Co-founder (with brother Richard) of the original McDonald's — co-inventor of the Speedee System and original assembly-line fast food kitchen.
The McDonald brothers' operational innovation: Maurice and Richard's transformation of the drive-in into an assembly-line restaurant created the template copied by every fast food chain that followed — Burger King, Wendy's, In-N-Out, Chick-fil-A. The brothers sold their franchise rights to Ray Kroc for $2.7M in 1961, retaining only their original San Bernardino restaurant (which Kroc then opened a competing McDonald's next to, forcing them out of business). The original McDonald's story is studied as the paradigmatic case of the inventor losing value to the entrepreneur who scales.
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