Howard Schultz

Background

Howard Schultz is an American entrepreneur and angel investor, best known as the longtime CEO and chairman of Starbucks ¹. He was born in 1953 in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in a federally subsidized housing project ¹. He attended Northern Michigan University, graduating in 1975 with a B.A. in communications ¹.

Schultz began his career as a salesman at Xerox in 1976 ¹. He later became general manager of Hammarplast, a Swedish kitchenware company’s U.S. subsidiary, where he first encountered Starbucks while filling their orders in 1981 ¹. He joined Starbucks as director of retail operations and marketing in 1982, left in 1985 to start his own coffeehouse chain Il Giornale, and then purchased Starbucks in 1987 for $3.8 million ¹. He served as CEO and chairman from 1986 to 2000, returned as CEO from 2008 to 2017, and served as interim CEO again from 2022 to 2023 ¹. He currently holds the title of Chairman Emeritus ².

In 1998, Schultz co-founded Maveron, a consumer-focused venture capital firm, with Dan Levitan, the investment banker who had helped take Starbucks public in 1992 ³⁴. The firm’s name is a combination of “maverick” and “vision” ³. Schultz’s motivation was rooted in his own fundraising experience: he has said he wished there had been consumer-focused VCs when he was raising money for Starbucks ⁵. Maveron’s first investment was eBay in June 1998 ³.

While Schultz co-founded Maveron and remains listed as a co-founder, he does not appear on the firm’s current team page ⁵. Dan Levitan serves as Co-Founder and General Partner, with Jason Stoffer as CIO and General Partner ⁵. Schultz’s primary investing activity in recent years has been through personal angel investments and the Schultz Family Foundation, rather than through Maveron’s day-to-day operations ⁶⁷.

Schultz also co-founded the Schultz Family Foundation (established 1996) and the Emes Project (founded 2020), through which he makes investments in “values-based, innovative people and companies” and offers mentoring and guidance to founders ⁷.

Stated Thesis

(Self-reported: These represent what Schultz says publicly about his investing approach. See Inferred Thesis for analysis of actual investment behavior.)

Schultz has described Maveron’s founding mission as filling a gap in the venture capital market for consumer-focused investors. He has stated that he wished there had been consumer-focused VCs when he was raising money for Starbucks, which led him and Dan Levitan to create Maveron in 1998 ⁵.

On the Maveron website, the firm describes its philosophy: they recognized that “digital technologies would integrate into people’s lives in unprecedented ways” and that “great teams attacking consumer-focused problems would require a rigorous understanding of human behavior” ⁵.

As an individual angel investor, Schultz has described his approach as investing in “values-based, innovative people and companies” and offering “mentoring and guidance through the lens of his experience building Starbucks” ⁷.

On his investment in Cumulus Coffee, Schultz stated: “Coffee has experienced a significant shift over the past few years as consumers have overwhelmingly switched to cold versus hot coffee. Cumulus’ opportunity to bring premium cold coffee beverages to the home is simply enormous and will raise the bar for cold brew coffee everywhere” ⁸.

On entrepreneurship and fundraising broadly, Schultz has advised: “You have to have a tremendous belief in what you’re doing and just persevere” — reflecting his experience being turned down by 217 of the 242 investors he initially approached for Starbucks ¹.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 8 verified personal investments (distinct from Maveron’s institutional portfolio), Schultz’s actual investing behavior reveals several patterns:

Sector distribution: Schultz’s personal portfolio is dominated by consumer brands with a social or mission-driven component. Of 7 distinct portfolio companies: 3 food and beverage (Oatly, Cumulus Coffee, Tony’s Chocolonely — 43%), 1 cannabis commerce (dutchie — 14%), 1 mental health (Lyra Health — 14%), 1 cybersecurity (Wiz — 14%), 1 govtech/fintech (Promise — 14%). Sample is small but the pattern is clear: consumer-facing companies with strong brand narratives, plus one notable outlier in enterprise cybersecurity.

Stage distribution: Schultz invests across all stages, from seed (Cumulus Coffee) to growth/late-stage (Wiz Series E at $12B valuation, Oatly at $2B valuation). He is not a typical early-stage angel — several of his investments are in companies already at scale.

