How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else is a memoir by Michael Gates Gill that chronicles his journey from a high-level advertising executive with J. Walter Thompson to a barista at Starbucks.

[1] The book has been optioned by Tom Hanks for a film;[2] filmmaker Gus Van Sant has also been in talks to direct.

[3] Michael Gates Gill had it all by his fifties: a mansion in the suburbs, a wife and loving children, a six-figure salary, and an Ivy League education.

She is a young African American, the daughter of a drug addict; he is used to being the boss but reports to her now.

For the first time in his life he experiences being a member of a minority trying hard to survive in a challenging new job.