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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)

#171

Post by z3t4 »

> “How much market share do you think you can get?” "I opened my arms and I said, ‘This much market share!’"

Brilliant answer for a stupid question that was probably meant to put him down.

> Frito-Lay began testing Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in small Latino markets in East Los Angeles. If it performed well, the company would move forward with the product; if it didn’t, they’d scratch it

So Montañez assembled a small team of family members and friends, went to the test markets, and bought every bag of Hot Cheetos he could find.

Also brilliant, as such a "test" would certainly fail due to no marketing, likely intentional by the exec's and politics.

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

#172

Post by Johnny555 »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #3

The days when someone can start as a janitor or in the mailroom and climb to the top is done. Companies used to hire everyone in the company. Janitors were part of the company. So was mailroom staff. So were secretaries. Everybody was part of the whole. Now, companies contract out everything but their core thing. Janitors come from a low-paid 3rd party service. Mailrooms are no longer a thing (there's no such thing a…

Mailrooms are no longer a thing

They haven't completely died, my company has a mailroom with someone that delivers mail to each floor, receives packages (including larger shipments at the loading dock) and stamps outgoing mail.

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

#173

Post by dragonwriter »

cortesoft wrote: post #101
JimBrimble35 wrote: post #17

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. I wonder how likely this scenario would be in today's world. I have found personally that many companies are unwilling to take risks on employees who aren't formally qualified, even if they demonstrate the skills…

I feel like this comment buys into the assumption that so many people have that 'ideas' are the valuable part. The idea wasn't the valuable thing Montañez contributed... it was the whole execution. A CEO isn't going to 'execute' on an idea by himself... it isn't like he was going to steal the idea, and go into the kitchen himself and create the cheetos. He needs someone who can drive an idea forward to execution, and…

> A CEO isn't going to 'execute' on an idea by himself

No, they are going to give it someone else to execute on.

Giving it to someone with Montañez background and position, even with the initial legwork he had done was, while heroic is certainly hyperbolic, at least noteworthy. Heck, taking the call was noteworthy. Execs that invite workers to “act like owners” it similar often don't really mean it and don't offer meaningful support when they do.

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

#174

Post by Theodores »

rootedbox wrote: post #9

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.

His wife was playing the role of co-founder. She believed in him and helped him make the MVP.

Kudos to the guy for the initiative, but we are wrong to assume the janitor is in a weak and powerless position. You can work in a factory where you don't see any of the building apart from the walk to your station and the walk to the tea room. You just do your shift operating a machine.

The janitor isn't so intensively over-worked, not physically tied to a machine on a production line. There is scope to travel about the facility and time to observe. There is also scope to be on first name terms with everyone. But most managers would never hire anyone with an entrepreneurial brain into such a role.

Also by being outside any power structure the janitor has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

This story is also telling because of how people in America find it so inspirational. They are chips, a popular junk food item made of corn!!!

Some perspective is needed on that. No atoms were split. If you had two kids, one grew up to be the inventor of a new chips flavour, the other to be a foreign language teacher, which one would you feel best pleased with? Being happy and down to earth isn't good enough though, in America there has to be a rags to riches story for one to be deemed successful.

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

#177

Post by dsfyu404ed »

opportune wrote: post #166
slimsag wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% agree. But it's important that diversity be considered in all forms, not just based on race/sex. If your "diverse" team is made up of different ethnicities and genders but only consists of ivy league members who grew up in California... well, not really diverse then, is it?

Class diversity is pretty hard to achieve because you usually need some baseline class to actually be able to succeed in a role, i.e. you can't show up to a meeting with customers or shareholders chewing dip and wearing camo jorts. And social mobility from lower classes into corporate-ready roles is rather low in this country, so while there certainly are people who grew up poor and would be useful for companies to f…

All these "diverse" people are gonna rub the mostly middle upper class decision makers the wrong way unless they specifically work to fit in. You can leave the trailer park but the trailer park will never leave you. Also, once you've "made it" your needs change too. You might still be trailer trash but you're trailer trash with money which is rare.

Working in an environment where there is nobody like you and you have to always be on your toes for culture conflict is work! These people already get more than enough time outside of their comfort zone and most are more than happy to cash their paycheck because from their frame of reference that's more than enough "success". They don't feel the need to preach about what "their people" are like because they're outliers at work and they're outliers when they go home and that doesn't exactly make one feel authoritative on the topic.

I'm not sure what I'm saying here but it's not as simple as "listen to the diverse people" or "more focus groups".

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

#178

Post by siphon22 »

siphon22 wrote: post #160
ThomPete wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with diversity is that it's thought of wrongly most of the times. What people think of is not actually the diversity that creates the value. I believe many groups that are diverse by gender or race or ethnic composition are actually quite similar if they are the same age even though they might have different upbringings. I explored this subject in this essay a while back which was based on some reflection…

>"Were are problems?" What is this sentence? I had to stop reading here.

Yes, downvote instead of acknowledging the mistake and fixing it so that people can understand what you're saying.

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

#179

Post by thaumasiotes »

whatshisface wrote: post #161
wutbrodo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Note that I reductively throw around cultural class labels like "lower-middle class" in this comment for purposes of clarity: I don't mean to suggest that a person's social class is fixed, or well-defined, but it's just a brief way to get at the concept of different subcultures and their mannerisms, as well as the rough income bands that people tend to associate with them) > Also interesting is the backlash he faced…

> it's been my experience that the most zealous enforcement of class segregation in social contexts is from the bottom-up You perceive subtle rejection a lot more strongly than you perceive someone else being subtly rejected. The effect you perceive could be explained by pointing out that all of the negative interactions involving you were "bottom-up," while the ones involving the "random lower-middle class friends,"…

It's also possible that upper-class and lower-class rejection take different forms. Lower-class rejection can take the form of someone scolding you for acting like a toff. Upper-class rejection might take the form of no visible reaction, but later you don't realize that you weren't invited to a party.

One of those is a lot easier to observe than the other.

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

#180

Post by quickthrower2 »

starpilot wrote: post #123

My takeaway: there are huge potential markets in people who are not like me. The execs were probably completely unaware of this market, and it took an outsider to hold their hand and bring it to them. I love flaming hot cheetos and know tons of people who do, but there is no way I would have thought of taking the hot pepper / other spices from a traditional Mexican food (elotes, which I had in LA) and adapting them i…

What, adding chili to a food? I reckon the monoculture cohort you talk of could have come up with that.
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