What appeared at first glance to be a stout version of an old-fashioned soda bottle was actually a carbonated coffee drink that, back in the late 1990s, Starbucks had co-invented, marketed, and then watched fail miserably. Mazagran. The name was printed across the bottle in white capital letters, but the product's symbolism was also imprinted on my psyche: Celebrate, learn from, and do not hide from mistakes. Mazagran, a cold, effervescent beverage infused with Starbucks coffee, had been my first attempt—in collaboration with board member Craig Weatherup when he was at PepsiCo—to extend Starbucks’ coffee outside the walls of our stores in an unfamiliar form. This was before the company sold whole and ground coffee in grocery aisles and prior to iced coffee's popularity. I was proud of our courage to create a new beverage category, and its failure to win over consumers, while intensely disappointing, did not sour my taste for creating. But over the years, Starbucks deviated from its once unquenchable desire to truly innovate.
