历史与人物thehustle.co
菲多利的一名清洁工发明了火辣奇多
A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)
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导读
这篇文章讲述了 Frito-Lay 清洁工 Richard Montañez 的故事：他从公司内部通讯中抓住机会，借鉴墨西哥街头玉米的传统调味，自制了 Flamin' Hot Cheetos 并向 CEO 自荐，最终从清洁工一路晋升为高管。故事兼具励志色彩与争议——后来有报道质疑其部分说法。
为什么经久不衰：它触及阶层流动、企业创新盲区和'局外人视角'等话题，无论故事真假都持续引发讨论，多年后仍值得思考。
HN 评论精选
文章只讲了成名前的传奇，却略过了从清洁工到高管之间最关键的成长历程
这篇文章恰好在真正有趣的部分开始前就结束了。清洁工给公司食品加调料、做个粗糙的演示就成功了？这更多是运气。真正有趣的是之后：一个不识字的清洁工如何学会商业、学会读写、学会领导一个业务部门，从体力劳动者'零到六十'变成高管？中间这段漫长精彩的故事几乎完全没讲！
arkades查看英文原文
This article ends right before the actual interesting part begins. Janitor takes some food his company produces, adds spices, makes a shitty pitch deck and profit? Cool, but... this could have easily happened in a dozen different configurations and gone nowhere. This is more luck than anything else. The interesting story begins after that. This guy didn't end his career there - so, presumably, he was't a one-hit wonder. We have an illiterate janitor who suddenly got swept into the orbit of the CEO, without any business or operational acumen. He somehow -how??- managed to learn the ways of the new tribe, learn business, learn to read and write, learn how to lead a business unit, and do it well. This guy came out of nowhere, and had to zero-to-sixty from manual laborer to - what? executive? What position did they put him in? How did he ramp up? What kind of support did he get, if any? What kind of education did they provide him with, if any? There's a long, interesting story between "janitor" and "successful VP", and they neglected to tell almost any of it!
局外人能看到精英圈层的盲区，未被服务的人群中蕴藏巨大商机
我的收获是：在和我不同的人群中存在巨大的潜在市场。高管们可能完全没意识到这个市场，需要局外人来引路。我身边的人形成了上层单一文化，这意味着我有巨大的盲区。不知道面向老年人、零售业中年员工、亚裔新移民等群体能创造出什么大生意。
starpilot查看英文原文
My takeaway: there are huge potential markets in people who are not like me. The execs were probably completely unaware of this market, and it took an outsider to hold their hand and bring it to them. I love flaming hot cheetos and know tons of people who do, but there is no way I would have thought of taking the hot pepper / other spices from a traditional Mexican food (elotes, which I had in LA) and adapting them in this way. The fact that everyone I interact with forms an upper class monoculture (white/asian, college educated, 20s-40s, mostly US-born) means that I have huge blindspots. I wonder what huge businesses could be created catering toward senior citizens, for middle aged people working retail, recent Asian immigrants, working single fathers, and so on.
故事虽有瑕疵，但凸显了局外人视角的价值和 CEO 给机会的开放心态
这是个精彩的故事，虽然有些道德问题，比如他抄袭了部分演示内容、让亲友买空试销产品，但他拒绝接受强加的限制，成就了非凡的事。有趣的是 Frito-Lay 没有面向拉丁裔的产品，高薪营销团队无人作为，清洁工却一眼看到了问题；而 CEO 也足够谦逊，愿意听他的演示并看到核心的好点子。
camjohnson26查看英文原文
This is a fantastic story. There are a few ethical problems including Montañez plagiarizing parts of his presentation and having friends and family buy out the products in the test market, but overall he refused to accept imposed limits and accomplished something phenomenal. One interesting thing is that Frito-Lay had no products targeting Latinos, and no one on the highly paid marketing team did anything about it. The janitor saw the problem immediately, but for some reason the entrenched interests were unable to see it. The CEO by contrast was humble enough to take Montañez’s call, let him give a presentation, and overlook that presentation’s weaknesses to see the good idea at the core. Also interesting is the backlash he faced from those same executives, jealous that someone less qualified was being successful. As humans we hate to see others doing better than us and try to push them down. No wonder social mobility is so difficult.
愿意倾听清洁工的 CEO 才是故事里被忽视的关键人物
故事很美好，但另一个英雄是谁？是那位给他时间和机会的 CEO。他本可以像很多人那样让他滚蛋。我们大多数时候没有上位者的帮助就走不到今天，希望更多人保持那样的开放心态。如果你爬得更高了，别忘了像别人帮过你那样去帮助别人。
bserge查看英文原文
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've easily told him to fuck off, as many would do. Who was he, what's his name? 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. And if you manage to climb higher on the ladder, don't forget to help others like someone helped you before. Pay it forward.
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