[HN Gopher] The man who didn't invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos
___________________________________________________________________
The man who didn't invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos
Author : krustyburger
Score : 209 points
Date : 2021-05-16 14:15 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.msn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.msn.com)
| gurumeditations wrote:
| He lied and continues to lie to keep making money as a
| motivational speaker.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Yes. It is one of the most American success stories I've seen
| in a long time..
| nn3 wrote:
| Reiterates my opinion that professional motivational speakers are
| largely frauds.
| Rapzid wrote:
| Checks out. They aren't in the business of truth telling. They
| are in the business of booking speaking engagements. I guess
| just like with news opinion and analysis pieces they use
| "click-bait" story summaries and pandering content to attract
| an audience..
| bombcar wrote:
| We've lost the parable as a form of discussion/presentation-
| now it has to be told "as if a true story" - but the truth of a
| fable or parable isn't in the historical accuracy.
| molbioguy wrote:
| That's somewhat true, but in this case the story wasn't told
| as a parable and the primary actors are real and alive and
| well. Someone is taking credit for other people's work.
| mdorazio wrote:
| Unfortunately it's not even just motivational speakers. I've
| found that most business books about successful companies tend
| to lionize leaders and often straight out lie about events to
| make them fit the narrative better. A great example is [1]. The
| truth is that luck and "boring" work/processes are most often
| what result in success.
|
| [1] https://www.latimes.com/books/la-xpm-2013-nov-04-la-et-jc-
| ma...
| frombody wrote:
| I'm amazed at the length of this article.
|
| Never expected MSN to put this much effort into such a random
| topic.
| jjulius wrote:
| The top of the page has the LA Times logo and it says it was
| provided to MSN by the Times. Direct link to original below.
|
| https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-16/flamin-hot...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I wondered what Gustavo Arellano's take would be on this:
|
| https://twitter.com/GustavoArellano/status/13939665012967055.
| ..
| jessaustin wrote:
| That also explains why they could just drop the location
| "Ontario" into TFA without qualifying it by its location in
| San Bernardino County.
| xeromal wrote:
| It's better than most 140 character articles that plague news
| sites these days
| briefcomment wrote:
| It's seriously great reporting. They dive deep, and keep their
| tone as impartial as you could hope for. Good job LA Times.
| robocat wrote:
| Surely a great opportunity for him to change tacks: now he should
| claim how he made the story up and how much it helped boost his
| image - the "exaggeration" is a great story in itself.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Climbing the rungs of the charlatan career ladder, like Tim
| Ferriss.
| freetime2 wrote:
| This is why I am distrustful of motivational speakers. Their
| incentives aren't really aligned with mine. I want to hear a
| story of how someone became successful that I can replicate in my
| own life. They want to book speaking engagements and sell books.
|
| There is a huge incentive for motivational speakers to embellish,
| emphasize the interesting parts, and downplay the boring parts
| and the parts that we don't want to hear (i.e. that being
| successful often requires a good amount of raw talent and luck).
| Jaygles wrote:
| My rule is, if someone is profiting off of my believing what
| they say, then assume they aren't above lying to me about it.
|
| I try not to be a curmudgeon about it and give people the
| benefit of the doubt, but my life experience has largely taught
| me that people are willing to lie much more often than not when
| there's money on the line.
| jollybean wrote:
| "A junior employee with a freshly minted MBA named Lynne
| Greenfeld got the assignment to develop the brand -- she came up
| with the Flamin' Hot name and shepherded the line into
| existence."
|
| Doesn't have the same Hollywood ring ...
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I feel vindicated. My company (a FAANG) had a diversity training
| seminar and his story was held up as the shining example of why
| diversity matters for bottom-line business reasons. First of all
| - I find the logic of "don't be racist for $$$" to be extremely
| troublesome, but it also just never made sense to me why it would
| take specifically a hispanic person to create a spicy variant of
| a food product. But I didn't want to say anything in fear of
| being deemed an Enemy of Diversity or put onto a list for extra
| re-education.
|
| It basically just sounded like a blatant stereotype - "white
| people like mayonnaise and unseasoned chicken, Mexican people
| like spicy food", which I've found diversity-types love to bandy
| about as long as they generally follow the negative
| (white|men|western culture) trend and positive (PoCs/women/non-
| western cultures) trend.
| msrenee wrote:
| I never would have thought to make chili lime chips. I never
| would have even tried them until I spent time in the southwest.
| Now I'm floored they weren't a bigger thing sooner. And tajin.
| You can get it in most of the country, but it was all over in
| the produce section down there. Confused the hell out of me
| until a coworker offered me some cucumber slices with tajin and
| lime juice. It's incredible. And tajin on green apples. I don't
| know how it isn't a bigger thing across the country.
