15 ms·

The man who didn't invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos

336 points by krustyburger 5y ago

nn3 5y ago
Reiterates my opinion that professional motivational speakers are largely frauds.
- bombcar 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
  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-mackenzie-bezos-amazon-review-everything-store-20131104-story.html https://www.latimes.com/books/la-xpm-2013-nov-04-la-et-jc-ma...
- Rapzid 5y ago
  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..
karmakaze 5y ago
> 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.
- femiagbabiaka 5y ago
  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.”
- fakedang 5y ago
  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.
- kadoban 5y ago
  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.
- 5y ago
underseacables 5y ago
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 5y ago
  Like discovering Bill Cosby was a POS. :'(
  - geocrasher 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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.
      - geocrasher 5y ago
        Fair enough.
    - Uhhrrr 5y ago
      You can still listen to Cosby. He is still funny. Just don't dope your dates with quaaludes.
      - JasonFruit 5y ago
        But it isn't the same. Part of his act was that he presented himself as an upstanding person, and his act doesn't work if you know he was secretly terrible.
frombody 5y ago
I'm amazed at the length of this article. Never expected MSN to put this much effort into such a random topic.
- jjulius 5y ago
  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-cheetos-richard-montanez https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-16/flamin-hot...
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    That also explains why they could just drop the location "Ontario" into TFA without qualifying it by its location in San Bernardino County.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    I wondered what Gustavo Arellano's take would be on this: https://twitter.com/GustavoArellano/status/1393966501296705543 https://twitter.com/GustavoArellano/status/13939665012967055...
- xeromal 5y ago
  It's better than most 140 character articles that plague news sites these days
- briefcomment 5y ago
  It's seriously great reporting. They dive deep, and keep their tone as impartial as you could hope for. Good job LA Times.
deleted 5y ago
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randompwd 5y ago
so he's a massive attention seeking fraud..
jessaustin 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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-basics/glossary/blank-check-company https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-ba...
avalys 5y ago
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.
- Gimpei 5y ago
  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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 https://www.npr.org/2021/05/12/996228628/hot-cheetos
paulsutter 5y ago
The author of this article is also aggrandizing his story, not just Montañez What percent of readers will get past the first 60+ paragraphs to learn that Montañez 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, Montañez 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.
- mdorazio 5y ago
  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 5y ago
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- elijaht 5y ago
  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
ALittleLight 5y ago
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!"
- beckingz 5y ago
  And then you had your partner cook up a bunch of iPod prototypes at home before the pitch meeting?
  - jldugger 5y ago
    The were just Diamond Rios his wife spray painted white though.
    - jdhdhrj 5y ago
      Man I had that, 32mb iirc, could get a whole album whilst delivering papers for some slave driving cunt
- ec109685 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    > 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.
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ch33zer 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    >He was a marketing exec This is the rug that ties the room together :)
- sgpl 5y ago
  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.
oh_sigh 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.
o_p 5y ago
As fake as the american dream! I like how this guys became successful by literally lying
- Tarsul 5y ago
  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?
mastrsushi 5y ago
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 5y ago
He was also featured on a recent episode of Planet Money [0]. [0] https://www.npr.org/2021/05/12/996228628/hot-cheetos https://www.npr.org/2021/05/12/996228628/hot-cheetos
- GoofballJones 5y ago
  Yes, was just listening to that just this past week.
dwighttk 5y ago
Takis are better
cheese_goddess 5y ago
> 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.
- asdff 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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-cheese-flavored-snacks 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!
dang 5y ago
Some past related threads: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25510351 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20227175 - June 2019 (356 comments) The Janitor Who Hacked Cheetos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3764044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3764044 - March 2012 (9 comments)
