A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017) • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by debatem1 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 6:01 AM UTC

whenchamenia wrote: post #278

debatem1 wrote: post #106

That's an incredible story and props to the guy, but let's not tapdance around the fact that this is incredible specifically because social mobility on this scale is extremely rare. It took both exceptional determination and unbelievable luck to make this happen. How many others have the doggedness and skill, but not the luck? How many of them are still mopping today?

Just because there is 'mobility', does not entice all to seek a different 'status'. Many are content to be a happy human, and think those terms are silly at best.

I'm sorry, but the belief that you can be happy and poor in America is hippy-dippy nonsense left over from an earlier and more equitable age. Nobody is happy watching their child die of a treatable disease, and no amount of inner peace will make your family's eviction ok. Thinking that those things are silly is a mark of inexperience and foolishness, and is no wiser than Candide's insistence that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The reality is that social mobility is a cornerstone of the American dream specifically because it actually does buy a better life for those who get it. The fact that such mobility does not exist for many who would choose it is a black mark on us and our society, and one we need urgently to correct.

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

#292

Post by rexarex » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 6:48 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #257

opportune wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here's the real divider: Viewpoint diversity. Are you ready to have some conservatives/Republicans on your team?

Why not?

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

#293

Post by rexarex » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 6:53 AM UTC

rosterface wrote: post #70

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why is it considered racist? I can think of some arguments against the term but am having a hard time figuring that one out. Maybe because they perceive it as having been coined by people from outside their group and/or changing the topic to focus on gender > racial justice?

Yes, that’s why they consider it racist. For the most part it’s a term from white academia. I don’t think anyone really wants to be told that the words they’ve used to describe themselves for generations must be changed, especially by people from another ethnicity all together.

The term came from South American feminists I don’t think it’s racist at all...

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

#294

Post by Theodores » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 7:31 AM UTC

_2d30 wrote: post #186

Theodores wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It doesn’t seem you read the full story. For one thing, it wasn’t just that he invented the new Cheeto. He also became an executive in the same large, successful org. Secondly, why does it matter that what he made was a popular junk food made of corn? If he was a chef that made a popular meal made of locally sourced ingredients, would you find that more impressive? If he were an artist and he splattered paint onto ca…

> He also became an executive in the same large, successful org.

This is the bit that some people would be underwhelmed by. Without the janitor story he is just a corporate executive, 'a suit'. And yes I did read the story, 1 + 1/2 times...

The junk food industry is not where the creativity is at. That is not a put down, it is a statement of fact. Most junk food products have not changed in decades. A century ago the brands were the same.

I am sure that there are plenty of fascinating aspects to the business, you could get into vending machines or industrial processes to find a load of intellectually stimulating stuff going on.

But look at it this way:

If you were having to do speed dating and you were an executive for a junk food company, how would you rate your chances?

Even if you had inspired a new flavour of corn chip then you are not going to have the most captivating of chat when the topic inevitably moves on to what you do for a living.

If this was me and the guy at the next table was nurse in the emergency ward, a teacher or even an artist then I would be concerned about my chances.

The fast paced world of junk food sales just has the word 'dull' run before it. As for corn, there is something you hit upon in your comment. Most things in America are made of corn. It is in everything. Beverages have the corn syrup. The meat is made from corn fed animals. Even the chips that should be 'potato crisps' are made of corn. It is this industrial feedstock variety of corn that goes into these things, not a product that can be eaten corn on the cob style as a seasonal treat.

In the rest of the world people eat less corn. I very much doubt that in France there are people having fake flavoured corn products several times a day.

Various native American tribes were corn fed. They did all the original genetic modification for corn. You have to wonder how much modern America really has moved on since everyone is still corn fed there.

Many millions of Americans like cocaine, crack, crystal meth and heroin. Nothing makes them happier. A little bit of their brain lights up when they score. These more powerful substances have hijacked the same pleasure circuits used for the reward system.

The junk food industry has the same gig going on, to all intents and purposes the customers are every bit as addicted as the crack head is. And you just have to look at the waist line of modern day, corn fed America. It isn't healthy.

We hear about food deserts in America. These same food deserts are the places you will find the most outlets for junk food. It is like an invasive species. The humble potato or the carrot does not have marketing executives trying to get the vegetable into everyone's home. The junk food industry does.

Every school has cooks trying their hardest to make nutritional meals for kids. The junk food industry is the enemy. If I was an executive, a suit, in the junk food industry then I don't imagine that I would be getting a lot of respect from the school chef. So, no, I am not putting this guy on a pedestal (or wanting to begrudge him) just because he has made it to the top of corporate America.

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

#295

Post by chaosite » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 7:32 AM UTC

scarejunba wrote: post #290

RomanBob wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>even the lowest employees Why is the janitor considered "the lowest employee" by you?

Amusing aside: once I was talking to this engineer on the phone and he was talking about driver development and I, in an attempt to relate, remarked that that sounds rather hard and that it's been a while since I wrote low-level software like that. Somehow that came across as insulting what he did as of low skill level. Oops! Awful faux pas. I think I managed to clarify but I've decided to use less ambiguous words ne…

This is solved (or exacerbated, depending on your point of view) in non-English speaking environments that nonetheless use English terms of art.

In my case, we use "low-level" (in English) to convey the "close to the metal", systems programming idea, and the direct translation of "low-level" to refer to shoddy code.

