McDonald’s: The story behind the betrayal

How the McDonald brothers let themselves be swept away by the biggest fast-food business in history. Two brothers, a fast food stall and a dream. Richard and Maurice McDonald revolutionized the tiny town of Arcadia when they opened a hamburger stand at 10 cents, served in a minute, wrapped in paper and without need of waiters: the customer asked his menu directly to the cook.

Three years later, in 1940, the McDonald brothers turned their light food caravan, into a restaurant with a foundation, flanked by a 7.5-meter-height yellow M that could not be seen from space, but from anywhere in the village.

The biggest fast food franchise in the world built by Ray Kroc?

Today, there are almost 40,000 McDonald’s, which feed 68 million people each day in 118 countries. In 1999, Time magazine honored the 100 most important people of the century. Albert Einstein, Mahatma Ghandi, Bart Simpson and of course, McDonald’s founder, Ray Kroc. Wait a moment, who is Ray Kroc? Had not we talked about the McDonald brothers? Let’s go with this story full of betrayals.

Ray Kroc.

Ray Kroc is a man made to himself, but with pieces of others. The American dream wrapped to take and served in record time. Ray Kroc (Chicago, 1902 – San Diego, 1984) was dedicated to selling shake machines (without much success) when the McDonald brothers ordered him six blenders. Kroc felt he had won the lottery, but he had no idea how much. He then saw the McDonald’s restaurant’s ground-breaking food system: the cost was tiny, and the customers endless. That is why he offered to work as a brand commercial. In 1955 he began to sell licenses.  In 1961, Ray Kroc craved national expansion. The McDonald brothers lacked that ambition (their dream was to reach a million dollars before turning 50), so they sold the company to him for $1.5 million and 0.5% of profits.

Kroc raked to the last dollar, and later defined them in a book as “obtuse”, openly indifferent to the fact that he was investing every penny he had in his project.

McDonalds Bros real intention.

According to Kroc, the McDonald brothers demanded that amount of money in cash to boycott his expansion plans, a “rotten trick” that Richard and Maurice, however, justified because they had spent 30 years working seven days a week. “Very touching,” wrote Kroc. Reluctantly, Kroc agreed to buy the company for that amount, while undoubtedly already organizing his revenge. 56 years later, McDonald’s is worth 17 billion.

This agreement between Kroc and the McDonald’s was closed with a handshake. No contracts. The excuse was that none of the three were interested in declaring 0.5% to the public finances. In this way, Richard and Maurice McDonald went from having the best idea in the history of fast food, to the worst idea in business history. They never received that percentage.