Misremembering some really critical parts like "I pitched it to the CEO Roger Enrico and that's how the product got launched" is pretty suspect.
Getting the year wrong: Forgivable. Getting some minor details wrong: Understandable.
But when literally nothing about your story fact checks and the most critical parts are contradicted by evidence, I think it's time to reconsider whether it really happened at all.
> But when literally nothing about your story fact checks
Well that's the thing: a lot of pieces of the story do fact-check, but for entirely different products rather than Flamin' Hot Cheetos specifically.
I reckon it's much more nuanced than "it totally happened" v. "it didn't happen". Even if he didn't invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos per se, he could very well have contributed to them hitting shelves nationwide instead of being confined to test markets, probably as a precursor to or component of his campaign around Flamin' Hot Popcorn et al. Or he could simply be getting things mixed up. Either way, it's concerning to see so many comments implying (or explying) malice on his part when the more likely explanations are both more mundane and more charitable. Hanlon's razor and all that.
> Or he could simply be getting things mixed up. Either way, it's concerning to see so many comments implying (or explying) malice on his part when the more likely explanations are both more mundane and more charitable.
He has a very clear story. He says the machine that coats the cheetos in cheese powder broke, so he took some home, developed a spicy powder, and coated them. Then he called up the CEO, Roger Enrico, and had a meeting with him and 100 other people where he pitched his invention.
There's no way he was somehow involved in the marketing of hot cheetos, got confused and accidentally came up with a story like that.
I'm sure the charitable version is that he slowly embellished over the years until one day he invented hot cheetos instead of being involved in popularizing them.
> He says the machine that coats the cheetos in cheese powder broke, so he took some home, developed a spicy powder, and coated them. Then he called up the CEO, Roger Enrico, and had a meeting with him and 100 other people where he pitched his invention.
That doesn't necessarily mean what he (claims to have) pitched was the exact recipe for the Flamin' Hot powder. Mixing up which CEO he pitched to aside, it's entirely possible (probable, even) that he could've presented some homemade powder only for Frito Lay to then decide "well wait, we already have this spicy powder from McCormack we're using for a Chee-tos flavor we're testing in the Midwest, so we'll just use that and greenlight it for national distribution; yo Rick, anything else we should spice up for the Latin American market? Popcorn? Fritos? Fuck it, why not?". The timeline of when Montañez allegedly "invented" Flamin' Hot Cheetos does line up with when they hit shelves nationwide; I'm willing to bet it's less a matter of him deliberately stealing credit from others and more a matter of him not having been aware of prior efforts and his independent invention being of something already in the works.
I just know it's shockingly common for "nobodies" to have a good idea, share it in some way and someone else with more status runs with it and gets the credit. And I can well imagine someone feeling like "No one will believe what actually happened" and trying to fudge the details a bit in hopes of being heard.
I'm old. I'm cynical. I'm tired.
Frankly, I didn't bother to read the full article because I'm so convinced that it's not possible to know what really happened and that if a Hispanic janitor did come up with the idea, the odds are long against him getting a fair shake. So why bother?
If anything Frito-Lay, and anyone still working there have absolutely no incentive to do anything except go along with Montañez's story. It's fantastic PR.
The only person in this story who have any incentive to lie are the sales guy, and the MBA who are claiming that they pushed for and invented hot cheetos.
But their story is backed up by documented evidence that the product existed years before Montañez claims that he invented it, and Frito-Lay confirms their story.
What sounds better--"Janitor rises to Executive by inventing flaming hot cheetos", or "MBA creates new brand by copying existing competitors"? When the vast majority of the evidence supports the 2nd version, despite it being a less compelling story, I think it's pretty safe to go with that one.
> I'm so convinced that it's not possible to know what really happened
This argument holds up when you're looking at truly old historical facts with no good evidence. We're not talking about George Washington cutting down the cherry tree. This was 1989, in a big corporate office. There is documentation, they know who worked there when, and in which offices, there are dozens of people involved in the story, most of whom are probably still alive.
Throwing your hands up and saying "it's unknowable" doesn't really make sense here.
Well, here's why it bothers me but obviously that doesn't have to be your reason: Because there's a woman named Lynne in the story who seems likely to be the one behind a lot of it, and a man is taking credit for her work.
Frito-Lay would rather push a rags-to-riches story about a man than credit a highly-qualified woman for her work.
Making this some anti-diversity thing cuts both ways: "Frito-Lay would rather give credit to a white person in Corporate than a Latino factory worker" ain't exactly a better look.
Getting the year wrong: Forgivable. Getting some minor details wrong: Understandable.
But when literally nothing about your story fact checks and the most critical parts are contradicted by evidence, I think it's time to reconsider whether it really happened at all.