Ray Kroc

Have you ever been to a McDonald’s and wondered how the whole company began? Maybe you assumed it started with someone whose last name was McDonald. You’d be right, but what McDonald’s has become today comes down to one very ambitious man with a very different last name—Ray Kroc.

Raymond Albert Kroc was born on October 5, 1902, in Oak Park, Illinois, to Czech-American parents. He was raised with traditional values in a working-class family—his father held a modest job at Western Union. Despite his family’s lack of funds, young Ray enjoyed his childhood. His parents were good to him, and he loved watching baseball with his father. At the age of six, Ray began learning piano from his mother, who was a music teacher. The skill would later help him as a young man. Most of his life wasn’t marked by success, but his many experiences cultivated a strong work ethic that defined him and paid off in his later years.

Kroc dropped out of school at the age of 15 to join the ambulance corps in World War I; he lied about his age to accomplish this. Interestingly, he served in the same ambulance unit as Walt Disney, who also lied about his age to serve his country. The two young men were both traditional conservatives with enormous ambition, but their personalities and interests had little in common.

Kroc one described Walt Disney as a “strange duck,” remarking how he would stay in camp and draw pictures while the other boys would go to town and chase girls. However, both would eventually leave the Midwest and found companies in Southern California, impacting modern American life in ways that were beyond imagination at the time.

From Pianos to Milkshakes

After the war, Ray Kroc explored various avenues of work, including playing the piano in jazz bands and speakeasies during Prohibition. It made sense that he started off in entertainment and showmanship. He was a showman at heart and had a knack for capturing the public’s interest.

But Kroc disliked the hours as a musician. He soon found himself drawn to sales, and he loved it. For a time, he was employed at his uncle’s soda fountain, where he was really drawn to the art of salesmanship. “That was where I learned you could influence people with a smile and enthusiasm,” he said, “and sell them a sundae when what they’d come for was a cup of coffee.”

Kroc began selling paper cups for the Lily Tulip Cup Company and eventually became the Midwest sales manager. He was with the company for 17 years. While working for that company, Kroc encountered the idea that he could sell not just products but an experience.

After World War II, he came back to the foodservice industry to channel his charm and whit. He became a salesman for a milkshake maker called the Multimixer, produced by foodservice manufacturer Prince Castle. The mixer could produce five shakes simultaneously. It was through this endeavor that he stumbled upon a small burger restaurant in San Bernardino, California, run by the McDonald brothers, which marked the most impactful turning point of his life.

Meeting the McDonald Brothers and Striking Gold(en Arches)

In 1954, at the age of 52, Kroc visited San Bernardino to investigate why a small drive-in hamburger restaurant was using eight of his Multimixers. “I had to see what kind of an operation was making 40 [milkshakes] at one time.”

Maurice (Mac) and Richard McDonald were doing something that hadn’t been done before, hadn’t been seen before. The McDonald brothers had developed a streamlined fast-food operation that offered quick service, a limited menu, and consistency in quality and cleanliness. With his characteristic shrewdness, Ray Kroc immediately recognized that he was witnessing something revolutionary—and he wanted a piece of it. In his memoir, Kroc recalled, “Whatever it was, I saw it in the McDonald operation, and in that moment, I suppose, I became an entrepreneur. I decided to go for broke.”

After some negotiations, Kroc persuaded Mac and Richard McDonald to allow him to franchise their model. He proposed a partnership in which they would receive a modest percentage of sales (0.05%). In 1955, he opened the first franchised McDonald’s in Des Plaines, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Within just a few years, the small chain became a sensation.

Eventually, Kroc bought out the McDonald brothers in 1961 for $2.7 million, turning their efficient but humble concept into a global franchise. The $2.7 million was the figure that Richard and Mac McDonald came up with after Kroc called them over the phone to ask them to name a price. According to Kroc himself, hearing that figure made him go ballistic. He didn’t have that kind of money, and he asked the McDonald brothers if he could pay them in increments over many years. They said that if that was Kroc’s plan they might as well just keep getting their royalties. Somehow, Harry Sonneborn (who later became the first president and CEO of McDonald’s) helped raise the funds.

The Double-Edged Sword of Cutthroat Business Tactics

Ray Kroc approached everything he did in life with a mixture of enthusiasm, discipline, and sometimes ruthless ambition. Known for his motto, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence,” Kroc pushed McDonald’s to innovate, streamline, and become a household name. Simply owning a handful of successful restaurants wasn’t enough. He was always pushing for more.

He had intense standards for cleanliness and was even known to scrub mop wringers with toothbrushes. Though Kroc’s tenacity drove the McDonald’s brand to national and eventually international success, his ambition sometimes alienated others. Kroc’s unyielding standards in franchise management caused friction, and his fierce drive for perfection sometimes led him to disregard the feelings of those around him.

Kroc married his first wife, Ethel Fleming, in 1922, when he was just 20 years old (just before he started selling cups). But after nearly 40 years of marriage, Kroc divorced her, feeling that she was keeping him from reaching his ultimate potential. Kroc was a workaholic, and Ethel just didn’t share the same ambitions and life goals. Unfortunately, it seems that the Golden Arches meant more to him than his wife Ethel Fleming and his daughter Marilyn.