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

#296

Post by CaptainZapp » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 7:48 AM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #226

thundergolfer wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thehustle.co as a publication is catered to young 'hustlers' who very much buy into the capitalist American Dream. This is a hype-article for the 'anyone can make it' myth, a myth that fuels culture of overworked young people[1] struggling against structural changes they're told to ignore. [1]. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-w...

thehustle.co as a publication is catered to young 'hustlers' who very much buy into the capitalist American Dream. Good. We need more of this kind of thing around here, and less negativity and the "luck is everything, effort is irrelevant, sit on your ass and wait for the government to fix all your problems" bullshit that we've been overrun with lately. This is a hype-article for the 'anyone can make it' myth There's…

I, for one, disagree. And here's why:

https://qz.com/work/1231617/what-you-learn-about-business-wh...

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

#297

Post by southerndrift » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 7:53 AM UTC

arkades wrote: post #187

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…

The point is that he is self-made. He didn't leave school because he was stupid but because he had to. The family caused the lack of education but they gave him the right values. They instilled the pride and curiosity that allowed him to execute and not to just fulfill orders.

To me, these parts of the article stand out, all beginning with his grandmother:

>When he broke the news to his family, his grandfather imparted a piece of advice that would always stick with him: “Make sure that floor shines,” the man told his grandson. “And let them know that a Montañez mopped it.”

He was prepared to execute because he knew the company, out of his own curiosity:

>In between shifts, he set out to make himself seen, learning as much as he could about the company’s products, spending time in the warehouse, and watching the machines churn out crunchy snacks in the lonely midnight hours.

This is the key part: he actively sought the knowledge by himself. From my experience, that's a rare value that is far more important than any shortcomings in his knowledge. People help him without him having power. He already is a leader.

>After nearly a decade mopping floors, Montañez gathered the courage to ask one of the Frito-Lay salesmen if he could tag along and learn more about the process.

Finally, not being able to read must be an exaggeration. He just went to school for four years. This doesn't mean that he stopped reading afterwards. I would assume that he regularly went to the library and thus it came naturally to look there for help. Why would an illiterate seek help in the library if his manager was kind of supportive ("YOU’RE doing this presentation!") and at least would have told him the basics?

>Accompanied by his wife, he went to the library, found a book on marketing strategies, and copied the first 5 paragraphs word for word onto transparencies.

After all, being captain obvious, this is on HN because it is the startup tale: a young, ambitious man without the right education can become a business leader if he stumbles upon the right opportunity. At least for this story, I think the tale is true. There is no need to know more because whatever he learned at Frito-Lay is specific to Frito-Lay. It's his attitude that brought success.

But then again, he didn't become CEO or a regular manager, he is the token multicultural person of the executives:

>vice president of multicultural sales for PepsiCo America

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

#298

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 8:04 AM UTC

triangleman wrote: post #289

jackvalentine wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My takeaway was that not only was a janitor directly employed by the company (as cleaning services are basically 100% outsourced in my experience now) but was paid well and felt part of the company such that he was motivated to stay interested and contribute.

Yes that is quite the anachronism these days.

[deleted]

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

#299

Post by Macross8299 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 8:04 AM UTC

debatem1 wrote: post #106

That's an incredible story and props to the guy, but let's not tapdance around the fact that this is incredible specifically because social mobility on this scale is extremely rare. It took both exceptional determination and unbelievable luck to make this happen. How many others have the doggedness and skill, but not the luck? How many of them are still mopping today?

>because social mobility on this scale is extremely rare

Rare only works as a qualifier when comparing it to some other probability of social mobility, either in an ideal or real system. The US has higher social mobility than most actual countries in the world and is pretty much middle of the pack in social mobility when it comes to developed (OECD) nations [0]

If I recall correctly, there was another case of a janitor working her way up to becoming a C-level executive at Microsoft and HP. Capitalism with a social safety net is what affords this social mobility because it doesn't matter what your credentials are if you can find a market for a novel product like Montañez did. You can argue about how much of a social safety net is required to prevent the poor from staying poor forever, but it's still capitalism that provides the impetus that lifts people up to where they don't need the social safety net anymore.

Compare this to a society where you're hooped if you're born into the wrong caste or without party connections and US social mobility doesn't seem that rare anymore.

[0]: https://www.oecd.org/inclusive-growth/inequality-and-opportu... figure 2

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

#300

Post by wonnage » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 8:14 AM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #226

thundergolfer wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thehustle.co as a publication is catered to young 'hustlers' who very much buy into the capitalist American Dream. This is a hype-article for the 'anyone can make it' myth, a myth that fuels culture of overworked young people[1] struggling against structural changes they're told to ignore. [1]. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-w...

thehustle.co as a publication is catered to young 'hustlers' who very much buy into the capitalist American Dream. Good. We need more of this kind of thing around here, and less negativity and the "luck is everything, effort is irrelevant, sit on your ass and wait for the government to fix all your problems" bullshit that we've been overrun with lately. This is a hype-article for the 'anyone can make it' myth There's…

Working in the fields in sweltering heat for less than minimum wage means you're not trying hard enough, all you have to do (in addition to dying of heat exhaustion) is to work hard and pursue your dreams!

- guy with a website with a bunch of enterprise software gibberish