|
| And according to this article, it wasn't white people that came
| up with the flaming hot idea in the first place. It came from
| black neighborhoods in Chicago.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Was it your race or ethnicity which prevented you from seeing
| that chili lime chips would be delicious? Or is it just the
| fact that you, regardless of your demographics, hadn't spent
| time in a region where the local fare involved chili lime
| chips?
|
| I didn't say that white people invented Flamin Hot cheetos -
| I said that it's common for diversity advocates to utilize
| stereotypes as long as they punch in the "right" direction.
| But the feeling I got from my diversity lecture at work was
| that "Management at Frito Lay couldn't think of Flamin hot
| cheetos because they were too white".
|
| Also, I'm not sure where you're getting that the idea came
| from black neighborhoods. No one has their demographics
| called out in the article from what I can tell, and it seems
| like Fred Lindsay, Sharon Owens, and Lynne Greenfeld helped
| develop the brand - maybe they're black, I don't know. The
| only place I can imagine you getting that is by guessing that
| the clientele in Chicago corner stores and gas stations is
| mostly black, and that clientele is the same clientele that
| would buy the pre-existing non-cheetos spicy products. Maybe
| that's the case, but then that isn't a particularly strong
| point for diversity advocates, which was the basis of my
| post, if your company can be completely, say, white, and all
| you have to do is look at what is selling well in "ethnic"
| neighborhoods and copy it.
| rcurry wrote:
| Reminds me of this movie where a girl goes to her high school
| reunion and claims she invented Post-It Notes. I wish I could
| remember the name of it.
| esalazar wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romy_and_Michele%27s_High_Sc...
| rcurry wrote:
| Ha ha, thanks!
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jtlienwis wrote:
| I did some work in 2000's (aughts) using a Zigby and a spare
| water meter to keep track of leaks and water usage on a computer
| for home use. I even made a youtube video (since deleted by
| youtube). I was a Best Buy recently and saw essentially the same
| produce that was "invented" by a guy in California and developed
| by his son into a multi-million dollar company. Trying to piece
| together what happened 13 years ago is tough, I can only wonder
| at how hard it is after 30 years. There is a lot of corporate
| mytheogy that is allowed. When I worked for a certain
| supercomputer company, they put out the myth that the founder
| spent his spare time digging a tunnel from his home to his
| lakefront beach. Not true, but got the company a lot of free PR.
| austincheney wrote:
| As a side note the Plano headquarters for Frito Lay is beautiful.
| People from neighboring employers are commonly seen taking walks
| on their nature paths. The best part are the wild orchards of
| persimmon trees giving off tons of fruit like unwanted tree trash
| that ultimately coats the ground orange.
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| > Schools have banned the snack altogether over concerns about
| its popularity with children.
|
| This is the most disturbing thing reported in the article. Who
| cares who invented a one more type of over-processed shit? What
| we should care about is that it's marketed to kids.
|
| Or to anyone. The message plastered everywhere should be: don't
| eat that shit. It's bad for you.
|
| Oh and the article above is just so much white-washed corporate
| propaganda and advertisement. An entire article about who
| invented a product and not one warning about the product's
| unhealthiness.
| Jach wrote:
| The implication isn't that it was banned because of health
| concerns, but because of its distracting popularity. (Like
| Pokemon cards or yo-yos.) The article reiterates this further
| down, though also links to a 2012 article where a few
| elementary schools in the LA area banned them due to high
| fat/sodium/calories, like other candy or junk food.
| https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/10/flamin-hot-ch...
| You'll also note in that article that Frito-Lay doesn't market
| to kids 12 and under or sell directly to schools. (I doubt
| that's changed in 9 years.) The colloquial name for junk food
| is junk food, I think people are well enough aware that it's
| bad for you. So what concerns do you have left?
| asdff wrote:
| It is plastered on the bag under "Nutrition Facts." Whether you
| choose to eat nothing but flaming hot cheetos and die of
| painful gastroinstestinal related problems, or live an
| otherwise healthy life but eat cheetos occasionally is entirely
| up to you in this country. We don't need more handholding and
| coddling imo.
