Live data from Hacker News

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

thehustle.co

211–220 of 379 posts

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

#211

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.

While I am not a native speaker I am trying to wrap my head around if I said something really bad or why exactly you stopped reading.

Where are problems was an attempt at saying it slightly more vague than where are the problems hiding. It was meant as an opener for the following breakdown of problems.

It could probably have been more eloquent or grammatically correct but I didn't think it would be a show stopper :)

Sorry, you feel that way I think it was an interesting exploration that at least got me to think about diversity and it's use as a business advantage quite differently.

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

#212

This article ends right before the actual interesting part begins. Janitor takes some food his company produces, adds spices, makes a shitty pitch deck and profit? Cool, but... this could have easily happened in a dozen different configurations and gone nowhere. This is more luck than anything else. The interesting story begins after that. This guy didn't end his career there - so, presumably, he was't a one-hit wond…

I suspect the movie "mentioned" in the article will cover some of that, etc. (The casual mention towards the end of the article strikes me as the whole article being advanced marketing for the movie, by drumming up general interest in this story. That's not a bad thing but I suspect we'll start seeing more articles about Mr. Montañez before too long.)

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

#213
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw I lived ten years in Latin America, married a Latina, and have never even heard the term Latinx before. It's probably not common in Latin America.

The term was created by white people.

Interesting! What were their names? Were those white people also of Latin American origin?

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

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On HN you cannot downvote someone who responds to you, so uh, that's not what is happening.

I apologize for the wrong assumption, it's just confusing why anyone else would downvote me for asking a genuine question that was also just informing the writer of the medium post about a mistake that may have confused other readers too.

I didn't downvote you, but if it's any comfort I got downvoted too :)

I am however not going to change that sentence even though I know it doesn't sound (and might not even be grammatically correct) :)

You can think of it as a more open way of asking.

I.e. "where are problems hiding" it's instead of asking what is a problem" because I was trying to explore where they could be found.

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

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why diversity is so important! Not only in business, but in general — everyone has huge blind spots, no matter what background they have. Life is much larger and more diverse than people usually imagine. Interacting and learning from people with different backgrounds than yours is a fundamentally rewarding experience, although it can be hard at times.

It has to be taken seriously by management, however. I've worked at a few places where diversity was king but upper management continued to make the decisions of aging middle-class white folks. Not that I have a problem with that in and of itself, but it was funny how they would hire lots of women and minorities, say that they wanted to target undeserved demographics, but then never actually attempt to do it. Diversi…

"Undeserved" instead of "underserved" is an unfortunate typo there... :P

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

#216
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t like being called Chicano, Latin, or Hispanic. It’s seemingly only a US thing afaict. My family is from Mexico and “Mexican” suffices. It seems like they’re just terms to lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic. That’s how I feel about it anyway. Not saying people shouldn’t identify with it, if that’s how they feel. :V

> It seems like they’re just terms to lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic. I'm an Indian living in the US. If I see another brown skinned person who does not look Indian, what should I call them? There are many Mexicans into the US, but there are also people from other countries in South America etc. I have no idea what Hispanic actually means, but I've hea…

To be technically accurate, you should say they are Native American, or of mixed Native American and European ancestry (btw, the Spanish word for this is “mestizo” which means mixed).

I’m aware that nobody actually says this in real life, but this is what people in the US usually mean when they think of “typical Latino-looking person”.

In reality though, “Latino” is not a very precise way to describe someone with that phenotype, because just like Canada and the US and other countries with a major history of colonialism, there are people of all racial ancestries in Latin America. This is largely ignored in the Western US, I suspect because most of the “Latino” people there are from Mexico and Central America, where most of the population looks like what you describe.

But Latin America started out with all the same major groups that the US did: Native Americans, European settlers, African slaves, Asian immigrants, etc., and so you would expect to find all the same ancestries there as you would in the US, just in different proportions.

And indeed, in places like Uruguay and Argentina, the majority of people would be considered “white” according to US racial classification norms. In the Caribbean, many would be considered “black”. In Brazil there are a lot of people of Japanese descent.

But even in Mexico there are people who look like this: https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5b147c3d4bb...

That guy is Mexican and Latino and Hispanic by any possible definition of those terms, and also “white” (I.e., of primarily Western European ancestry).

The point is: “Latino” and “Hispanic” are not directly connected to phenotypes or biological ancestry in the way you are assuming.

In general I don’t understand why it is so important to describe people by their ancestry, as opposed to their actual culture. If you see a white person in India you can be 99.99% sure they are not culturally Indian, but you can’t really conclude anything similar in the US.

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

#217

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…

[deleted]

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

#218
post #150
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, there is the tale of dulce de leche M&M’s - trying to tap into such a market, only for it to fail terribly. https://mms.fandom.com/wiki/Dulce_de_Leche_Caramel_M%26M%27s

My guess based on what I read from the grandparent post is there was probably some poor product fit. Perhaps we would have done better marketing it towards "gringos"? From your link: > In July 2001, Dulce de Leche M&M's were introduced in five markets with large Hispanic populations: Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami, Florida; Mcallen-Brownsville, Texas; and San Antonio, Texas. The flavor never became popular with the Hi…

As someone who ate those Dulce de Leche M&Ms, what would've helped is if they were any good or bore any resemblance to the flavor they were named after.

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

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this interesting data point. Would you/they prefer to just be called latino? Is this common sentiment among Mexicans outside of your family? I can see latinx only being preferred by non-gender-conforming individuals to whom it applies, as opposed to when referring to individuals rather than to communities (families, neighborhoods, food, etc).

I think more specific is always better. I’m of Mexican descent, I prefer to keep that identity. I’ve actually noticed people in the US sometimes struggle to say that as if being “Mexican” is a bad thing; it’s not, don’t be afraid of the term. Latino and Latina are also fine. Hispanic as well although that has a slightly different meaning. I think it’s best to call people by the terms that they use themselves. Foistin…

> I’ve actually noticed people in the US sometimes struggle to say that as if being “Mexican” is a bad thing; it’s not, don’t be afraid of the term.

It's more that people likely don't know for sure that you're actually of Mexican descent. You could've descended from any number of Central or South American nationalities, so going with something properly broad like "Latino" is going to be much more reasonable than running the risk of labeling someone as "Mexican" when one actually descends from, say, Colombia.

This is similar to the reason why most people just stick to calling white people "white" or black people "black" instead of trying to guess something more specific.

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

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more specific is always better. I’m of Mexican descent, I prefer to keep that identity. I’ve actually noticed people in the US sometimes struggle to say that as if being “Mexican” is a bad thing; it’s not, don’t be afraid of the term. Latino and Latina are also fine. Hispanic as well although that has a slightly different meaning. I think it’s best to call people by the terms that they use themselves. Foistin…

It's funny because I have been ridiculed for calling myself Swedish or Swedish-American instead of white. Somehow some people have even thought that's racist. But it is a strong identity in my family, and, for example, I really don't want to be lumped in with the people of Bavarian descent who made up about half of the town I grew up in. I'm nothing like them culturally. Honestly, "white" isn't an ethnicity and it is…

With all due respect, if you were born in the US and grew up speaking English, you have a lot more common with those "Bavarians" than you do with Swedish people in Sweden.
Post reply on HN