didn’t build a coffee brand — he built a vertically owned cultural tollbooth.
The world assembled into one supply chain, now being partly unassembled.


Lotte is a textbook case of chaebol formation through sequential anchoring — first in Japan, then decisively in Korea — but its financial mechanics remain unreported.

Starbucks is the world’s largest coffeehouse chain. It was founded in 1971 in Seattle as a coffee bean wholesaler. Howard Schultz transformed it into a company-owned coffeehouse chain serving espresso-based drinks. As of November 2022, it operated 35,711 stores in 80 countries. It held an IPO on June 26, 1992, raising $271 million to double its store count. It credits its growth to rejecting domestic franchising and positioning stores as social hubs — driving the second wave of coffee culture.