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| Which country is "this"? And do you also mind advertisement
| that's constantly trying to tell you what to eat? Or is it
| only the "handhonlding" that tells you how to not eat
| yourself to an early grave that's bothers you?
|
| > It is plastered on the bag under "Nutrition Facts."
|
| I don't have a bag handy, but I'm looking up nutrition facts
| online, and I can't see anything about the product being
| unhealthy ultra-processed shit:
|
| https://www.cheetos.com/products/cheetos-crunchy-flamin-
| hot-...
|
| What I can see is a list of ingredients:
|
| > Enriched Corn Meal (Corn Meal, Ferrous Sulfate, Niacin,
| Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Vegetable Oil
| (Corn, Canola, and/or Sunflower Oil), Flamin' Hot Seasoning
| (Maltodextrin [Made from Corn], Salt, Sugar, Monosodium
| Glutamate, Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Artificial Color [Red
| 40 Lake, Yellow 6 Lake, Yellow 6, Yellow 5], Sunflower Oil,
| Cheddar Cheese [Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes], Onion
| Powder, Whey, Whey Protein Concentrate, Garlic Powder,
| Natural Flavor, Buttermilk, Sodium Diacetate, Disodium
| Inosinate, Disodium Guanylate), and Salt. CONTAINS MILK
| INGREDIENTS.
|
| Looks nutritious!
| ChickeNES wrote:
| I see a lot of pretty standard ingredients here, what's
| your problem with them?
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Nothing. It's refuting the GGP (?) who said they were
| ultra processed unhealthy junk.
| randompwd wrote:
| so he's a massive attention seeking fraud..
| ch33zer wrote:
| Seems like this guy exaggerated his story, got speaking
| engagements, a book deal, and a movie deal out of it. Now, Frito
| Lay doesn't want to completely shut him down because they're
| getting free marketing out of it. Yes they published the
| statement saying it wasn't all him, but some of their execs are
| also trying to say he had a big part in something.
|
| Why can't people just be honest? He has an inspiring story
| without all the embellishments, I wish he would have just stuck
| to it.
| geocrasher wrote:
| I lack the desire to dig into it further, but it's plausible
| that his original story is the one he started off telling, and
| when somebody said "wait, you invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos as a
| Janitor and the CEO Loved it! Let us pay you money to tell that
| story at our corporate event" he just went with it. A lot of
| people would.
|
| And let's consider this: He was a _marketing_ exec. Now he 's
| marketing himself.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >He was a marketing exec
|
| This is the rug that ties the room together :)
| freetime2 wrote:
| Motivational speakers need some sort of a hook to get people
| listen to them. "The Janitor who invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos"
| is a pretty good hook, something that people will click on.
| "The Plant Worker who Climbed the Corporate Ladder at Frito"
| would probably get far fewer clicks.
|
| Without that embellishment, he may not have had any success as
| a motivational speaker.
| sgpl wrote:
| I was recently browsing LinkedIn and some random person had
| posted that they had a 'wikipedia' entry about them and were
| super excited to find out and that they felt elated to be
| recognized in that manner.
|
| Everyone on that thread was congratulating him (which I guess
| is what people do when someone posts positive news) but the
| wikipedia entry was pretty much a copy paste job about someone
| that had a normal career (school, some job, now a PM at some
| co., early 30s) with normal accomplishments and it just smelled
| of 'self-promotion'. The wiki entry was also created two weeks
| prior by someone who primarily had only contributed this one
| major edit/post.
|
| Obviously it's not something I felt was my position to point
| out by commenting on this congratulatory thread of someone I
| didn't even know but it just reeked of BS.
|
| The irony is that people will see that LinkedIn/wiki post and
| ascribe some attributes to this person which will probably help
| him in his career and anyone who says otherwise will be
| labelled a 'hater' or some other term.
|
| I guess my point is that embellishments and exaggerations work
| for the same reason that many scams work - a lot of people are
| gullible/can be fooled by them and it results in a net positive
| outcome for the perpetrators.
| jessaustin wrote:
| _Carey currently sits on the board of... a blank-check vehicle,
| Omnichannel Acquisition Corp._
|
| I thought "SPAC" was a terrible idiom. "Blank-check vehicle" is
| certainly worse.
| yial wrote:
| I had never heard that term before- so I had to look it up.
|
| " A blank check company is a development stage company that has
| no specific business plan or purpose or has indicated its
| business plan is to engage in a merger or acquisition with an
| unidentified company or companies, other entity, or person.
| These companies typically involve speculative investments and
| often fall within the SEC's definition of "penny stocks" or are
| considered "microcap stocks."
|
| In addition, a blank check company registering for a securities
| offering may be subject to additional requirements for the
| protection of investors, including depositing most of the
| raised funds in an escrow account until an acquisition is
| agreed to and requiring shareholder approval of any identified
| acquisition.
|
| A type of blank check company is a "special purpose acquisition
| company," or SPAC for short. A SPAC is created specifically to
| pool funds in order to finance a merger or acquisition
| opportunity within a set timeframe. The opportunity usually has
| yet to be identified."
|
| https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-ba...
| mastrsushi wrote:
| The reason he got away with it is because it's a beautiful story.
| No one wants to come off as though they are going against the
| Hispanic community. Certainly not a junk food conglomerate who
| aims their products towards that demographic.
|
| "We value Richard's many contributions to our company, especially
| his insights into Hispanic consumers, but we do not credit the
| creation of Flamin' Hot Cheetos or any Flamin' Hot products to
| him."
| sgloutnikov wrote:
| He was also featured on a recent episode of Planet Money [0].
