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A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

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Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#51

Frito Lay was a great place to work at because they did promote up, and they also hired the best. I would often be in meetings where one logistics manager went to MIT and the other logistics manager would be someone who started at a plant boxing chips.

Not anymore... :(

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#52
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real hero of this story is the CEO who decided to take this guy _and_ his idea. He could have easily taken the idea and ran with it on his own, with Montañez spending the rest of his life mopping floors. A practical question, and a moral one: Would it be have worked out had the CEO tried to steal Montañez's idea, given Montañez came up with the spices himself? Does someone merely not doing something unethical,…

"real hero" is definitely overstating it – I'd hope we as a society haven't reached the point where doing the decent thing is seen as going above and beyond. Hopefully the CEO saw it not only as just the right thing to do, but also the smart (and legal) thing to do – Montañez's story could in the long-run inspire more innovative ideas and culture at the company.

Sorry, but we have _definitely_ reached that point. Granted I'm extremely cynical, but stories like this are outliers and not the norm. And not simply because of the scale of the success.

Read my other comment on why I consider the CEO the hero of this story.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#53
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad literally went from putting the chips in the boxes when he was 23 years old, to overseeing the construction of a brand new manufacturing plant (and running it), to managing scores of plants at HQ in his 40's. Frito-Lay however, is not immune from boneheaded decisions. After 20someodd years of employment, and a trophy case full of awards, he and some of his [white male] colleagues were laid off in favor of crea…

> At the end of the day, revenue-per-share is pretty indifferent to age, race, or gender. Except, as the article shows, diversity often does increase revenue share. Flamin' hot cheetos were invented by a Mexican immigrant who realized that Frito-Lay didn't have any products which appealed to Latino people. EDIT: Changed Latinx to Latino.

My Mexican family loves Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (for real) and hates the term “latinx”. Just fyi but it’s considered racist in a lot of Mexican communities.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day, revenue-per-share is pretty indifferent to age, race, or gender. Except, as the article shows, diversity often does increase revenue share. Flamin' hot cheetos were invented by a Mexican immigrant who realized that Frito-Lay didn't have any products which appealed to Latino people. EDIT: Changed Latinx to Latino.

>Latinx There is no faster way to discredit your argument than using absurd language like latinx. I've yet to meet a latino person who referred to themselves as anything else.

I find the obsession with nitpicking language on part of the ideological spectrum to be a little absurd too, but FWIW I've met quite a few latino/latinx people who identify as Latinx. Though that probably has to do with the extent that I've been steeped in a pretty intense ideological bubble for a very long time at this point (I moved to the Bay in college, before these kind of Bay Area norms around language started to spread so widely)

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#55
post #27

Frito Lay was a great place to work at because they did promote up, and they also hired the best. I would often be in meetings where one logistics manager went to MIT and the other logistics manager would be someone who started at a plant boxing chips.

My dad literally went from putting the chips in the boxes when he was 23 years old, to overseeing the construction of a brand new manufacturing plant (and running it), to managing scores of plants at HQ in his 40's. Frito-Lay however, is not immune from boneheaded decisions. After 20someodd years of employment, and a trophy case full of awards, he and some of his [white male] colleagues were laid off in favor of crea…

> he and some of his [white male] colleagues were laid off in favor of creating a more 'diverse' management roster.

No disrespect is intended with this question, but are you sure that was the real reason? I've seen people get laid off before search for reasons why they specifically were singled out, and come up with some pretty biased excuses for themselves when it was really something fairly mundane. Even when their replacements turned out to be incompetent.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#56
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad literally went from putting the chips in the boxes when he was 23 years old, to overseeing the construction of a brand new manufacturing plant (and running it), to managing scores of plants at HQ in his 40's. Frito-Lay however, is not immune from boneheaded decisions. After 20someodd years of employment, and a trophy case full of awards, he and some of his [white male] colleagues were laid off in favor of crea…

> At the end of the day, revenue-per-share is pretty indifferent to age, race, or gender. Except, as the article shows, diversity often does increase revenue share. Flamin' hot cheetos were invented by a Mexican immigrant who realized that Frito-Lay didn't have any products which appealed to Latino people. EDIT: Changed Latinx to Latino.

What does firing people for being white and male have to do with Mexican janitors becoming inventors?

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day, revenue-per-share is pretty indifferent to age, race, or gender. Except, as the article shows, diversity often does increase revenue share. Flamin' hot cheetos were invented by a Mexican immigrant who realized that Frito-Lay didn't have any products which appealed to Latino people. EDIT: Changed Latinx to Latino.

>Latinx There is no faster way to discredit your argument than using absurd language like latinx. I've yet to meet a latino person who referred to themselves as anything else.

You seem to be the one that is out of touch: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real hero of this story is the CEO who decided to take this guy _and_ his idea. He could have easily taken the idea and ran with it on his own, with Montañez spending the rest of his life mopping floors. A practical question, and a moral one: Would it be have worked out had the CEO tried to steal Montañez's idea, given Montañez came up with the spices himself? Does someone merely not doing something unethical,…

Ah yes, the whole "people in power are heroic when they don't take advantage of the poor" logic.

The guy answered a question about market share like a 4 year old answers "how much do you like tacos?". The CEO had to take a risk on this guy, had to put him in a position to become valuable. Yes, taking someone with a grade 4 education and building them up the the level of success in this story is heroic.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#59

Inspirational. I'd love to hear names of companies today where folks feel their work place culture might allow something like this to happen.

I work at Nucor and know of several people who have done exactly this in the 20 years I've worked here. They started working in a entry level production position and worked their way up to department manager, division manager/VP, senior VP and even CEO in one case.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day, revenue-per-share is pretty indifferent to age, race, or gender. Except, as the article shows, diversity often does increase revenue share. Flamin' hot cheetos were invented by a Mexican immigrant who realized that Frito-Lay didn't have any products which appealed to Latino people. EDIT: Changed Latinx to Latino.

>Latinx There is no faster way to discredit your argument than using absurd language like latinx. I've yet to meet a latino person who referred to themselves as anything else.

I'm interested (and somewhat taken aback) by the intensity of the reactions to this term. Maybe it's a generational/political thing? For my part, I know significantly more people who refer to themselves as "Latinx" than "Latino".
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