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New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

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Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#11
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, we are subservient to and dependent on an economic system which both incentivizes and enforces this type of behavior.

Seems like you're making a swipe at capitalism, but this behavior is also rampant in socialist economies (e.g. was very widespread in the USSR), so I don't think the economic system is to blame.

It's a problem of bureaucracy

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#13

In my naivety I build a startup that fixed a problem for a fortune 500 company thinking they would be delighted. They weren't. These big companies are staffed by individuals who are focused on their career and will do absolutely anything to extinguish your company/idea and pretend it was their idea and champion the company's initiative. It's disgusting but it's reality and if you are a founder be ready for it.

That's the majority of the people in the world. Not just Fortune 500 execs.

Firefly: “Half the human race is middlemen, and they don’t take kindly to being eliminated.”

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#14

In my naivety I build a startup that fixed a problem for a fortune 500 company thinking they would be delighted. They weren't. These big companies are staffed by individuals who are focused on their career and will do absolutely anything to extinguish your company/idea and pretend it was their idea and champion the company's initiative. It's disgusting but it's reality and if you are a founder be ready for it.

That's the majority of the people in the world. Not just Fortune 500 execs.

The difference is that a VP at an F500 has significantly more resources at their command.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the majority of the people in the world. Not just Fortune 500 execs.

Of course, we are subservient to and dependent on an economic system which both incentivizes and enforces this type of behavior.

In state bureaucracies and very unionized workplaces people will be afraid to fix something, even if they can and they should to avoid extreme waste, because they are afraid that it would take the credit away from someone else.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#16

In my naivety I build a startup that fixed a problem for a fortune 500 company thinking they would be delighted. They weren't. These big companies are staffed by individuals who are focused on their career and will do absolutely anything to extinguish your company/idea and pretend it was their idea and champion the company's initiative. It's disgusting but it's reality and if you are a founder be ready for it.

That's the majority of the people in the world. Not just Fortune 500 execs.

In spite of every thing, I do not believe its a majority. As with many things, it is the loud minority. We would not have progress, if your statement were true.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#18

In my naivety I build a startup that fixed a problem for a fortune 500 company thinking they would be delighted. They weren't. These big companies are staffed by individuals who are focused on their career and will do absolutely anything to extinguish your company/idea and pretend it was their idea and champion the company's initiative. It's disgusting but it's reality and if you are a founder be ready for it.

Positive global gradient is insufficient; positive local gradient is necessary, at all links of the value chain.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#19
The wired article was extremely short not sure if I’m just not getting the full article? It seems from my perspective that Taylor and McDonald’s conspired to take money from the franchise owners. What a shame. Because all it does is incentives owners to cut corners like say serve cold fries so they don’t lose money. McDonald’s used to be great but somewhere lost the way. They used to be the affordable place anyone could afford a couple burgers and fries for their family and it used to be quite enjoyable.

Re: New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit

#20
how disgusting. it makes me think that vertical integration is great for countries where the losing party of a lawsuit doesnt face any form of disincentive like paying the legal expenses of the winning party. if you are a company that tries to sell a product like this ice-cream mod then you will be sued but its better to have your own burger joint and fill it with your own inventions. they say that the company was brought to brink of insolvency so i think they probably would have been better being a vertically integrated burger joint.

thats so cool to read about the innovations of their machine. text message alerts, ingredient monitoring in the hopper -- there is so much meat on the bone in so many markets.

i sometimes think of what a better mcdonalds would look like. i imagine it would have equipment like this ice-cream machine that is highly automated and designed for very low maintenance. so one area of arbitrage is reducing staff count and burden with the machinery. then another aspect is getting rid of indoor seating. even before the pandemic i always noticed that the drive-through always seemed to get more traffic than the inside. i think you could just get rid of the inside and do a scaled-up version of the parking-lot delivery that mcdonalds has started doing recently. a medium sized parking lot with a large amount of numbered spaces, and some of the area could be used as a buffer for people to wait for open spaces. and a walk-up window for people who dont have a smart phone or are on foot. and this plays into the largest source of employee friction in my opinion. imagine you work at mcdonalds, you are face to face with random strangers all day. not only is it embarrassing to show your face and be recognized as a person who works at mcdonalds, its stressful dealing with people who are rude and sometimes crazy. i think if you could cut out this aspect of working at mcdonalds that it would be a much more attractive job and you would have much higher employee quality and retention which matter a lot. and one way you might do this is to have a very simple robot deliver the food. the active parking spots could all be on the outer edge of the parking lot and wrapping around the edge could be a track with protrusions between each parking space. it would be covered for rain and snow and surrounded by standard railings so that nobody would wander into the track, no cars could intrude into the track and nobody could interfere with the robot easily since it would be quite heavy. the robot would be a large box about the height of a car door window with a large battery and four large wheels and a camera and a radio. the robot would travel between the building and cars, having multiple food orders put on top of its head and then positioned directly in front of the driver window. it would be simple to drive, impossible to drive into a place it wasnt supposed to be, and driven on shifts, perhaps as a break from the more laborious jobs or by other people remotely. and the nice thing is that if the backup robots all failed or there is some problem, the workers could just use the track to deliver orders by hand like dairy queen. a high tech fast food company with delicious food, an app that works, fast and efficient user experience and a massive improvement in employee satisfaction.

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