- jetrink 5y ago
  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.
  - deleted 5y ago
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- divbzero 5y ago
  Could we add a comment to those old threads noting the full story and linking to this new thread?
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.is/Dat5J https://archive.is/Dat5J
rcurry 5y ago
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 5y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romy_and_Michele%27s_High_School_Reunion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romy_and_Michele%27s_High_Sc...
  - rcurry 5y ago
    Ha ha, thanks!
frugalmail 5y ago
Taking credit that was due elsewhere makes this person absolute scum.
gurumeditations 5y ago
He lied and continues to lie to keep making money as a motivational speaker.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  Yes. It is one of the most American success stories I've seen in a long time..
robocat 5y ago
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 5y ago
  Climbing the rungs of the charlatan career ladder, like Tim Ferriss.
austincheney 5y ago
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.
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fortran77 5y ago
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.
freetime2 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
"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 ...
jtlienwis 5y ago
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.
- blast 5y ago
  Wait, Seymour Cray never dug a tunnel under his house? Damn.
scrooched_moose 5y ago
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-helped-mcdonalds/ https://www.concurate.com/how-jtbd-job-to-be-done-theory-hel...
werber 5y ago
I’ve heard the original story and this clarification sounds like the material for a much better movie
randombits0 5y ago
The chip is a lie.
failwhaleshark 5y ago
All kinds of people claim they "thought of something first" as if ideas without execution means something like planting a flag in a distant land. A delusional, extreme form of this then claims they invented a product, service, brand, or technology. For example, my mom's long-time accounting coworker claimed repeatedly that someone[0] "stole" her business plan in a business class and then went on to launch Papa Murphy's take-and-bake pizza franchise. 0. Terry Collins? About the right age and location, but did they attend business classes at the same time?
towardsclarity 5y ago
Unfortunately, the truth probably won't spread quickly enough to put out the falsehood. The flamin' hot cheetos janitor story will probably live on, even if it's not true. It's part of cultural legend now.
ncmncm 5y ago
That's nothing! I too did not invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos. But I also did not invent Sabrositas! In fact, I can supply you with a very long list of unhealthy, unhygienic, and even actively toxic junk foods I did not invent. We need not delve into the worlds of trans fatty acids, glucose-to-fructose conversion enzymes, or other current public-health disasters which I have had no hand in -- many of which I don't even know about.
ProAm 5y ago
NPR Planet Money just did a podcast about this and talked to Frito Lay they didnt deny it like this article as much but said they didnt take notes or have any records of it because they just didnt keep records of this kind of stuff [1] [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/05/12/996228628/hot-cheetos https://www.npr.org/2021/05/12/996228628/hot-cheetos
- jjeaff 5y ago
  Also just finished that episode. I noticed that neither Montanez, nor the reporter ever say "flamin' hot cheetos". They just say "hot cheetos". And NPR also did verify that there was a market run around that time, in his region of a spicy cheetos product around that time. So it sounds very plausible that he did in fact create a "hot cheeto" that may have gone on to inspire the broadly marketed flamin' hot cheetos we see today.
ckemere 5y ago
Wouldn't it be ironic if the truth of the story is that some poor small business owner in Chicago came up with a spicy-cheesy-crunchy treat (in their kitchen?) and was poised to be a rags-to-riches story, but then Frito Lay carefully copied the spices and came up with a marketing campaign that left them behind...
- moron4hire 5y ago
  I mean, they basically say that in the article. They got the idea by seeing other spicy snacks from smaller companies clearing out the shelves and started buying them up to figure them out.
adamrezich 5y ago
imagine if all journalism was this thorough and investigative.
softawre 5y ago
This guy spoke at my software company a few months ago and everybody was so inspired. Jeesh.
dakial1 5y ago
Something that I learned working on marketing related positions is that you can go a long way with lies like that (taking credit for something you didn't do) specially when you are higher up in the chain. I'd guess that most VP/C levels curriculum might be of things they have little to no participation over. Nobody who know what really happened would botter burning their bridges just to set the record straight, so these guys sail away with these types of stories. I'd say is even worse in ad agencies...

