Starbucks is the world's leading coffee company, with over 30,000 stores and $29.1 billion in revenue in 2021 alone. However, in the 1980s, a smaller brand founded by a man who left the Starbucks company managed to acquire the Starbucks roastery and small collection of retail stores, forever changing the brand’s history.

Howard Schultz, the current interim CEO of Starbucks, left the company in the 80s to found Il Giornale, a coffeehouse chain with three locations. Starbucks' founders didn't want to serve many coffee drinks yet, instead focusing on coffee roasting, but one founder, Jerry Baldwin, eventually offered Scultz an exclusive deal.

Baldwin offered a three-month exclusive deal to purchase the six existing Starbucks stores for $3.9 million, but one of Schultz's other Il Giornale investors made a higher offer. Surprisingly, Bill Gates, Sr. was the lawyer who would give Starbucks to Schultz, after he shamed the other investor for attempting to steal a young man's dream.

After Gates declared that "this kid's buying the company," Schultz did, and he merged the six Starbucks roasting stores with his three Il Giornale coffee shops under the Starbucks name. A 1987 company memorandum offered continued work for existing Starbucks employees in their present positions with present pay and benefits.