MovieChat Forums > The Founder (2017) Discussion > All of Ray Kroc's ideas were failures

All of Ray Kroc's ideas were failures

posted 6 years ago by JohnnyCastle (393)
12 replies | jump to latest

He was a failed salesman. The McDonald's brothers showed him love. Ray couldn't sell a milkshake machine, the brothers bought 8 of them from him. They showed him the ins and outs of McDonald's.

Ray's idea was to Franchise the business. It wasn't an original idea. The McDonald brothers attempted it before and it was too much for them to monitor. They didn't want other locations to hurt their reputation. They felt they were ready this time, trusting Kroc to do the work.

Kroc expanded rapidly, not without complications. He was not making any money from it. He was breaking even.

It wasn't until Harry Sonneborn approached Kroc with the idea of owning and leasing the land to the Franchisees that he started making real money. Sonneborn just had the idea since he knew he could help and make a fortune. Kroc's own ideas were all pretty much failures.

[–] gcarras (2727) 6 years ago

Well, Kroc WAS in the REAL estate biz-not the burger one.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Here's a dumb question...

Why are sales people always so involved in developing business structures? In my experience, they don't really know those things. All they know is how to make a sale!

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I guess I'll never know...

[–] mcremp (52) 5 years ago

So, next question:

What´s more important: to have an idea or to turn it into reality ?

[–] JohnnyCastle (393) 5 years ago

If you don't know that the McDonald's brothers were already turning their idea into a reality then you have your head up your rear. I know you were just trying to defed Kroc and look smart, next time try harder.

[–] mcremp (52) 5 years ago

No need to try harder. Your use of personal accusations and bad manners make clear your lack of arguments and inability to accept other people´s opinions.

[–] Destinata (2600) 5 years ago

Well, he did sell America on the idea that HE was the guy who started McDonald's. After this movie came out, I would still see people mourning the fact that the very "first" McDonald's might be demolished. It was the first of Kroc's McDonald's, not the first McDonald's.

What an evil man, to take everything away from those fine men, even their name.

[–] JohnnyCastle (393) 5 years ago

So true.. very sad.

[–] mcremp (52) 5 years ago

Without Ray Croc, 99% of americans, and 99.99% of world´s people would not even know what the word "McDonalds" means. So, what they know is what Ray created, not what the McDonald´s brothers created. There´s a McDonalds about 2 miles from my home, and it was not created by the McDonalds brothers´s corporation.

But frankly most people do not care much about who created McDonalds, or Pizza Hut, or General Motors, or NBC, or Nike, or whatever. And if they care, they should not take opinions and decide who was the good guy and who was the bad guy based on a Hollywood movie.

[–] Destinata (2600) 5 years ago

Did you even watch this movie?

At the end he was getting some kind of award from a President who, like the rest of Americans, thought he hadn’t stolen the McDonald’s brothers’ system for getting burgers to customers quickly and had “invented” McDonald’s all by himself. Thieves don’t get awards. At least, they didn’t back then — not if everyone knew they were thieves. And people didn’t defend thieves back then, either.

Also at the end, the McDonald brothers asked him why he didn’t just steal their system? They’d showed him the whole thing, explaining the whys and hows. Kroc answered that he couldn’t think of a more American name than McDonald’s. Kroc’s wasn’t going to work for franchising. “Too Slavic.”

There are people who get rich without stealing someone else’s genius idea and their name. Kroc was a weasel. They showed the real Kroc speaking there at the end of the movie, and he even looks like a weasel.

I, of course, never ate at the real McDonald’s. But I do remember what the old McDonald’s was like, when there was a machine in the back that peeled the potatoes — you could watch it work, tumbling the potatoes against each other to get the skins off — then there was someone to cut them and fry them up, fresh. That was probably the last little bit of quality control that he’d kept from the McDonald’s brothers. They had fantastic fries, once. They’re not worth bothering with today. Of course, they taste just great if you don’t know any better. I’m sure that single hamburger from the original McDonald’s brothers’ restaurant really was worth the raving about that Kroc gave it at the beginning of the movie. You’ll never know how good a French fry could taste, thanks to some belt-tightening measures. We’ll never know how good a McDonald’s hamburger could taste, either. But second-rate is now all over the world, thanks to Ray Kroc.

[–] mcremp (52) 5 years ago

First of all, I prefer to be careful and not judge things based on a Hollywood movie. You can find this surprising, but movies sometimes twist facts, tell lies and very often distort the reality to present life in a simplistic way; they do it for the money, because they discovered most people prefer not to think too much, and appreciates when a movie brings them a story with all the conclusions already made up, and all the ideas and persons clearly labeled "good" and "evil". Think about it: by giving too much credit to a movie, and letting movies build your convictions, you are endorsing people who deceives, lies, manipulates and steals, all for personal profit.

Also, I don´t have the fantastic wisdom to judge someone after viewing a few seconds of him in a movie.

And about my previous post: McDonald´s brothers did not invented the name. McDonald is a Scottish name many centuries old. They did not invented the hamburguer, also. Yes, they had a sucessful "network" of only one restaurant with a very clever production system. That´s what they accomplish. On the other side, Ray Croc applied his clever production system and turned a one-restaurant enterprise in a all-over-the-world enterprise. That´s what he accomplish.

Last, I really don´t see what your opinion or my opinion about McDonald´s burgers and fries have to do with it. The beauty of the democracy and the free market is that there are many people trying to please the consumers, and the consumer is free to choose what they prefer. In this very moment, thousands of people all over the world are eating in a McDonalds. Probably many of them know that McDonalds does not make the best food in the world. Probably these people just think that a BigMac with fries is just good enough for them and for what they are willing to spend.

Sadly, I cannot avoid a feeling that, right now while you are reading this, you are thinking "Yeah, but this hundreds of thousand people all over the world are wrong, and I am right!"

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

While reading your comment, I found myself craving a big mac and fries for a moment... but only for a moment.