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

That&#x27;s $18.52 an hour in today&#x27;s dollars. The average pay for a janitor today is closer to $12 an hour. In fact, just a few years after 1976, janitors&#x27; wages (at least in LA) started falling sharply below the cost of living: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;socialjusticehistory.org&#x2F;lalabor&#x2F;workingla&#x2F;archives&#x2F;792" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;socialjusticehistory.org&#x2F;lalabor&#x2F;workingla&#x2F;archives&#x2F;...</a><p>The fact that our economic system worked for him does not mean that it works for the vast majority of people in similar jobs. It&#x27;s quite likely that some of his colleagues are now making less money (in real terms) than they were in the 70s.

If you don&#x27;t want to read the twitter thread, you can read this:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=20227175" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=20227175</a> (2019)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thehustle.co&#x2F;hot-cheetos-inventor&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thehustle.co&#x2F;hot-cheetos-inventor&#x2F;</a>

Great story, but it can’t happen today. No janitor works for the company whose floors he’s mopping anymore, so janitors wouldn’t get that company-wide email.

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&#x27;ve easily told him to fuck off, as many would do. Who was he, what&#x27;s his name?<p>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.<p>And if you manage to climb higher on the ladder, don&#x27;t forget to help others like someone helped you before. Pay it forward.

&gt; The CEO got on the line. Loving the initiative, he told Richard to prepare a presentation, and he set a meeting in 2 weeks time.<p>So he didn&#x27;t really just walk in like the title implies. Still it&#x27;s a remarkable journey. It invokes a certain nostalgia about a past where anyone could move up through the social&#x2F;corporate ladder and if that is still the case. Personally, I wonder if that time really ever existed or if these are 1&#x2F;million changes of luck.

I knew this was going to be about hot Cheetos guy, my favorite quote of his is:<p>“I have a PhD of being poor, hungry and determined&quot;

$18&#x2F;hr adjusted for inflation. Almost a living wage back then. And unlikely to be paid today.

Unfortunately my experience has been when a CEO is asking you to “act like an owner” it is code for “spend less” and “work more.” The subject of this article had an advantage because he took things quite literally and hadn’t heard the BS before.<p>3G Capital also uses the “act like an owner” code - the problem is that their employees cut a bunch stuff and they cut a bunch of their employees.

What a legend! Janitors are outsourced now, and I wonder if the outsource everything makes the work your way to the top journey a lot harder.

This story is being made into a movie. The twitter thread, no doubt, is an effort to promote it. See<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newsweek.com&#x2F;flamin-hot-cheeto-movie-true-story-creator-richard-montanez-1456377" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newsweek.com&#x2F;flamin-hot-cheeto-movie-true-story-...</a><p>See IMDB: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt8105234&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt8105234&#x2F;</a>

I think what is special is that they offered him VP. Today he would probably got a voucher or got fired shortly and someone else taking credit. Today taking a look at particular community and researching what they are missing and taking into account their spending power is pretty standard in research. Also janitor would likely be either self employed or from agency and focused on his own life today.

Richard Montañez did quite a few podcast interviews in the past few years: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lnns.co&#x2F;aQN_ukyM4J9" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lnns.co&#x2F;aQN_ukyM4J9</a>

This story really stuck with me when I came across it here[0] last year because of the way it&#x27;s written.<p>As a few have pointed out, the Twitter messages are just &quot;paraphrasing&quot; 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&#x27;t make it okay either.<p>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.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=20227175" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=20227175</a>

&gt; So Montañez assembled a small team of family members and friends, went to the test markets, and bought every bag of Hot Cheetos he could find.<p>Well, that would certainly make them sell better, but doesn&#x27;t exactly make it an accurate test? I think I&#x27;ve heard of other companies doing this, although usually it&#x27;s to inflate revenue and growth numbers pitching to investors or space in stores. I want to say some company did this recently but I can&#x27;t remember exactly who.<p>But don&#x27;t get me wrong, I love me some flaming hot cheetos and it&#x27;s a great feeling story. Although I also remember the Wire:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=xyg_v7Vxo4A" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=xyg_v7Vxo4A</a>

I applaud both the janitor for his initiative and the executive for listening and giving credit where credit is due. I feel like in big companies today, including tech companies that are overly praised for their culture, there is little room for such a story to unfold. More likely than not, someone with initiative has donated their idea and strategy to the company for free, while someone else gets put in charge of executing it, and capturing the career benefits. It’s cynical I know and I’m sure there are counterexamples, but the vast majority of attempts at such initiative don’t go anywhere.

