Neal Bloom's grandfather turned down Ray Kroc when he pitched McDonald's as an investment. The grandfather was running his own burger business and saw Kroc as competition. The family retold this story for decades as a cautionary tale about the one that got away.
And one day a guy knocks on his door and says, hey, I'm starting— I've just bought into a burger chain and I'm looking for investors into my burger chain. And would you be open to it? And I'll give you the rights to purchase all the selling platforms. We'll also be an equity partner. My grandpa said, well, I'm busy running mine. Why don't you know, like, what's the deal with yours? We're both in burgers, we're competitors. And he passed. And he passed on Ray Kroc, who knocked on his door to say, would you like to invest in McDonald's? And that story stuck in my family for many years because in early 2000s when I was looking to apply to college, my dad was still running Burger Chains and I was like, well, of course I go work in the family restaurant business, right? Um, and that story has been, you know, obviously replayed many, many times. And we're not the only ones. Pretty much, uh, we look all the time at what could be missed [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
