Random thoughts from Gordon Bowker

I went to an excellent talk last night by Gordon Bowker, the one who came up with the name Starbucks, not the biographer of George Orwell. He describes himself as a “recovering serial entrepreneur,” and his theme was the random events, utterly unpredictable in any business plan, that can make or break an enterprise. Bowker is a good story-teller, and there’s little point in trying to re-tell his yarns. Like the one about how Boeing got a lift because the president of Pan-Am was sitting on a boat with the president of Boeing watching the hydroplane races on Lake Washington in Seattle. Boeing had arranged for a test flight of the predecessor of Boeing’s 707 over the lake to entertain the crowds. Test pilot Tex Johnson decided to do a barrel roll. then he came back and did another. Bill Allen of Boeing was pretty cross, but, according to Bowker, Pan-Am’s boss Juan Trippe said there and then that he’d take 40 for Pan-Am, and Boeing was made.

Amazingly, there is film of Johnson's manoeuvre. Johnson died 10 years ago yesterday. And the first commercial flight of the 707 took off on 26 October 1958, 50 years ago. Gee, coincidence is a funny thing.

Bowker had loads of good stories, including one about the Barclays bank manager who loaned the startup money for Redhook brewery when no other bank would touch it because he wanted a place where he could go to drink beer on a Friday afternoon. A year later he was convicted of bank fraud and deported. And he told us that the original location of Starbucks original store, in Pike Place market, is nothing of the sort. “It was half a block north,” Bowker said, “but this seems to be too complicated for the current administration of the company to explain. So they just say [Pike Place] is the first store.”

Nobody asked him whether he regretted selling Starbucks, or what he thought of the company today (he’s still involved with Peet’s Coffee, the original suppliers for Starbucks). I did ask whether he thought Starbucks could have foreseen the fuss raised by Starbucks’ fight with Ethiopia over trademarks for Ethiopia’s most famous coffee varieties (named for the places where they grow). Bowker said he had to speculate, having no inside information, but he did think it was “rash” and “arrogant” of the company.

All in all, a good evening. If Bowker is talking near you, go and hear him.