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by geophile
3352 days ago
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The Founder is a movie that tells the story of the birth and growth of McDonald's (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_founder/), and it covers much of the ground covered in this article. In addition to being a very well-done movie, it does a superb job of describing the relationship between the visionary founders of a startup, and the sales guys and bean counters who turn it into a successful business. It doesn't matter that the McDonald brothers were revolutionizing burgers, the telling of this part of the story captures perfectly the same sort of activity that goes on at any startup with a new idea, (emphasis on new). It also captures very well how the suits recognize a good thing when they see it, buy into the vision (but for very different reasons from the founders), and finally take over and render the founders obsolete. Really great movie for anyone involved with startups. |
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Kroc was just as visionary, if also greedy and manipulative and ready to succeed at all costs. He's clearly not afraid to steal a business or wife. He's also somehow easy to relate to (thanks Keaton).
You can see him lying to himself and justifying his actions. Got the feeling that Kroc wasn't all that different from many SV founders. You don't go to SV to make a burger stand, you go there to make an empire. There's a reason Kroc is discussed in business schools.
On a side note, reading about the founding of Twitter there's a lot this kind of back and forth.