How much is Howard Schultz Worth? Howard Schultz Net Worth in 2025

Howard Schultz Net Worth: How rich is Howard Schultz? & How much money is Howard Schultz worth? Time to find out!

Howard Schultz is an American businessman and his current net worth is $2.8 billion.

Born in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, to ex-army trooper and truck driver, Fred Schultz, and Elaine, he has a younger sister and brother.

The brothers and sister grew up in the Canarise Bayview Houses of the New York City Housing Authority.

Due to family low financial status he sought escape in sports such as baseball, football and basketball, as well as the Boys Club.

Prior graduating from Canarsie High School in 1971, he excelled at sports. He received an athletic scholarship to Northern Michigan University.

He attended the university and became the first person in his family to go to college, as well as a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon.

Upon graduating he used to work as a salesman for Xerox Corporation but quickly received a promotion to a full sales representative.

A while after he became a general manager for Hammarplast, a Swedish drip coffee maker manufacturer. There he had the responsibility of their US operations as a leader of twenty people.

In 1981 he visited a client of the company he used to work for, a fledgling coffee-bean shop called Starbucks Coffee Company in Seattle. His curiosity drove him to wonder why they ordered so many plastic cone filters.

The company impressed him with their knowledge of coffee and kept in touch over the next year. He expressed interest in working with them.

How did Howard Schultz get famous?

The following year, he joined Starbucks as the Director of Marketing. After he travelled to Milan, Italy on a business trip, he noticed that the coffee bars existed on every street.

He learned that they served excellent espresso and also served as meeting places or public squares. He tried to convince the owner of Starbuck to offer traditional espresso beverages instead to the whole bean coffee, they had long offered.

The owner, Jerry Baldwin refused, saying that he didn’t want to get into restaurant business.

How does Howard Schultz make money?

He quit and left the company, frustrated, in 1985. After his departure from Starbucks he wanted to start his own business but needed $400,000 to do so.

At that time he didn’t have the money and he along with his wife expected their first baby.

But Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker, along with a doctor, offered to help. He gathered all the money he needed and opened the first store, Il Giornale, named after the Milanese newspaper of the same name.

The Il Giornale offered ice cream, as well as coffee, had little seating, and played opera music in the background to make the customers experience an Italian setting.

After two years, the original Starbucks owners decided to focus on something else, and sold the company to Schultz for $3.8 million.

Schultz renamed Il Giornale and merged it with the Starbucks name. His keen insight in real estate and his hard-line focus on growth drove him to aggressively expand the company.

However, he didn’t believe in franchising and made a point of having Starbucks retain ownership of every domestic outlet.

In 1998, he co-founded Maveron, an investment group with Dan Levitan.

In 2008, after an eight-year hiatus, he returned as CEO of Starbucks, and left again in 2017, leaving Kevin Johnson to become the CEO.

When he first returned to Starbucks he used to earn a total compensation of approx. $10 million, which included a base salary of $1,190,000 and options granted.

Today, he is executive chairman and a former owner of the Seattle SuperSonics. A while ago he served as a member of the Board of Directors at Square, Inc.

Forbes magazine ranked him as the 595^th richest person in the US, in 2016, with a net worth of $2.9 billion. In 2017, the same magazine estimated his net worth at around $2.8 million.

He is also the executive chairman of Starbucks as well as an important stakeholder in Jamba Juice.

As of his personal life, he is married to Sheri Kersch and they have two children.

This wraps up our Howard Schultz Net Worth profile!