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Doritos Locos Tacos visionary dies at 41

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Considering just how profitable the idea has been for Taco Bell, the very least they could've done was offer to pay for all of his cancer treatments while they still had the chance ($1,000 was a pittance in light of both their revenues and the expense of such treatments). RIP.
 
they needed to just pay him an upfront cost for helping push such an idea. He didn't make doritos or the tacos. He does deserve to be compensated for the marketing and push that started because of his genuine love of the potential product. A very good amount too.

RIP man
 
Korigama said:
Considering just how profitable the idea has been for Taco Bell, the very least they could've done was offer to pay for all of his cancer treatments while they still had the chance ($1,000 was a pittance in light of both their revenues and the expense of such treatments). RIP.
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At least give some money to family who just lose one of their sources of income.
 
As he went through two brain surgeries and a lung surgery, Looney set up a website to accept donations to help pay for Mills' medical bills. Mills would never set up such a site himself, Looney said. Looney reached out to Taco Bell's CEO on Twitter, and the company donated $1,000, Looney said.
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I'd like to think there was some kind of Breaking Bad-esque story behind this except involving tacos instead of Meth.

RIP dude
 
RIP

if Taco Bell doesn't step it up and do something then my midnight munchies will be bought somewhere else.
 
Omega Rex said:
RIP

if Taco Bell doesn't step it up and do something then my midnight munchies will be bought somewhere else.
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.
 
I had this idea a long, long time ago. I guess I can take comfort in knowing that I wouldn't have gotten anything for pitching it anyway.
 
That's some first-class bullshit right there...

Being donated $1000 for cancer treatment is like someone tipping a server a penny...a fucking joke.
 
Taco Bell should give his family the total amount required to pay off those bills $1000 won't go very far.

RIP, hope his family makes it through this difficult period
 
Black Door said:
Did he not realize he probably could have paid for his cancer treatment 10 times over for a royalty contract with Taco Bell and Frito Lay?
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not everything in life is about money. From the article itself, he never wanted money for it and he never wanted a website setup for donations.


Frito lay is retarded. "thanks but no thanks" idiots.

All that said, Taco Bell should hook the family up.


RIP dude.
 
I read somewhere that the doritos tacos are already one of the best selling fast food items of all time. Taco Bell really needs to hook his family up, the amount of money this guy's idea made them and will continue to make them is absurd. Just one of those weird things that clicked with everybody.
 
It looks like it was Frito-Lay that stole this guy's idea and tried to pass it off as their own. The below meeting happened in 2009, the same year Frito-Lay blew off this guy's idea.

The team soon assembled for an all-day ideation session at Taco Bell headquarters, where 30 different product concepts were considered, Perdue says, including new forms of burritos, nachos, and taquitos. But one idea, from Doritos-maker Frito-Lay, stuck out: a Doritos-based taco shell pocketed with Taco Bell ingredients. "It was basically an image [of this taco] on a piece of paper, with a written description. I don't know what technology they use. We didn't even taste it; it was just more of, 'Hey, this is what it could look like,'" Perdue says. "It was like, 'Holy crap!' Nobody had ever done this before: turning a Dorito into a taco shell. It was just mind-blowing at the idea stage." Steve Gomez, Taco Bell's food innovation expert, recalls seeing the first mock-up. "Every day I see a lot of concepts--sketches on paper, written words about products--and my job is to turn those products into reality," he says. "But in all my years as a product developer, I've never seen a concept like this. The product didn't even exist yet, and already people knew this idea was going to be huge."
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Source

It seems like Taco Bell went out of their way to recognize the guy when they discovered, in 2012, he had a Facebook page dedicated to the Doritos taco, not even knowing he may have been the genesis of the idea almost 3 years prior.
 
8byte said:
Billions of dollars.

Donates $1,000.



Ugh. Disgusting.
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So companies are under obligation to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to customers that get sick?

Again, Taco Bell didn't get this idea from this guy. He was just a loyal customer who they did something nice for.
 
gutshot said:
So companies are under obligation to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to customers that get sick?

Again, Taco Bell didn't get this idea from this guy. He was just a loyal customer who they did something nice for.
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It is highly likely he was the one who started the whole idea. If I were in charge, I'd offer a college fund for his kids and pay his medical bills. That's be the least I could do after being handed a multi billion dollar idea.
 
SouthernDragon said:
It is highly likely he was the one who started the whole idea. If I were in charge, I'd offer a college fund for his kids and pay his medical bills. That's be the least I could do after being handed a multi billion dollar idea.
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Sure, that would be a nice thing to do. But Frito-Lay should be the one to do it, since they were the ones who stole his idea. Taco Bell was being more than generous when they included him in their early product launch and then later donated $1,000 to him.
 
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