Last night at a Manhattan bookstore and smart, cool, loud and well spoken guy dubbed Howard Schultz, the “Egotistical, Billionaire Asshole.” EBA. Henceforth Mr. Schultz should be referred to with his name and title. Howard Schultz, EBA. This is the closest we come to knighting someone in the USA. But I think we need to do more. We need to stop him with a boycott.
But the bigger problem is what do we do with his candidacy? Ideally, we will keep mocking him and at some point he will have a eureka moment, realize this is an ill-conceived mess and drop out. Not likely to happen. Howard thinks, you don’t build a coffee empire by being a quitter. I also doubt that he has any self awareness whatsoever. Every time I see him on TV, I see nothing that says humility, self effacement, willingness to serve a constituency. I only see a guy who wants to jam his will down our throats, a guy who knows, just knows, that he has all the answers, the good of the republic be damned. He launches his campaign with a book tour, not even bothering to go through the charade of a “listening tour.” And he has the money to try to do this. In other words, an Egotistical Billionaire Asshole.
For many years my morning routine has featured a stop at my local Starbucks for a tall dark roast in a grande cup. I like the dark roast flavors. I know and like the barristas at the store. I like the pick me up the cup gives me. Most days it’s the only coffee I have. Monday I didn’t have that coffee. I had a couple small cups made in my office’s Keurig. The french roast was good enough. No barristas though, but not a metaphorical dime in Mr. EBA’s pocket either. My personal boycott started Monday.
I did a quick search of DailyKos to get sense of how my friends on the site feel about this. A couple of diarists ( Nevit and FutureMan) have already called for a boycott, Nevit suggesting that the boycott run from February 6 (Reagan’s birthday) and February 12 (Washington’s birthday). The reactions have been pretty lukewarm. A lot of people don’t like Sbux and have nothing to boycott because they don’t go there. I get that, but there are a lot of people who do go, myself included. A few people didn’t seem alarmed at the prospect of EBA running. I am. And I think there are a lot of others who agree. Check his Twitter ratios. I think his campaign needs to be ended, sooner the better. Some people said that he’s no longer CEO of the company, so why bother. Well, he is the largest shareholder. His 35 million shares account for just over 2.8% of all shares of the company but they amount to $2.3 billion, over two-thirds of his estimated $3 billion net worth.
While he is no longer an officer, his actions do impact the value of the Company. 97% of the shares are owned by other people — mutual funds, pension funds, individuals, etc, — people who do not like watching their investments lose money. That’s why those boycotts (effectively public shaming) of advertisers on shows hosted by jerks like Glenn Beck (remember him?) and Bill O’Reilly worked. For big consumer companies, controversy is death. If Sbux sales took a sustained hit, presumably the shares would drop, reducing EBA’s wealth and creating pressure on investors in Sbux.
So I’m pro-boycott. And I think the idea of a targeted date would be effective. That way there is a sudden, dramatic, measurable drop in sales. Some commentors on Nevit's idea didn’t like the February 6 date because it recognized Reagan. Reagan nauseates me too, but my critique of the date is that it may be too soon. It would be nice to build awareness over a longer time period. My suggestion is March 15, the Ides of March, a day known for betrayal. Thoughts?
One last thing. For those of you who frequent coffee shops and aren’t firmly opposed to chains, let me suggest LaColombe. There are only five stores in Chicago, none convenient to me but a lot of independents carry LaColombe coffee. They have excellent lattes as well as the best canned lattes, available nationally. And the company minimum wage is $15/hr. You can check out founders' story here They may be rich but I assure you, there are no EBA’s to be found.