Starbucks Corp. CEO Howard Schultz has an interesting history with the company. For example, it took him a full year to convince the company to hire him. But it obviously was the right move when they did as Schultz was appointed Director of Marketing and Operations in 1982. At that time, he took some tips from what he saw in Italy – that there were coffee shops on almost every block, offering excellent espresso along with meeting places forming a big part of the country’s “societal glue.” The other fact that he noted was there were 200,000 of them throughout the country. Alongside that, he based his ideas for developing the company on McDonald’s, but “with a few key differences.” The main one is that while McDonald’s is based on franchises, most of the Starbucks stores are owned by Starbucks. As well, unlike McDonald’s, Starbucks didn’t require national advertising. And finally, Starbucks also sells its products to quite an upscale clientele. These have all been Schultz’s inputs.