13A - Reading Reflection No.1 (Grinding it Out)

Having already watched many documentaries about McDonald's, as well as frequently eating their food, I found it fun to read through Ray Kroc's autobiography. What surprised me the most about the autobiography is a mixture of Ray's roots as well as how McDonald's as a franchise, instead of as a restaurant, was mainly his doing. Having worked with the original two founders of McDonald's, his job was more the logistics and infrastructure side, which in a way pushed Maurice and Richard MacDonald into a role of simply signing yes or no to Ray's changes. In Ray, I most admired his persistence, similar to Steve Jobs, he knew that he struck gold with the restaurant and wanted to mine as much of it as he could. Whenever he encountered resistance, whether it be in the forms of financial struggles or from the brothers who he was working with, he always pushed through. In the end, this persistence ended up creating a multi-billion dollar franchise that in known throughout the world. I least admired the greed Kroc had when it came to the original founding of McDonald's: going against the brothers wishes, looking for more lucrative deals outside of the brothers, and buying out the brothers' business and never even paying them the royalties they were promised. Although McDonald's is such a large corporation, it is clear that its intentions were greedy from the beginning. Although Kroc is a devoted, hard-working entrepreneur, the way he faced adversities is nearly unforgivable.
Kroc exhibited many competencies through the book, first and foremost is the competency to seek out more than what one is given. Although Kroc had his life set out as a travelling salesman with enough money to support himself and his wife, he sought out more, knowing there were opportunities around the corner. Kroc is a man who didn't wait for opportunities to come to him, he went to them.
One part of the reading that was confusing to me, was why the brothers even began working with him in the first place. Kroc was a man they knew very little about to begin with, yet they allowed him to spearhead an effort to franchise their restaurant despite having failed at doing so before. Persistence can only go so far on matters like this, so I wonder why the brothers gave in to Ray.
The first question I'd ask is about the 1% royalty he promised to the brothers, it's clear how he got around giving it to them, but I'm curious as to why he went through the effort to not give it to them. For as small as McDonald's was at the time, the royalty would have been relatively small anyway. I want to hear the reason from him, especially if it was simply because of greed. Secondly, I'd want to ask him why he was compelled to pursue this opportunity so strongly. At the time, he was living a comfortable life with his, at the time, wife Ethel. Why did he go so far as to abandon all that for the opportunity?
I imagine Kroc's idea of hard work is different from mine, I think his idea would revolve much more around the people aspect, changing people's minds and heart toward your benefits and goals. In this sense, I believe he took a lot of joy in his hard work, getting around people, maximizing his own profits, and filling his pockets with as much money as he could swindle out of people.