I love McDonald's, McChicken Meal is one of the top items that I order outside. But after watching the movie The Founder, me and my friend decided not to ever go to a McDonald's again. The fact that Ray Kroc (founder of McDonald's) "stole" the idea from McDonalds brother and cheated them was repulsive to us.
Recently I picked up (rather downloaded on kindle) the book Grinding it out, Ray Kroc's autobiography, even though it tells the same story as the movie. But only after reading the book did I realise that what I saw in the movie was only half the story.
The movie made it feel like Ray Kroc accidently came across McDonald brothers restaurant and copied it across the world. But it failed to drive across the point that had it been me in his place, I would probably have just enjoyed a good burger and left. Not recognising the potential of that restaurant. It took a particular kind of preparation to look at that restaurant and see the possibilities of what it can be.
That preparation part is what the movie missed. Ray Kroc had been associated with the food business long before he stumbled upon McDonalds.
One of his first job was selling paper cups, yes back in those days (1930s) you needed sells man to convince shopkeepers using paper cups was a better idea. His primary customer being soda hubs and milk shake parlours he started noticing shops that had a fast and efficient system because the faster a shop could churn out drinks more paper cups he sold, and later fast and efficient would become one of the major selling point for McDonald's chain.
After that he had another job selling multi mixers, mixers with multiple splinder that helped make milk shakes faster. Again his primary customer was restaurants. His selling pitch was making restaurants more efficient.
His association with the food business prepared him for the moment when he came across the restaurant and he saw what it can be. What is that saying, success is when preparation meets opportunity?
You can argue that the movie decided to focus on one aspect of the story and the book focused on another, that is possible. And I will go ahead and contradict my own clickbait title that neither books nor movies are better than the other, just that till now all the movies adapted from books, I enjoyed the book more. The books seem to tell a more complete story.
P.S Yes I am going back to a McDonald's soon :P