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How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

thehustle.co

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Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#151

Post by carlmr »

yibg wrote: post #137
nitwit005 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a $500k salary earns the company millions If only CEOs were paid so little...

Aren't they though? I mean sure the CEOs of large, well known companies are paid many millions, but they are the highest paid CEOs. Seeing CEOs getting paid 100 million a year gets headlines, but most aren't paid that much. I wouldn't be surprised if the median CEO total compensation is less than 500k a year.

You seem to be in fact correct. Most CEOs actually earn less than that. Which makes the 2.2 million average even crazier.

>The average private company CEO total compensation package for 2017 was $2,213,679, but the median was a more modest $350,622.

https://chiefexecutive.net/ceo-and-senior-executive-compensa...

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#152

Post by hmwhy »

This story really stuck with me when I came across it here[0] last year because of the way it's written.

As a few have pointed out, the Twitter messages are just "paraphrasing" the article if you put it nicely. Putting a few references after doing the original sources injustice by telling just half of the story doesn't make it okay either.

Is this some kind of new tactic to grow your audience? I was raised to be honest, I worked in industries the consequences of being dishonest is supposedly absolutely unacceptable, but in most cases people who are dishonest usually get further ahead than most with little to no punishments. Seeing this get so much attention is very demoralising.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20227175

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#153

Post by mempko »

bserge wrote: post #16

This is a really nice story, but you know who the other hero is? The CEO who gave him the time and the opportunity. He could've easily told him to fuck off, as many would do. Who was he, what's his name? More often than not, we get nowhere without people in better positions helping us, it would be great if more people would keep an open mind like that. That CEO deserves recognition. And if you manage to climb higher…

Let's just not have ladders so that people don't have to wait for benevolent dictators to take them under their wing.

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#154

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

BoorishBears wrote: post #122
ardy42 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Do you get why some people are pushing back on your comment above? You can come up with this kind of stuff for anything. You can't eat an apple today without possibly furthering child labor, our world is too complex to try and turn every feel good story into a dig for downsides, because they will always exist. It is in no way "important" to do suss them out. And it's fine to discuss them, but you don't need to mak…

If you look at half the top comments, they're actually productively talking about how this story exposes flaws in our economic systems (like how outsourcing has affected the odds someone would care enough about an employer to do this) I'm not saying you can't look at the negatives of stories, far from it, but trying to bring a story to an extremely open-ended negative point is so easy, but adds nothing of value. You…

You're getting very close to the much deeper question: what are these ("rags-to-riches") stories for? And even more generally, what are stories for?

Suppose you drop any and all negative criticism of the story. What's left? What's that for? What should anyone make of this story? What lessons can they learn? What true lessons can they learn? What invented lessons can they learn (because sometimes we tell stories to convey invented lessons, rather than ones rooted in truth)?

What is it that you want someone to get from a story like this, and do you believe that your desired lesson is useful and/or true?

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#155

Post by mempko »

andreilys wrote: post #113
pmiller2 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, TIL I'm a fucking hero for being a decent human being who's open to new ideas. See, if the CEO had told him to fuck off, that would have been typical, subhuman behavior by someone who sees another human as beneath him. No, that CEO doesn't get a pat on the back for doing what anyone with an ounce of empathy would do in the same situation, especially because he presumably introduced the "act like an owner" initi…

If you're CEO of a 60k person company, are you going to listen to every single new idea that comes into the head of all your employees?

Now you recognize the problem with a huge company that has to rely on the decisions of one person. CEOs don't scale. I mean, they scale in making large decisions, but they don't scale in making the best decisions with the most information.

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#156

Post by bsagdiyev »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #25
KindOne wrote: post #5

If you don't want to read the twitter thread, you can read this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20227175 (2019) https://thehustle.co/hot-cheetos-inventor/

I actually came to post this. After noticing some weird terminology in the Twitter thread (I've never heard the term "Cucamonga Valley" used to refer to the neighborhood by Ontario International Airport) I found that hustle.co article which has very similar wording. I think the Twitter thread is just a paraphrasing with some jazzed up details

It’s weird but not wrong, the area he lived in is still there. Guasti, CA: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guasti,_California

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#157

Post by cperciva »

throw0101a wrote: post #139
GuB-42 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not "an insight a child would have". Good ideas mean nothing unless it leads to a marketable product. And for one smart janitor with business sense there are thousands of people who will just cost the company money. The CEO here managed to notice that among thousands, this is the janitor to listen to. As for CEO being well paid, it is simply because their decisions can make the company lose or earn a lot of mon…

> As for CEO being well paid, it is simply because their decisions can make the company lose or earn a lot of money. CEO pay has risen over 900% over the last forty years: * https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ceos-are-paid-278-times-mo... Somehow I don't see the value that they bring to have increased by the same amount. From a Harvard study entitled "Are CEOs Rewarded for Luck? The Ones Without Principals Are": > CEO…

CEO pay has risen over 900% over the last forty years:

No, pay for the CEOs of the 350 largest companies has risen over 900%.

Said 350 largest companies have also grown dramatically; "CEO of the 50th largest company in 2020" (Procter & Gamble, $67B revenue) is a much bigger job than "CEO of the 100th largest company in 1980" (General Foods, $5.4B revenue).

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#158

Post by mempko »

dcolkitt wrote: post #123
Glench wrote: post #40

Two things I haven't seen anyone mention that seem important: 1. For the one person who has "made it" economically, there are countless others that haven't, that still live in one-room houses. What about them? 2. I think it's worthwhile pointing out that the product that he created, while popular and financially successful, is a junk food that has a significant impact on the health of adults and children worldwide. W…

> For the one person who has "made it" economically, there are countless others that haven't, that still live in one-room houses. What about them? I think you're overlooking the miracle of capitalism. If it was just about one guy striking it rich, this would be no different than the story of someone winning the lottery or getting a big inheritance from a distant relative. Instead this is the story of a man who worked…

Before capitalism you had Cinderella stories. It's no miracle that inequality is as bad now as then.

Re: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)

#159

Post by lucb1e »

yarnover wrote: post #124

“A cat may look at a king,” as the saying goes.

I didn't know it. [1] says it means "even a person of low status or importance has rights". The janitor in the story has rights, like he can certainly try to call the CEO to pitch an idea. Is that what you meant to point out? I feel like I'm missing out on the profoundness.

[1] https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/a+cat+may+look+at+a+kin...

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