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/2021/05/12/996228628/hot-cheetos
| GoofballJones wrote:
| Yes, was just listening to that just this past week.
| scrooched_moose wrote:
| Man I love when stories like this go down. Not because I have any
| interest either way, but because it will silently be deleted from
| thousands of management "how to ideation" slide decks, to be
| replaced by something equally as bite-sized.
|
| If only the "McDonald's Milkshake Job to Be Done" would be next.
|
| https://www.concurate.com/how-jtbd-job-to-be-done-theory-hel...
| karmakaze wrote:
| > The new product was designed to to compete with spicy snacks
| sold in the inner-city mini-marts of the Midwest. A junior
| employee with a freshly minted MBA named Lynne Greenfeld got the
| assignment to develop the brand -- she came up with the Flamin'
| Hot name and shepherded the line into existence.
|
| This names the person who branded the line but with an internal
| investigation I would expect the person and the story of how the
| flavour itself was conceived to be reported.
|
| Seems like there's more to the story than is being told by both
| sides. The company story would be more believable with more
| details. There's no reason not to believe that official company
| records didn't credit a janitor who conceived and prototyped a
| flavour by someone in a position who was happy to take credit.
| Could be either way or a bit of both not wanting to give or share
| credit for whatever reasons.
| kadoban wrote:
| That would make sense except his timeline doesn't even line up.
| How could he have created and pitched Flamin' Hot _well after_
| it already existed. He specifically and repeatedly names the
| CEO who empowered him as well, and who the CEO was changed in
| the critical time period, so the years getting fuzzy doesn't
| help either.
| fakedang wrote:
| Didn't credit a janitor who lived miles away in California, and
| gave it instead to an MBA and her entire team in the Midwest?
|
| I suspect that Flamin Hot Cheetos were released early on, and
| after Montanez' pitch for Sabrositas, they involved him with
| the design of the existing product even more. But taking claim
| for inventing Flamin Hot Cheetos is quite simply fraud,
| especially in the face of overwhelming evidence against those
| claims.
| msrenee wrote:
| He also claims he gave the pitch to a guy that didn't even work
| for the company when the products were being developed.
|
| He may not even realize he's lying. Things get foggy after 20
| years. But that doesn't change the truth. And the truth appears
| to be that he helped develop a similar product aimed at the
| Hispanic market that isn't in production today. The dates,
| locations, and people he claims were involved don't line up at
| all with the evidence that's out there for him to have been the
| one that pitched the flaming hot idea.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| That is also in the story:
|
| > Frito-Lay's statement contradicted its former CEO. "According
| to our records, McCormick, Frito-Lay's longtime seasoning
| supplier, developed the Flamin' Hot seasoning and sent initial
| samples to Frito-Lay on Dec. 15, 1989," the statement said.
| "This is essentially the same seasoning Frito-Lay uses today."
| [deleted]
| avalys wrote:
| If you read the entire article - it's not as if this man's entire
| life story is pure bullshit. He really did start as a low-level
| worker at one of their plants, he really did come up with some
| concepts for Hispanic-style flavor variations that Frito Lay
| adopted and ultimately sold, and he really did work his way up to
| becoming "Vice President of Multicultural Sales" for Frito-lay.
|
| It sounds like he's simplified part of the story, maybe
| exaggerated a little, and maybe changed some of the specific
| product names to ones that are more generally recognizable. But
| the core of the story is true.
|
| This is no different than how any other energetic, extroverted,
| outgoing, optimistic sales / marketing executive I've worked with
| would behave (let alone - a founder trying to pitch a VC).
| They're not necessarily being dishonest - not everyone has an
| engineer or a scientist's analytical memory and linear, organized
| view of cause and effect. And it's not as if we're talking about
| presenting evidence from a clinical study for a cancer drug here
| - the man is just telling a story, everyone knows that.
|
| Not sure this merits the tone of the headline or the start of the
| article, which certainly will give 90% of the people who just
| skim it the impression he made the whole thing up.
