Member-only story
The Afghani Taxi Driver and the $250MM Salty Snack Food
What story do YOU need to tell?
I am getting into the back seat of a yellow taxi as I’ve done a thousand times before, having just tipped the too-smiling bellboy too much for holding open the door and inviting me, as he had been trained to do just last week, to “have a nice day.”
Here, 1,500 miles from home, at 6:30 am in front of yet another nameless business hotel, I settle into position, careful not to spill my coffee on my free copy of USA Today.
In 20 minutes, I will be arriving at the international headquarters of General Mills, creators of Cheerios, Wheaties, and the totally fictional 50’s icon of American motherhood, Betty Crocker.
My mission? To help their product development team come up with a new $250 million dollar salty snack food.
It’s too dark to read and I’m too caffeinated to nap, so I glance at the dashboard and see a fuzzy photo of my driver, his last name next to it — an extremely long and unpronounceable last name — as if a crazed bingo master had thrown all the letters of the alphabet into a brown paper bag, shook, and randomly pulled them…