Notable gap vs. stated thesis: While Maveron is positioned as a consumer-only, early-stage VC, Schultz’s personal portfolio includes Wiz, a cybersecurity enterprise company with no consumer element. This is his most active personal investment relationship, with participation across multiple rounds from 2021 through 2024 ⁹¹⁰¹¹.

Founder relationship patterns: Schultz appears to invest based on personal relationships and operator-to-founder mentoring. The Wiz investment came through a personal meeting with CEO Assaf Rappaport ¹². The Cumulus Coffee investment involved a founder (Mesh Gelman) who previously held leadership roles at Starbucks ⁸. The dutchie investment was described in terms of “mastery of retail at scale and leadership vision” ¹³.

Investment vehicle: Many of Schultz’s recent personal investments are made through the Schultz Family Foundation or the Emes Project rather than directly or through Maveron ⁷¹¹.

Co-investor patterns: Schultz’s personal investments frequently include other celebrity/operator investors (Oprah Winfrey and Natalie Portman in Oatly; Snoop Dogg and Kevin Durant in dutchie) and top-tier institutional VCs (Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, Greenoaks in Wiz) ¹⁰¹⁴¹³.

Geographic focus: Investments span U.S. (Seattle, San Francisco, New York), Israel (Wiz), Netherlands (Tony’s Chocolonely), and Sweden (Oatly). No clear geographic constraint.

Portfolio

Note: This table represents Schultz’s verified personal/angel investments, not Maveron’s institutional portfolio. Maveron has invested in 100+ companies; Schultz’s personal deal activity is much smaller.

Portfolio exits: Wiz (acquired by Google for $32B, 2025) ¹¹, Oatly (IPO, 2021) ¹⁴.

In Their Own Words

“I met Assaf early on in his Wiz journey and was fortunate to be an early investor in the company. From day one, it was clear to me that he aimed to create a great and enduring company, steeped in humanity. We have spoken often about how Wiz can be a force for good. He understands his responsibility more than most in the tech sector. And his timing turns out to be great: with an ever growing list of bad actors trying to mount devastating cyberattacks on businesses and governments around the world, we need his leadership more than ever.” — Howard Schultz, TIME100 Next endorsement of Assaf Rappaport, 2024 ¹²

“I can’t fathom how they’ve done this, the growth, the velocity, during all of this absolutely crazy environment.” — Howard Schultz, on Wiz’s growth trajectory, as reported by Fortune, 2025 ¹¹

“Coffee has experienced a significant shift over the past few years as consumers have overwhelmingly switched to cold versus hot coffee. Cumulus’ opportunity to bring premium cold coffee beverages to the home is simply enormous and will raise the bar for cold brew coffee everywhere.” — Howard Schultz, on investing in Cumulus Coffee, Daily Coffee News, November 2023 ⁸

“You have to have a tremendous belief in what you’re doing and just persevere. The three venture capital firms we ended up with in 1989 are still on the board today and have been an invaluable resource.” — Howard Schultz, on his own experience raising money for Starbucks ¹

What Founders Say

Dutchie CEO Ross Lipson described Schultz’s value as an investor in terms of operational mentorship, stating that Schultz “has a knack for leadership and big picture vision and understanding how to set a lofty goal and execute on it” ¹³.

Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport developed a close personal relationship with Schultz, handing him a list of 10 CEOs he wanted introductions to — including leaders of Nike and Domino’s — which Schultz helped facilitate ¹¹. When Rappaport decided to sell Wiz to Google for $32 billion, he wrote Schultz a personal note explaining the decision, worried that Schultz would be disappointed — a detail that suggests the depth of the mentor-mentee dynamic ¹¹.

Tony’s Chocolonely CEO Douglas Lamont said of Schultz’s investment: “Tony’s rapid revenue growth, rising popularity with U.S. consumers and increased investor interest demonstrates that building a company that balances shareholder returns with its impact on people and planet is not only the right thing to do but the smart thing to do for companies today” ¹⁷.

No independently sourced founder testimonials about Schultz’s day-to-day helpfulness as an investor were found beyond these statements tied to funding announcements.

Sources