The story:<p>780 points, 4 years ago, 356 comments <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20227175" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20227175</a><p>406 points, 2 years ago, 261 comments <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25510351" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25510351</a><p>The reality:<p>336 points, 2 years ago, 145 comments <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27173859" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27173859</a><p>I guess HN prefers a good story about rags-to-riches underdogs!
Eh, no way to really know the truth.<p>When I had a corporate job, I wrote a proposal and a new manager essentially took credit for it and botched the implementation so badly I didn't want my name associated with it.<p>Life frequently looks like <i>Pinky and the Brain</i> where who really did what is unclear.
While he didn't invent hot Cheetos, he did go from janitor to marketing director, which is already an amazing accomplishment. It's a shame he's making shit up, because it ruins his own legacy.<p>There's so much money involved he might actually believe his own story now.<p>>Montañez has built a lucrative second career out of telling and selling this story, appearing at events for Target, Walmart, Harvard and USC, among others, and commanding fees of $10,000 to $50,000 per appearance.... second memoir.... biopic... Both the book and the movie were sold after bidding wars<p>He probably makes more money as "fake hot Cheetos inventor" than "Frito Lays executive."<p>There's so little integrity involved when there is so much money.<p>>The producers of his biopic, despite being informed of problems by Frito-Lay in 2019, announced a cast for the movie in early May.
The one thing i know is that the true creatives are busy with creating new things, not with collecting past glory and building rambling, halls of fame to themselves. Thats for hasbeens and wannabees.<p>As soon as somebody starts tuning that "I was, i have been, i ve done" harp, im out of the conversation. Most boring people to engage with and thus usually hearded into conversation ghettos, were they can one up one another for all eternity without interfering.<p>Once you become that sort of silverback, all growth is over and only slow decline awaits, while beating your chest.
Somebody decided to put chilli powder on a processed chip, and then somebody else has taken the credit, including having a film made about them.<p>Thankfully, it seems like we're back to having Slow News Mondays.
Anyone else struggle to find the proper (crunchy) Flamin' Hot Cheetos in the UK? I often see the crunchy cheese ones, and the flamin' hot "puff" kind, but it's just not the same. It's just "meh" without the dense, crunchy texture of true Cheetos.<p>If Flamin' Hot Cheetos are so famous, why are they so hard to find?!
The funny thing is it doesn't really bother me. I'll probably just memory hole this apparent fact and one day when one of my kids buys a bag I'll recount this story to them as something inspirational.
Universal hyperintelligence ChatGPT disagrees with this article, saying: "The credit for inventing Flamin' Hot Cheetos goes to Richard Montañez. He was a former Frito-Lay janitor who came up with the idea for the spicy snack in the early 1990s. Montañez developed the recipe and pitched the idea to Frito-Lay executives, who eventually gave the product the green light. Flamin' Hot Cheetos went on to become a huge success and are now one of the company's most popular snacks."
Marketing is complicated. He took a defunct brand and found it's demographic, and the rest is history.<p>Lots of things get written by little people trying to take the air out of famous/talented people. It's pretty easy - "They're just human!", "They technically didn't do everything alone!"<p>Nothing to see here.