“I guess to be an entrepreneur you have to have a large ego, enormous pride and an ability to inspire others to follow your lead,” Kroc once said.

Kroc eventually married Joan Mansfield (after a second failed marriage). The two met while Kroc was still married to Ethel and Joan to her first husband, a fireman who became a McDonald’s franchisee. Kroc’s marriage to Joan lasted, likely because she also had strong career ambitions and a similar cutthroat personality.

His interactions with Richard and Mac McDonald reflected this—he insisted on complete control, and Kroc’s disagreements with the brothers ultimately led to the buyout that secured Ray Kroc as the authority over the company.

Why Not “Kroc’s”?

Once Kroc purchased the company and had total control, why did he keep the McDonald name? For someone so shrewd (and perhaps so full of himself), one might assume he would then slap his own name on the business—Kroc’s. Well, the simple answer is that Kroc felt that his name didn’t sound “American” enough. McDonald seemed more down to earth. Kroc didn’t think that anyone would want to eat at a place called Kroc’s. This was probably a smart move, and, unbeknownst to Kroc, if he had used his own name, we would now have endless jokes about burgers and footwear.

The Success of the McDonald’s Franchise Model

The real drive, the genius, in Kroc’s leadership lay in the franchise system. He handpicked franchisees who would uphold his commitment to quality and efficiency, emphasizing that “we’d rather get a salesman than an accountant or even a chef.” Under his watchful eye, franchisees became mini entrepreneurs, motivated to maintain the growing reputation of the McDonald’s brand. Kroc’s introduction of “Hamburger University” (not a joke) helped reinforce these fast-food values. At this specialized training program in Elk Grove, Illinois, the franchisees were taught everything from flipping burgers and cleaning grills to customer service.

“Some people reach their level of expectations pretty quickly,” Kroc observed. “We want someone who will get totally involved in the business. If his ambition is to reach the point where he can play golf four days a week or play gin rummy for a cent a point, instead of a tenth, we don’t want him in a McDonald’s restaurant.”

Naturally, Kroc found creative ways to keep costs low and demand high. His focus was on making the fast-food experience as affordable and accessible as possible. He used part-time teenage workers (which could be paid very cheaply) and simple, automated processes. Through these clever calculations, McDonald’s could sell food at consistently low prices. Rivals like Burger King and Dairy Queen had a hard time being competitive. By 1983, McDonald’s had 7,500 outlets around the world and the company’s sales exceeded $8 billion.

Kroc was lovin’ it.

Controversies and Criticisms

In 1972, Ray Kroc contributed more than $200,000 to President Nixon’s reelection campaign, sparking allegations that McDonald’s was attempting to unfairly influence government policy regarding teenage wage limits. Additionally, as the fast-food industry grew (with McDonald’s being just one player), some nutritionists began to criticize the quality and nutritional value McDonald’s food and fast food from other restaurants, suggesting that it was contributing to the increase in various health issues among Americans.

Well, Kroc didn’t take well to these criticisms. In fact, he took them a little personally. “What do all those nutritionists and college professors and those Nader types know?” he said. “How many jobs have they ever created?”

Philanthropy

Despite his hard-nosed business tactics and icy personality, Kroc did channel some of his wealth into philanthropy, often through the Kroc Foundation. Disbanded in 1985, this foundation was known for funding research related to diabetes, arthritis, and multiple sclerosis.

Joan Kroc was a prolific philanthropist and took up many charitable causes, including Operation Cork, a program to support families affected by alcoholism (Kroc himself struggled with the condition). In 1980, Kroc suffered a stroke and afterward entered an alcoholics rehabilitation facility. Just four years later, he died of heart failure in a San Diego hospital at the age of 81. He was buried at El Camino Memorial Park in San Diego, just 85 miles directly south of the very first McDonald’s location in San Bernardino, which is now an unofficial McDonald’s museum. Joan Kroc died in 2003 at the age of 75.

The Complicated Legacy of Ray Kroc

At the time of Kroc’s death, he had amassed quite a fortune and had also donated millions of dollars to various causes. He left behind an indelibly mixed legacy as both a job-creating visionary and a cold, relentless entrepreneur.

Raymond Albert Kroc left a legacy that is both an inspiration and a cautionary tale. For sure, Ray Kroc’s perseverance, ambition, and work ethic were admirable, even remarkable. He created the McDonald’s corporation, a global company that, for better and for worse, represents the American way throughout the world. His ambition led to the creation of countless jobs.

And he did all that when he was well past his prime, past middle age. After failing at many ventures and finding modest success with others for many years, he never gave up. Even as an older man, he kept his eyes open for opportunities. So did he achieve the American Dream?

One could argue that he achieved some semblance of the American Dream, or a portion of it. He went from selling paper cups to ruling over a global hamburger business. He had great financial success. He had fame. He had supporters as well as enemies, inevitably. But at what cost? Was it all worth abandoning his wife of four decades? Have you really achieved the American Dream if you had to leave your family behind?

We wish to paint Ray Kroc as neither a hero nor a villain but as a man who had great influence. A man who did both good things and bad things. A man who, if nothing else, forever changed an American industry and popular culture. A man who certainly lived an interesting life, a life that we can learn from.

So if you were in Ray Kroc’s shoes, what would you have done differently?