The Founder

[peter]

Starring Michael Keaton as Ray Krock, the man who took McDonald's from a single if highly innovative burger joint, to the multi-million dollar company we know today, this film pulls no punches in it's unapologetic message that nice guys don't make it to the top in the cutthroat world of business. There's no getting away from the fact that this is Keaton's film; his Krock is both charismatic and repellent in equal measure, but good as I found the film as entertainment I actually found it more interesting in terms of how the job was done and what it was that made this particular fast food chain so run away and trounce all of the competition into oblivion. As a retailer myself I could absolutely get the significance of both what the McDonald brothers did within the shops - and what Kroc did beyond them, but I couldn't help but be a bit sad that you just had to be such a bastard to do it.

The postscript of the film before the final credits gave the stunning statistic that on any given day approximately 1% of the world's population will eat a McDonald's product.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I am pretty certain that chapter 1 in most Business Management 101 classes begins thusly: "nice guys finish last".