| crunchies wrote:
| I read the entire article. Of course it doesn't say his "entire
| life story is pure bullshit". That's a straw man. But it
| includes a ton of evidence that his claim to have invented
| Flaming Hot Cheetos is bullshit, as well as lots of examples
| where he's changed his story many times over the years.
| pessimizer wrote:
| How can the core of the story of the guy who created Flamin'
| Hot Cheetos be true if he had absolutely nothing to do with the
| creation of Flamin' Hot Cheetos?
|
| The real shocking part of the article is to find out that we
| (black kids growing up on the South Side of Chicago in the 80s)
| invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos because of our addiction to
| putting hot sauce on our chips. I honestly thought everybody
| did that, and didn't understand the early rise of the Flamin'
| Hots craze - I assumed there were always products like that
| available, because there _were_ always local products like that
| available in Chicago.
|
| > This is no different than how any other energetic,
| extroverted, outgoing, optimistic sales / marketing executive
| I've worked with would behave (let alone - a founder trying to
| pitch a VC). They're not necessarily being dishonest - not
| everyone has an engineer or a scientist's analytical memory and
| linear, organized view of cause and effect. And it's not as if
| we're talking about presenting evidence from a clinical study
| for a cancer drug here - the man is just telling a story,
| everyone knows that.
|
| You could just shorten this to "who cares, it's just another
| bullshit artist."
| elijaht wrote:
| Not trying to downplay the main point of your comment, but
|
| > our addiction to putting hot sauce on our chips
|
| sounds absolutely delicious, is it as simple as it sounds?
| alisonkisk wrote:
| As long as you have a carry bag
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rQllAj8vXes
| fouc wrote:
| > Around that time, Montanez began working on a line of
| products pitched specifically at the Latino market in the Los
| Angeles area: Sabrositas. Images that Montanez has posted to
| his Instagram account show that the Sabrositas line included
| Flamin' Hot Popcorn, two types of Fritos -- Flamin' Hot and
| Lime and Chile Corn Chips -- and a Doritos variety billed as
| bunuelito-style tortilla chips.
|
| seems likely he was involved in different product lines with
| very similar names
| pessimizer wrote:
| Meaning that he saw a product that was being marketed to
| black people and thought that with a few changes, variants
| could be successfully marketed to Hispanics.
|
| Those lines he came up with do not exist anymore, however,
| because I'm pretty sure Hispanic stores just import lime-
| chile brands from Mexico. They weren't an original idea,
| they're common.
| edoceo wrote:
| Sabritas Turbos Flamas
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Sabritas-Turbos-Snacks-
| Flamas-9-25oz/...
|
| Hella good too.
| msrenee wrote:
| There's dorito products out there that are extremely
| similar to Takis. I don't know the timeline though.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| It isn't clear what he came up with. But they sell
| Flamin' Hot Popcorn and Fritos still. And Chile Lime
| Fritos in Mexico.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I don't remember Flaming Hot Cheetos before the 2000s. As a
| snack enthusiast, I'd remember if it were widespread back
| then.
|
| So it's not out of the question that the guy sincerely
| believed his push for a latino-marketed chips in the early
| 90s was widely adopted and rebranded.
|
| He's also a bit of a story teller, so I feel like this is
| more a case of "Big Fish" rather than a "Talented Mr Ripley".
| harles wrote:
| In my experience, bullshit doesn't exist in isolation. If his
| boldest claim is bs, then likely many other things about his
| story are. I'd even go as far as to question whether his career
| advancement was enabled by this behavior.
|
| A bit of rant, but people like this are toxic and need to be
| weeded out of organizations. I've seen too much of folks
| getting away with such behavior in my career.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _I'd even go as far as to question whether his career
| advancement was enabled by this behavior._
|
| If it was then he's perfect for corporate America and fully
| deserves his position.
| Gimpei wrote:
| He claims that he invented the flaming hot line, which he
| didn't. There probably are sales people and founders who engage
| in a similar level "exaggeration". And there's a pretty good
| name for them: liars.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| The core of his story is that he invented Flamin Hots. That
| isn't true. The level of spin you're putting on blatant
| falsehoods here is amazing. According to Frito Lay, he wasn't
| even near the project. That's not non-linear recollection,
| that's just self serving mistruths.
| Sparkle-san wrote:
| Planet Money did an episode[0] on this tale recently and
| reached out to Frito-Lay. Their general response was that
| their record keeping back was not great and they don't have
| record of how exactly hot cheetos came to be. This seems to
| be directly at odds with this piece so I don't know that the
| truth is known.
