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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)

#331

Post by Loughla »

chasontherobot wrote: post #218
mcny wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This nails the issue. It's why flaming hot Cheetos were successful but Dulce de Leche weren't.

Don't make something meant to be something else explicitly. Make something that has the same meaning (or in this case flavor) as something else but make it its own thing for its own sake.

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

#332

Post by nvusuvu »

_wldu wrote: post #238
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 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…

I have a feeling he wouldn't have given up if the secretary stonewalled him. But kudos to her, still.

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

#333

Post by rocketraman »

Wonderful story. Both the janitor and the CEO epitomize Ayn Rand's "ideal man":

> "The moral issue is: how do you approach the field of work given your intellectual endowment and the existing possibilities? Are you going through the motions of holding a job, without focus or ambition, waiting for weekends, vacations, and retirement? Or are you doing the most and the best that you can with your life? Have you committed yourself to a purpose, i.e., to a productive career? Have you picked a field that makes demands on you, and are you striving to meet them, to do good work, and to build on it -- to expand your knowledge, develop your ability, improve your efficiency?

> If the answers to these last questions are yes, then you are totally virtuous in regard to productiveness, whether you are a surgeon or a steelworker, a house painter or a painter of landscapes, a janitor or a company president."

(HT: http://gusvanhorn.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-janitors-multi-bill...)

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

#336

Post by etchalon »

southerndrift wrote: post #297
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 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”.

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

#337

Post by lazyasciiart »

srj wrote: post #310
slg wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pipeline problem is a concern long term, but I don’t think it is the primary problem at the moment for a couple reasons. First, it assumes that the pool of diverse candidates has already been exhausted. Anecdotally I have not seen evidence of that. If it was the problem you claim, we would expect female engineers to make much higher salaries than their male counterparts. There is no evidence that is happening. Th…

I'm not sure companies could legally pay women more than men. Sex is a protected class.

And yet, men and women doing the same job don't always get the same salary.

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

#338

Post by pbhjpbhj »

martyvis wrote: post #83
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate it. I think it belittles Ph.D's and denigrates the people who don't have them suggesting that you need to deflect the question because you [sarcasm] couldn't possibly have a skill set that's of high worth unless you actually had done a Ph.D [/sarcasm]. Bleurgh. FWIW my highest level of qualification is a bachelor's degree and I work in a position that doesn't require any formal training at all.

His Ph.D response was a retort to people questioning his qualifications to conduct lectures. Almost every real Ph.D certainly deserved them, recognising their knowledge or research in their field. However many of those with Ph.Ds were not the best lecturers and teachers they could be when I was an undergraduate at university. They actually hadn't been taught to teach effectively and present their knowledge in way tha…

Well, exactly. You don't have to have a Ph.D to be an expert, to be a good lecturer, etc..

But having a Ph.D is nonetheless a demonstration of a particular high-level of learning, research, and technical ability.

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

#339

Post by debatem1 »

Macross8299 wrote: post #299
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 janit…

I'm left unsure what your point is.

Saying that you have to look at social mobility as a relative thing is certainly false, because we have an optimal yardstick: perfect fairness. If measured against that goal we don't do very well.

Then you go into what the relative numbers are, and it turns out we don't do very well there either, being behind China, Hungary, South Africa and perhaps a dozen others on your preferred yardstick.

You then note that there are at least one or two more cases of this happening (which I believe), and that it requires capitalism with a social safety net to do so. In current application the first part is right, but isn't broadly correct, and the second part just isn't true.

Regarding the first part: for such a huge change in life circumstances to happen you have to have both the extreme poverty and extreme wealth. Capitalism is very good at generating those huge disparities, and is by far the most common system with that characteristic today, but monarchies like Saudi Arabia also experience it (extreme individual changes in SES in Saudi Arabia are most downward, however). The presence of a social safety net doesn't seem to play much of a role in these extreme cases, and certainly didn't in this case. Examples of self-made millionaires going back to early colonial history abound, and certainly there was no strong safety net in place. Given the relative infrequency of such events, I would be skeptical of any attempt to compare between two historical periods or societies based on relative count between those societies or periods as well.

After all that the only thing I can think you were trying to say is that the US is doing a-ok, which just isn't supported by the points you made.

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

#340

Post by cat199 »

GuiA wrote: post #142
starpilot wrote: post #123

My takeaway: there are huge potential markets in people who are not like me. The execs were probably completely unaware of this market, and it took an outsider to hold their hand and bring it to them. I love flaming hot cheetos and know tons of people who do, but there is no way I would have thought of taking the hot pepper / other spices from a traditional Mexican food (elotes, which I had in LA) and adapting them i…

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

also, chocolate is a heavy part of mexican cuisine.. so it's not 'foreign' to start with..
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