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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)

#371

Post by runamok »

jackvalentine wrote: post #265
_wldu wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that the CEO was open minded (he took a phone call from a janitor... and actually listened to him and then gave him a chance). He saw past this mans lack of education and experience and focused on his dedication and enthusiasm. There's value in everyone, everywhere (even the lowest employees). We need leaders who can put ego aside and see that. IMO, that was the point of the story. The subsequent success…

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.

Right. The current philosophy is to outsource anything that isn't your core competency.

There used to be a path from lowly janitor/stocker/etc. to the executive suite but that route has largely closed.

Your comment reminded me of this article I read a while back: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/21/gail-evans-went-from-janitor...

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

#372

Post by tk75x »

carapace wrote: post #358
nashashmi wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone gets a chance when they are young. I know lots of people who beared with me when they should not have.

> people who bore* with me Past tense of verb "bear" is "bore" (not "boar", FWIW.) ;-)

FYI, English is slowly evolving away from having irregular forms of many verbs. This means that simply adding -ed to the verb is acceptable. Some common examples: bend and bent/bended, lend and lent/lended, weep and wept/weeped...

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

#373

Post by wan23 »

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…

This is kind of circular reasoning though. The nice thing about this story is that the CEO of the company decided to look past how that janitor did not know corporate etiquette or have the right clothes or the fancy education. The only reason you need "some baseline class" is because that's how the people at the top have decided it should be.

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

#374

Post by carapace »

tk75x wrote: post #372
carapace wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people who bore* with me Past tense of verb "bear" is "bore" (not "boar", FWIW.) ;-)

FYI, English is slowly evolving away from having irregular forms of many verbs. This means that simply adding -ed to the verb is acceptable. Some common examples: bend and bent/bended, lend and lent/lended, weep and wept/weeped...

Acceptable to whom?

Degradation of language is degradation of mind.

Most people don't like to sound ignorant and unlettered. You saw that nashashmi graciously said, "Thanks", eh?

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

#375

Post by l0c0b0x »

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.”

As a Latino with humble beginnings, this brought tears to my eyes.

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

#376

Post by travmatt »

etchalon wrote: post #336
southerndrift wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 impart…

I don’t think I’d denigrate a person’s position, the responsibilities, scope and importance of which you know nothing about, with the phrase “token”.

And part of his pitch was the argument that his company was missing opportunities by not creating products that catered to different cultures. Responding to his success by creating an executive position dedicated to finding other such opportunities seems like a logical step.

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

#377

Post by JetSpiegel »

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 best part is how he fraudulently gamed the market test.

> 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.

> “I’d tell the owner, ‘Man, these are great,’” he recalled. “Next week, I’d come back and there’d be a whole rack.”

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

#379

Post by kortilla »

slg wrote: post #274
School-Cotton wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it was the problem you claim, we would expect female engineers to make much higher salaries than their male counterparts. You lost me here. Why is this the case?

Simple supply and demand. If the demand for women exceeded the supply of women, then the naturally result is a bidding war for the available women that would drive up their salary. The fact that women in this industry don't make more than men disproves the idea that companies are currently prioritizing the hiring of women to an extent that the talent pool of available women cannot meet.

No, the other option is to hire incompetent women at a competent salary. That’s one of the major complaints with diversity programs. You can’t pay more to be able to fill the unfillable quota, so you just hire incompetent people at competent salaries instead.

So yes, incompetent minorities make more than the competent majorities.

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