Today, we went to Starbucks Headquarters. Our initial thoughts about the company was : they make coffee, how complicated can that be? Oh well, we were about discover all about it. Destination : IT and logistic paradise.
We met with Claude Teotonio, a software engineer from Quebec city. He studied at Laval University and actually went to the same high school as our member Antoine, the «Séminaire Saint François». Claude worked for 17 years at Microsoft, did a transition at Costco and then moved to Nordstrom, where he is currently working. He is the master chief of our Friday here in Seattle. Hugo contacted him and he helped us throughout the day. He is a big fan of the MLS soccer team, the Saunders, who were defeated last week by our Montreal team. Go Impact!
We went upstairs and met with our host at Starbucks, Daniel Cerda. Daniel is from Chicago, started his studies in Boston and completed a Computer Science (CS) degree in California. The internship program was appealing for him. He gathered experience while going back and forth between work and school. His presentation started by giving insightful life advices.
‘’Business move fast and you need to be comfortable with the fact that you will have to move companies every 2-3 years if you want to survive and thrive.’’ The biggest challenge when you start a career, is to manage the balance between personal life and work. No rocket science over here, but it was really interesting to hear it and really feel it though his testimony. We are fresh out of college, young, wild, free and the world to discover, but we sometimes loose ourself during the process. From this, Daniel told us that it is really important to be aligned with the corporate culture in order to have a healthy carrier. That’s what he did when he joined Starbucks.
And then it happened! We started to dig in and discover the world behind every cup of coffee that is sold at Starbucks. To say it in the most simplest way, everything is optimized when you order your Frappucino. Daniel broke down how everything is linked. Each time someone purchase a coffee, every bit of information is registered. The starting point is what you product you buy ; the product, the time you buy it and where you buy it. This is all analyzed though the loyalty, merchandise, ledger and labor department. The overall process is really impressive. We kind of took a step back and realize that Starbuck is an awesome company.
Around that time, two guys entered the room : Jeremy and Rob. These guys are directors at Starbucks. Just the fact that they are taking some time off to come and talk to us tells a lot about the corporate culture. Few days ago, Starbucks was in the middle of a contoversial issue in Philadelphia, when two black men were arrested upon racism bias. The CEO personnaly defused the situation. On May 29th, every single Starbucks coffee in the the United States will be closed for half a day so that the employees could follow a training on bias regarding racism. This situation shows how Starbucks embodies his core values and we saw that through Daniel.
Overall, in two hours, we witnessed the West coast mythic tech spirit with Daniel and his colleagues. That’s how we do it.