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/2021/05/12/996228628/hot-cheetos
| randompwd wrote:
| FTA:
|
| > "None of our records show that Richard was involved in
| any capacity in the Flamin' Hot test market," Frito-Lay
| wrote in a statement to The Times, in response to questions
| about an internal investigation whose existence has not
| been previously disclosed. "We have interviewed multiple
| personnel who were involved in the test market, and all of
| them indicate that Richard was not involved in any capacity
| in the test market.
|
| > One photograph, posted to Instagram in October 2019 but
| now deleted, shows four pieces of lined notebook paper,
| labeled "mild," "reg," "hot" and "extra hot," with Cheetos
| piled on top of each. At the bottom of one, Montanez signed
| his name and wrote the date "1988."
|
| > In another post, now deleted, he wrote that he worked on
| the Doritos Salsa Rio flavor in 1998 -- a product that
| first hit test markets in 1987, according to Advertising
| Age articles from that year.
|
| >But Enrico did not work at Frito-Lay when Flamin' Hot
| products were developed. His move to Frito-Lay was
| announced in December 1990, and he took over control at the
| beginning of 1991 -- nearly six months after Flamin' Hots
| were already out in the test market.
|
| He is a fraud. End of.
| ilikepi wrote:
| They also said in that episode, although the CEO at the
| time has since passed away, another former CEO, Al Carey,
| has publicly credited him with inventing the flavor.
|
| EDIT: Apparently that is also disputed, however.
| msbarnett wrote:
| TFA goes into this in detail. They asked Carey, he said
| Montanez came up with the flavour. Then they confronted
| Carey with the fact that the product pre-exists
| Montanez's involvement by years, and was developed by
| other people entirely. Carey replied that Montanez was
| essential in "reformulating" the flavour to make it the
| success it is today.
|
| Then they asked the company about that, and Frito Lay
| responded that they've been buying the same seasoning
| from McCormick since the initial 1989 test market trials
| in the northeast that predate Montanez's 1993-1994
| Sabrositas pitch. Not only has it not been reformulated,
| Montanez entire story (not directly related in this
| article) of single handedly developing the flavouring to
| dunk unflavoured cheetos he took home with him for his
| pitch must be bullshit, since it's entirely developed by
| and sourced from a third-party company.
|
| His response:
|
| > Carey said he was unsure how to account for that
| contradiction. "I'm sure if you went back into the Frito-
| Lay history, OK, there's probably something in 1990 that
| was a test market on a spicy product," he said. "I'll be
| surprised if it was this same ingredient, but it could
| have been, I guess."
|
| "Ok sure, the entire product may already have been in
| test somewhere else and I'd be very surprised to learn it
| had all the same ingredients", which it did. Incredible
| stuff. Probably just a coincidence he also gets co-
| speaking fees with Montanez in some appearances.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Some past related threads:
|
| _How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin ' Hot Cheetos
| (2017)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25510351 - Dec
| 2020 (261 comments)
|
| _A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20227175 - June 2019 (356
| comments)
|
| _The Janitor Who Hacked Cheetos_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3764044 - March 2012 (9
| comments)
| divbzero wrote:
| Could we add a comment to those old threads noting the full
| story and linking to this new thread?
| jetrink wrote:
| eurleif, on the 2012 article:
|
| > Maybe I'm just cynical, but this story seems too perfect to
| me. It smells a lot like PR fiction. Would they really need a
| janitor to come up with the idea of spicy Cheetos? Seems like
| something they would've already been experimenting with as part
| of normal R&D.
| underseacables wrote:
| Gosh I'm not sure how I feel about this. It's like learning a
| sports hero doped, you don't want to believe it, must be
| something else, but in your gut there's that feeling. The man
| really accomplished a lot, I wound hate to see his true
| achievements buried
| xeromal wrote:
| Like discovering Bill Cosby was a POS. :'(
| geocrasher wrote:
| Yes, that is a very sad one for me. I grew up listening to
| his comedy on LP, and now I have to never listen to it again
| because of what a terrible person he is/was. I really hate
| that.
|
| And c'mon. Lance Armstrong. What a let down. I do respect him
| for owning up to it at least at some point. That had to
| take... guts.
| shkkmo wrote:
| It doesn't take guts to own up when you've already been
| caught and it doesn't make up for the peoole that were
| harmed by trying to keep the secret.