336 points by krustyburger 5y ago

nn3 5y ago

Reiterates my opinion that professional motivational speakers are largely frauds.

bombcar 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
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-mackenzie-bezos-amazon-review-everything-store-20131104-story.html https://www.latimes.com/books/la-xpm-2013-nov-04-la-et-jc-ma...
Rapzid 5y ago
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..

karmakaze 5y ago

> 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.

femiagbabiaka 5y ago
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.”
fakedang 5y ago
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.
kadoban 5y ago
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.
5y ago

underseacables 5y ago

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 5y ago
Like discovering Bill Cosby was a POS. :'(
- geocrasher 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.
    - geocrasher 5y ago
      Fair enough.
  - Uhhrrr 5y ago
    You can still listen to Cosby. He is still funny. Just don't dope your dates with quaaludes.
    - JasonFruit 5y ago
      But it isn't the same. Part of his act was that he presented himself as an upstanding person, and his act doesn't work if you know he was secretly terrible.

frombody 5y ago

I'm amazed at the length of this article. Never expected MSN to put this much effort into such a random topic.

jjulius 5y ago
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-cheetos-richard-montanez https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-16/flamin-hot...
- jessaustin 5y ago
  That also explains why they could just drop the location "Ontario" into TFA without qualifying it by its location in San Bernardino County.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  I wondered what Gustavo Arellano's take would be on this: https://twitter.com/GustavoArellano/status/1393966501296705543 https://twitter.com/GustavoArellano/status/13939665012967055...
xeromal 5y ago
It's better than most 140 character articles that plague news sites these days
briefcomment 5y ago
It's seriously great reporting. They dive deep, and keep their tone as impartial as you could hope for. Good job LA Times.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

randompwd 5y ago

so he's a massive attention seeking fraud..

jessaustin 5y ago

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 5y ago
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-basics/glossary/blank-check-company https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-ba...

avalys 5y ago

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.

Gimpei 5y ago
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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 https://www.npr.org/2021/05/12/996228628/hot-cheetos

paulsutter 5y ago

The author of this article is also aggrandizing his story, not just Montañez What percent of readers will get past the first 60+ paragraphs to learn that Montañez 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, Montañez 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.

mdorazio 5y ago
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 5y ago
  [deleted]
elijaht 5y ago
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

ALittleLight 5y ago

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!"

beckingz 5y ago
And then you had your partner cook up a bunch of iPod prototypes at home before the pitch meeting?
- jldugger 5y ago
  The were just Diamond Rios his wife spray painted white though.
  - jdhdhrj 5y ago
    Man I had that, 32mb iirc, could get a whole album whilst delivering papers for some slave driving cunt
ec109685 5y ago
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 5y ago
  > 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.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ch33zer 5y ago

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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  >He was a marketing exec This is the rug that ties the room together :)
sgpl 5y ago
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.

oh_sigh 5y ago

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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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.

o_p 5y ago

As fake as the american dream! I like how this guys became successful by literally lying

Tarsul 5y ago
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?

mastrsushi 5y ago

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 5y ago

He was also featured on a recent episode of Planet Money [0]. [0] https://www.npr.org/2021/05/12/996228628/hot-cheetos https://www.npr.org/2021/05/12/996228628/hot-cheetos

GoofballJones 5y ago
Yes, was just listening to that just this past week.

dwighttk 5y ago

Takis are better

cheese_goddess 5y ago

> 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.

asdff 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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-cheese-flavored-snacks 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!

dang 5y ago

Some past related threads: How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25510351 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20227175 - June 2019 (356 comments) The Janitor Who Hacked Cheetos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3764044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3764044 - March 2012 (9 comments)

jetrink 5y ago
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.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
divbzero 5y ago
Could we add a comment to those old threads noting the full story and linking to this new thread?

