I don’t mean to vent, but what is up with Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol’s obscenely large compensation package? Niccol, who joined the company in 2024, is one of the best-paid executives in the US, raking in $96m (£70m) in just his first four months on the job. The man makes 6,666 times more than the company’s typical employee, according to a 2025 Executive Paywatch report. He also regularly commutes to work via private jet. Can’t expect a strategic genius to live next to the office like the rest of the hoi polloi.
Still, while he might be good at flogging drinks, Niccol apparently has trouble reading a room. As the cost of living surges, and the federal minimum wage remains at $7.25, the CEO is getting roasted for calling a $9 coffee “a really affordable premium experience”. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Niccol noted that the K-shaped economy, in which higher-income households are thriving and splurging while the bottom half struggles, isn’t really affecting business.
“People … want to have a special experience, and regardless of what your income level is, in some cases, a $9 experience does feel like you’re splurging,” Niccol said. “In other cases, people believe … ‘Well it’s less than $10 and I get a really premium experience.’”
Niccol isn’t exactly wrong. New York magazine recently declared Starbucks’s “caffeine-laced strawberry-açaí drink” to be the “status-symbol of New York’s teen elite”. There is a large cohort of people – mainly people whose brains are still developing – who see a Starbucks drink as an affordable luxury. Still, that doesn’t stop Niccol from sounding out of touch. People are struggling to afford basic groceries, Brian! Now is not the time to wax lyrical about “affordable” $9 coffee.
Now is the time, however, to shamelessly plug my services as a “chief shhh officer” to corporate America. For a very reasonable salary (we can cap it at a few million), I will stand next to a CEO and say “shhh” whenever they’re about to make it too obvious that they’ve never interacted with anyone outside their tax bracket. Apart from the help, obviously.
Gary Pilnick, the former CEO of Kellogg’s, could certainly have used my services back in 2024, when he suggested struggling families could save money by eating cereal for dinner. The marketing agency CEO Braden Wallake, who went viral in 2022 after sacking employees then posting a selfie of himself crying about it, would also have benefited from my “shhh” services. If Niccol wants some help staying grounded, I’m happy to help him avoid another brew-ha-ha. I can promise a really affordable premium experience
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