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| You can still listen to Cosby. He is still funny. Just
| don't dope your dates with quaaludes.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Takis are better
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/Dat5J
| fortran77 wrote:
| People _want_ to believe in something. It doesn 't matter how big
| or small.
|
| And if Frito-Lay is promoting this story, even though it's not
| true, because it sounds "good" how is it any different/less
| offensive from "Aunt Jemima" or "Uncle Ben"? (i.e., fictional
| characters invented to create a narrative.) It seems patronizing
| and offensive.
| paulsutter wrote:
| The author of this article is also aggrandizing his story, not
| just Montanez
|
| What percent of readers will get past the first 60+ paragraphs to
| learn that Montanez did come up with one Flamin' Hot product,
| even if it was much later than he claims?
|
| >"After testing recipes and outlining a marketing strategy,
| Montanez burst forth with a kernel of an idea: Flamin' Hot
| Popcorn, which will soon make its debut." An industry news wire
| announced that Flamin' Hot Popcorn did in fact hit shelves in
| March 1994, as an extension of the Flamin' Hot line that
| Greenfeld and her colleagues had rolled out four years earlier.
| elijaht wrote:
| Hard disagree; he's made claims for years about pitching the
| original Flamin' Hot Cheetos line. He didn't. I don't care that
| he extended the line to popcorn. It makes no difference to the
| consistent lie being told about his story, which is that he
| pitched Flamin' Hot Cheetos
| mdorazio wrote:
| That's not a "kernel of truth", it's a gross
| mischaracterization. There is a huge difference between
| inventing an entire new product category that is massively
| successful and taking an already successful category and adding
| a single offshoot to it.
| [deleted]
| frugalmail wrote:
| Taking credit that was due elsewhere makes this person absolute
| scum.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| It's an incredibly bold lie to just take a famous product, claim
| you invented it, and then go public with speeches and books about
| your success as an inventor. In a way, it's congruent to his
| philosophy as a motivational speaker - "take ownership". He did
| just that and it worked out great.
|
| The whole thing actually reminds me of the time I invented the
| iPod. See, I'd always liked listening to music while I ran, but
| my darn "walkman" kept skipping. So I called up the CEO of the
| company I was a contract security worker at, and I said "Mr.
| Jobs, Mr. Jobs, have I got an idea for you!"
| notahacker wrote:
| It's not _that_ bold a lie. He started at the bottom of a
| corporate ladder and climbed close enough to the top to be on
| first name terms with one of the CEOs. The details of how he
| _actually_ got there and the moderately popular spicy products
| he actually championed are obviously less exciting than
| invented version where he 's still a janitor when he meets the
| CEO and he conjures spicy flavours from scratch... but the
| blagging skills he uses to deliver that story are broadly the
| same ones that helped him navigate actual middle management
| meetings at a company he actually did work for. And of course
| he knows both that the actual details if his ladder-climbing
| are boring and that Frito-Lays themselves wouldn't mind the
| interesting... variation. As if you actually designed the
| charger for the second generation iPod, but...
|
| Much like the Catch Me If You Can scammer who came up a few
| weeks ago, who turns out to have just been a forger of small
| checks who clung to people in a really creepy way, but parlayed
| the same basic lying techniques into being a Hollywood antihero
| whose criminal genius had the FBI hanging off his every word
| when they eventually caught up with him
| ALittleLight wrote:
| It's certainly an impressive story to start work in an entry
| level position and end your career as an executive. That's
| something to be proud of. However, I'd bet that a substantial
| portion of executives have similar stories. Starting at an
| entry level is pretty common.
|
| As for the rest, it does all seem to be complete lies. He
| didn't invent the flavor, he didn't come up with the idea
| based on his Hispanic heritage, he didn't pitch the CEO as a
| janitor.
|
| If someone is trying to sell you their strategy for amazing
| success it matters whether they are actually an amazing
| success or not. It also matters whether they succeeded by
| using their own strategy or not. His "take ownership"
| philosophy might be what drove his success at Fritos, but I'd
| bet it was more of the typical hard work, creativity, luck,
| and lying.
| freetime2 wrote:
| > It's certainly an impressive story to start work in an
| entry level position and end your career as an executive.
| That's something to be proud of.
|
| His history of lying and taking credit for other peoples'
| work certainly does cast doubt on the merits of his rise up
| the corporate ladder. Anyone who has spent time in the
| corporate world has met people in high-ranking positions
| who they felt didn't really deserve to be there. I know
| nothing about this guy's time at Frito-Lay, so of course I
| can't really say anything about whether his success there
| was merited. But I'm definitely not willing to give him the
| benefit of the doubt, either.
| tootie wrote:
| If by "bagging skills" you mean relentless bald-faced lying
| and willingness to take credit for other people's work then
| that's true. It's easy to imagine that someone so willing to
| capitalize on a forged biography is likely morally bankrupt
| to his core and a grade A narcissist.
| beckingz wrote:
| And then you had your partner cook up a bunch of iPod
| prototypes at home before the pitch meeting?
| jldugger wrote:
| The were just Diamond Rios his wife spray painted white
| though.