Another way this story could have ended:<p>CEO: Thanks for the idea! Goodbye, and don&#x27;t forget your mop!<p>(CEO shares go up by $20M)<p>Janitor: Damn, I should have brought a lawyer. If only I had the money for one.

Lovely story and kudos to both Montanez (the janitor) and the company for their success but I can&#x27;t help notice a bit of survivorship bias in these kind of stories. How many thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of such ideas come to people at all levels in all companies and how many turn out to be duds is never covered. Although the story made me feel good, I can&#x27;t really draw any lessons from it I&#x27;m afraid.

&gt; <i>So Montañez assembled a small team of family members and friends, went to the test markets, and bought every bag of Hot Cheetos he could find.</i><p>Sounds like Hampton Creek&#x27;s mayo shenanigans: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;features&#x2F;2016-hampton-creek-just-mayo&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;features&#x2F;2016-hampton-creek-just-m...</a>

I understand that from an economical perspective, this is brilliant, but the natural part of myself also think that this kinda of junk food is ruining this planet. Its more or less directly the cause of most pollution troubles (over-consumerism, transports, .., at the expense of organic local &quot;good&quot; food)

Can anyone tell me about non-founder CEOs who has done a great job of creating innovative products for a company without using MAs?<p>I&#x27;m trying to think about if there&#x27;s any correlation between the two. There are some posts in HN that was about founder ceos but I cant remember the context. I&#x27;ll have to go look for those

The person just copy pasted an article they read a while back to their Twitter. Not sure why but I really hate it.

“Inventing a new snack” and coming up with a idea for a flavor for an existing snack are two different things.<p>Also, I imagine that a couple food scientists in a lab came up with the actual flavors.

There are so many stories about how flaming hot Cheetos came to be.

Where else can one read end-to-end discovery articles as such? Anything better than regex title filters &quot;<i></i>* how <i></i><i></i> by <i></i><i></i> &quot;

My gf loves spicy cheetos. What a fun story to share.

Richard Montañez has all my admiration for what he achieved. This is a beautiful story.<p>Unfortunately, those kinds of stories also play into the narrative: be a good model employee, make sure the floors shine and trust that hard work, and great ideas will make you deservedly insanely rich. Because there are smart CEOs who will see all of that<p>Cinderella, capitalist version.<p>Too rare to be significant as a policy. Most likely does not scale. Too often, dreams are useful to convince people to accept their fate.

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

Related: It&#x27;s funny how people are happy with &lt;$1mn FAANG salary when there&#x27;s oodles to be made fulfilling untapped markets.

$4.25, but close enough.

scarcity value

Two things I haven&#x27;t seen anyone mention that seem important:<p>1. For the one person who has &quot;made it&quot; economically, there are countless others that haven&#x27;t, that still live in one-room houses. What about them?<p>2. I think it&#x27;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. We should evaluate &quot;success&quot; holistically, not just financially or else we miss the downstream effects of our decisions. This blindness is the same mindset that has caused climate change.<p>That said, it&#x27;s wonderful to see someone lifted out of poverty. I hope millions more have the same chance.

Readable version: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;threadreaderapp.com&#x2F;thread&#x2F;1341193051184611331.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;threadreaderapp.com&#x2F;thread&#x2F;1341193051184611331.html</a>

This saccharine rags-to-riches, pro-corporate fairy tale makes me so sad and mad, all the more so for the unreflective adulation it has gotten.

Whats the punchline?

$20 million in Rancho Cucamonga. So that&#x27;s like $1 million in real money, right?

He only made 20mil in earnings? I feel like he got robbed. Should have started his own company and eventually sold to Frito Lay for 10x the amount he made.

There&#x27;s no mention about whether or not the flavor Montañez came up with was the one used in the hot Cheetoes, or if the CEO even tried one.<p>Not that it matters, but I think it&#x27;s interesting that the actual product here we can safely hand-wave away, &quot;The chefs in the test kitchen will make that part work.&quot;

This is a good story that poses philosophical questions as what intelligence means. Regardless his social class and jobs he look for opportunities and achieved success. There is a movement in tech for underrepresented minorities. I would dispute that opportunities should be given to anybody regardless their social class race or background, just not only latinos, black or women

The way this story is told, makes little sense. So he sprinkled some Mexican seasoning on plain Cheetos and gave a presentation, and they gave him $20 million for that? WTF? There&#x27;s a lot left untold. Or if this is the entire story, the CEO basically decided to make this guy into a millionaire, but he didn&#x27;t have to. Or this is a clever PR stunt with maybe a sprinkling of truth.