2026-10-23
Ray Kroc: Making 'Consistency' the Product—How a 52-Year-Old Milkshake-Mixer Salesman Built the 40,000-Store McDonald's Machine
Ranked #37 in '100 Product Managers Who Changed the World': Ray Kroc (OVR 89.35: Business 96, Scale 93, Vision 90, Originality 88, Insight 85, Taste 80). At age 52, riddled with diabetes and arthritis, the struggling Multimixer salesman drove to San Bernardino to see why one tiny burger stand needed eight five-spindle mixers—and went on to turn a 3.5-ounce patty, a 985-page operations manual, and a real-estate flywheel into the world's most replicated physical product.
