ElectriPlast & Six Degrees of Separation...

What does

Starbucks and

Integral

Technologies

have in common?


By Vince S.
ElectriPlast Blog Editor



[ElectriPlast Blog Publisher's Note: This may read as an off-topic subject, but it isn't. Think "Paul Harvey and the Rest of the Story," and read on... ]


Starbucks, a small coffee bean roasting company, started in Seattle in the mid-1980’s.

Eventually, they came to the attention of a culinary supply house in New York because of their extraordinary reorder rate for coffee roasting machines. This piqued the interest of Howard Schultz, an executive with the supply house, who decided to travel to Seattle to see first hand the company that ordered roasters at twice the rate of other clients. Schultz was in awe and enamored with the company. He saw tremendous potential in the nascent company, but only if Starbucks shifted its model from roasting coffee beans to selling coffee drinks (espresso, cappuccino, etc.) like the great coffee bars of Europe! Eventually, Schultz quit his five-figure job in NY and talked his way into a job with Starbucks.

Schultz spent a lot of time during those early months trying to convince the owners to shift from roasting coffee beans to selling espresso. Frustrated, he left Starbucks to put his ideas to practice. In 1985, he opened “Il Giornale,” a small chain of espresso bars in Seattle and Vancouver. The concept had an immediate impact on the weather-weary dispositions of Seattle's citizens. They loved the idea, and “Il Giornale” prospered and grew.

In 1987, the owners of Starbucks decided to sell the company to Schultz, who raised $3.8 million from local investors.

However, many local law firms were skeptical of the deal and the financing. After all, roasting coffee beans had proven profitable, but “selling cups of coffee” on a large scale was an unproven venture.

Then a young lawyer came forward to negotiate the deal.

"A lawyer's eyes start to sparkle when he sees a person like Howard come in with a plan like Starbucks," he recalled. As a sign of confidence in Starbucks, the young lawyer took part of his fee in shares of the new company.

Howard Schultz’s idea of a chain of coffee houses was visionary and disruptive. Starbucks took the world by storm, and Schultz has been enshrined in the annals of business as a new era CEO; a man who saw the future in the bottom of a coffee cup! Since its initial public offering in 1992, SBUX has appreciated 3300-fold.

And the young Seattle lawyer?

Fate had already annointed him. His “hippie” son, a college-drop out, had recently moved his entourage of “nerds” from a dingy garage to a modern office building. In time, the world would come to recognize this group of “nerds” as the founding team of the disruptive technology called, Microsoft!

Bill Gates, Sr., is truly an unsung visionary for recognizing the potential of the Starbucks Coffee Company. While history may not credit him for his progeny, he could well be hailed as a cornerstone of the next disruptive technology, ElectriPlast.

Isn't it ironic that Bill Gates, Sr. (a key member of the worldwide law firm Preston Gates & Ellis) is part of the Integral Technologies team currently supporting and promoting the emerging disruptive technology surrounding ElectriPlast & their Plastenna innovations?


Posted originally from the RagingBull board, written and submitted by Vince S. -- The ElectriPlast Blogs' new Editor-in-Chief.