Many fans are curious about Howard Schultz's financial success in April 2026. In this article, we dive deep into the assets and career highlights.
What Is Howard Schultz's Net Worth?
Howard Schultz is an American billionaire entrepreneur who has a net worth of $3.5 billion. Howard Schultz is best known for serving as the CEO of the coffee chain Starbucks. He first held that position from 1986 to 2000, and then again from 2008 to 2017, and again in an interim capacity in 2022. Beyond Starbucks, Schultz owned the Seattle SuperSonics NBA franchise and publicly considered running in multiple US presidential elections.
Howard Schultz grew up in an extremely poor family. He proved to be an excellent athlete and subsequently received an athletic scholarship to Northern Michigan University. He graduated in the early '70s with a degree in Communications and began working for Xerox. He left Xerox to become a manager for a Swedish coffee manufacturer. While working there, Howard was introduced to a group of Seattle-based coffee makers that had started a company called Starbucks Coffee Company. He became their Director of Marketing. He suggested that they take their coffee company in the same direction as the coffee shops of Italy, but they were not interested in creating a "café-like" culture. He started his own coffee shop, Il Giornale, and ultimately bought Starbucks from the original owners.
Howard Schultz was born on July 19, 1953, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. He is the son of Jewish parents, Elaine and Fred. Growing up poor, he was raised in the Canarsie public housing projects. Schultz attended the Boys' Club of New York as a youth and went to Canarsie High School. Following his graduation in 1971, he attended Northern Michigan University. Howard graduated from NMU in 1975 with a BA in communications.
At the age of 29 in 1982, Schultz was hired by Starbucks as the director of marketing and retail operations. The next year, after coming back from a buying trip to Milan, Italy, he tried to persuade Starbucks owners Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker to begin selling traditional espresso beverages in addition to the whole bean coffee and tea leaves the company was already offering. However, a number of economic and logistical factors prevented them from following through with the idea. Consequently, Howard left Starbucks in 1985 to open his own store, which soon received $150,000 in investment money from Starbucks and $100,000 from local doctor Ron Margolis. By 1986, he had enough funding to open his first store, called Il Giornale. A couple of years later, the Starbucks management team – which had decided to focus on another venture called Peet's Coffee & Tea – sold its Starbucks retail unit to Schultz, who then rebranded Il Giornale with the Starbucks name.
After taking control of Starbucks, Howard worked on expanding the company's reach throughout the United States. In the summer of 1992, Starbucks went public, raising $271 million. Schultz remained in the position of CEO until 2000, when he stepped down to become the company's chief global strategist.
He eventually grew the company to the massive empire it is today. As of this writing, Starbucks has a market capitalization north of $100 billion. In September 2013, Howard angered some gun owners by asking people to refrain from bringing guns into Starbucks locations. He is also a supporter of raising minimum wages. In June 2014, Schultz announced that every Starbucks employee would be able to take free online college classes from Arizona State.
Remaining in Michigan after graduating from college, Schultz took a job at a ski lodge for a year. Subsequently, he moved back to New York City and became a salesman for Xerox. Following that gig, Howard was recruited by the Swedish kitchenware manufacturer Hammarplast to become the general manager of its American division. At the company, he was in charge of coffee machine manufacturing operations.
Ultimately, Howard Schultz's financial journey is a testament to their success.
Disclaimer: All net worth figures are estimates based on public data.