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.is/Dat5J https://archive.is/Dat5J

rcurry 5y ago

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 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romy_and_Michele%27s_High_School_Reunion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romy_and_Michele%27s_High_Sc...
- rcurry 5y ago
  Ha ha, thanks!

frugalmail 5y ago

Taking credit that was due elsewhere makes this person absolute scum.

gurumeditations 5y ago

He lied and continues to lie to keep making money as a motivational speaker.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
Yes. It is one of the most American success stories I've seen in a long time..

robocat 5y ago

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 5y ago
Climbing the rungs of the charlatan career ladder, like Tim Ferriss.

austincheney 5y ago

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.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

fortran77 5y ago

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.

freetime2 5y ago

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 5y ago
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 5y ago

"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 ...

jtlienwis 5y ago

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.

blast 5y ago
Wait, Seymour Cray never dug a tunnel under his house? Damn.

scrooched_moose 5y ago

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-helped-mcdonalds/ https://www.concurate.com/how-jtbd-job-to-be-done-theory-hel...

werber 5y ago

I’ve heard the original story and this clarification sounds like the material for a much better movie

randombits0 5y ago

The chip is a lie.

failwhaleshark 5y ago

All kinds of people claim they "thought of something first" as if ideas without execution means something like planting a flag in a distant land. A delusional, extreme form of this then claims they invented a product, service, brand, or technology. For example, my mom's long-time accounting coworker claimed repeatedly that someone[0] "stole" her business plan in a business class and then went on to launch Papa Murphy's take-and-bake pizza franchise. 0. Terry Collins? About the right age and location, but did they attend business classes at the same time?

towardsclarity 5y ago

Unfortunately, the truth probably won't spread quickly enough to put out the falsehood. The flamin' hot cheetos janitor story will probably live on, even if it's not true. It's part of cultural legend now.

ncmncm 5y ago

That's nothing! I too did not invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos. But I also did not invent Sabrositas! In fact, I can supply you with a very long list of unhealthy, unhygienic, and even actively toxic junk foods I did not invent. We need not delve into the worlds of trans fatty acids, glucose-to-fructose conversion enzymes, or other current public-health disasters which I have had no hand in -- many of which I don't even know about.

ProAm 5y ago

NPR Planet Money just did a podcast about this and talked to Frito Lay they didnt deny it like this article as much but said they didnt take notes or have any records of it because they just didnt keep records of this kind of stuff [1] [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/05/12/996228628/hot-cheetos https://www.npr.org/2021/05/12/996228628/hot-cheetos

jjeaff 5y ago
Also just finished that episode. I noticed that neither Montanez, nor the reporter ever say "flamin' hot cheetos". They just say "hot cheetos". And NPR also did verify that there was a market run around that time, in his region of a spicy cheetos product around that time. So it sounds very plausible that he did in fact create a "hot cheeto" that may have gone on to inspire the broadly marketed flamin' hot cheetos we see today.

ckemere 5y ago

Wouldn't it be ironic if the truth of the story is that some poor small business owner in Chicago came up with a spicy-cheesy-crunchy treat (in their kitchen?) and was poised to be a rags-to-riches story, but then Frito Lay carefully copied the spices and came up with a marketing campaign that left them behind...

moron4hire 5y ago
I mean, they basically say that in the article. They got the idea by seeing other spicy snacks from smaller companies clearing out the shelves and started buying them up to figure them out.

adamrezich 5y ago

imagine if all journalism was this thorough and investigative.

softawre 5y ago

This guy spoke at my software company a few months ago and everybody was so inspired. Jeesh.

dakial1 5y ago

Something that I learned working on marketing related positions is that you can go a long way with lies like that (taking credit for something you didn't do) specially when you are higher up in the chain. I'd guess that most VP/C levels curriculum might be of things they have little to no participation over. Nobody who know what really happened would botter burning their bridges just to set the record straight, so these guys sail away with these types of stories. I'd say is even worse in ad agencies...