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.
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.
I knew a guy who shared the name of a Yahoo founder, who set up some kind of automatic forwarding of everything he posted on Facebook to LinkedIn. So his LinkedIn account was full of posts of him getting wasted on the weekend. A bold strategy no doubt, not sure if it paid off for him.
Motivational speakers need some sort of a hook to get people listen to them. "The Janitor who invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos" is a pretty good hook, something that people will click on. "The Plant Worker who Climbed the Corporate Ladder at Frito" would probably get far fewer clicks.
Without that embellishment, he may not have had any success as a motivational speaker.
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.
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.