| jdhdhrj wrote:
| Man I had that, 32mb iirc, could get a whole album whilst
| delivering papers for some slave driving cunt
| ec109685 wrote:
| I am not sure the lie started out that way. He did pitch
| something and the Flamin' Hot Doritos came out in his market
| subsequent to that pitch, so the charitable explanation is that
| he genuinely thought his pitch influenced the final product.
| msbarnett wrote:
| > I am not sure the lie started out that way. He did pitch
| something and the Flamin' Hot Doritos came out in his market
| subsequent to that pitch, so the charitable explanation is
| that he genuinely thought his pitch influenced the final
| product.
|
| Reread the article. It concludes he pitched the concept of a
| marketing line called "Sabrositas" in 1994. Sabrositas
| included pre-existing products, including Flamin' Hot
| Cheetos, which had been on shelves as early as 1989. It also
| included the pre-existing cheeto flavouring on top of
| popcorn, which was his only new product in the line. And he
| was already an exec, having been promoted from a Machinist
| (not janitor) apparently on the basis of initiative shown in
| waste-reduction ideas and not cheetos-flavour invention, when
| he pitched Sabrositas.
|
| Alone, it requires a lot of charity to square this with his
| version of events. Did he, in picking products for his
| marketing pitch, somehow imagine the cheetos one didn't exist
| before he picked it? Did he forget that he was an exec when
| he pitched the marketing line, too?
|
| But on top of that you have all the elaborate details of his
| claim of having developed the flavour profile (in talks, he
| literally claims to have sat around fucking around with
| spices trying to get the flavour right) and dunked
| unflavoured cheetos into it to present to the CEO & execs,
| when again the article concludes that the seasoning is
| sourced from a supplier called McCormick since 1989, years
| before his pitch. His claim of convincing all his family to
| buy out the test market for Flamin' Hot Cheetos, in
| California where the Flamin Hot Cheetos test market wasn't,
| years after it had already entered general sales. And the
| secretary remembering that he first spoke to the CEO in
| 1993-1994, only after he was already an exec, despite his
| elaborate story of pitching to the CEO (who wasn't the CEO at
| the time he was a janitor) as a janitor, which he hadn't been
| for over a decade when the CEO joined and he made his pitch.
|
| It requires something well beyond charity to believe _he_
| genuinely believes his story when so much of it is based on
| elaborate details that are well out of line with the bare
| facts.
| pwdisswordfish8 wrote:
| > a supplier called McCormick
|
| Funny to hear it described like this. The McCormick in
| question is almost certainly this one:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCormick_%26_Company
| msbarnett wrote:
| Yeah tbh I immediately recognized the name, but I don't
| know how well known it is to non-North Americans, who
| tend to make up the weekend crowd.
|
| If you're aware of what they do, though, it really
| further undermines the idea that he's just misrembering:
| McCormick does a ton of R&D on seasonings to match the
| evolution of market tastes, and it makes complete sense
| that Frito Lay when developing new products to trial does
| so by buying seasonings that match the market profile
| they want out of their catalog, and doesn't have janitors
| sitting at home mixing Cheeto dust and cayan and other
| spices for weeks to singlehandedly invent new flavourings
| to pitch to CEOs, when bulk spice ingredient purchasing
| and mixing isn't even the business Frito Lay is actually
| in.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > It's an incredibly bold lie to just take a famous product,
| claim you invented it, and then go public with speeches and
| books about your success as an inventor.
|
| Don't you think such lies are commonplace these days,
| unfortunately? This one seems run of the mill to me.
|
| Because it's not an inflammatory topic, it might be a useful
| case to examine and learn how lies like that function.
| o_p wrote:
| As fake as the american dream!
|
| I like how this guys became successful by literally lying
| Tarsul wrote:
| well, yeah. The cynical part of me has a similar reaction:
| "This is typical of America", we also see a lot of comments
| here that justify his actions, so there certainly is a cultural
| assessment that this type of "showmanship" is kinda worshipped
| in America. I mean, who can argue otherwise with the success of
| Trump, Theranos, Fox News, Mark Cuban, Musk etc. Not all
| showmanship is bad but if lying or talking shit is too
| successful it offen leads to more sinister things like outright
| lies (well, these here are lies already, imo), corruption
| (because the success is not built on effort but on being liked,
| so you share your successes with your friends) and so on. Also
| if nothing is built on facts but rather on persona (like fox
| news) then we get in trouble when no one believes in climate
| change or doesnt trust vaccines etc. So in my opinion this
| culture of showmanship or populism or story before facts is not
| good in the long run. But it's entertaining, now isn't it?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-05-16 23:01 UTC)