Moreover, Starbucks must cope with some predictable challenges of becoming a mature company in the United States. After
riding the wave of successful baby boomers through the 1990s,
the company faces an ominously hostile reception from its future
consumers, the twenty- or thirty-somethings of Generation X. Not
only are the activists among them turned off by the power and
image of the well-known brand, but many others say that Starbucks’ latte-sipping sophisticates and piped-in Kenny G music are
a real turnoff. They don’t feel wanted in a place that sells designer
coffee at $3 a cup.