YMMV / The Founder

• Accidental Innuendo: "It's a bit of Dick magic."
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • For most of the movie, Ray Kroc is presented as a guy who started out as a rather sympathetic salesman whose constant success corrupted him into becoming a cruel and predatory Business Tycoon. However, during the confrontation between him and Dick McDonald near the end, Ray says, "I remember the first time I saw that name stretched across your stand out there. It was love at first sight. I knew right then and there... I had to have it," implying that he was cruel and ruthless from the start.
  • Alternatively, a case can be made that Ray, for whatever reason, simply prefers to play up the image of himself as a cut-throat ruthless businessman who'll do anything, no matter how underhanded, to win when in fact he's not quite as bad as he makes himself out to be. While he certainly becomes increasingly ruthless as the movie goes on, his business dealings are almost all entirely honest, ethical and above-board; the most sketchy thing he does is start up what eventually becomes the McDonalds Corporation as a way of undermining Dick and Mac through real estate, and even that can be argued as a move of desperation prompted by both financial issues that the brothers were unwilling to negotiate to help alleviate him of and frustration with their unwillingness to countenance any changes, even positive ones, to their business model.
  • Dick and Mac. Throughout the movie they are portrayed in a sympathetic light and as hard-working, honest businessman who, in the end, get taken advantage of by the ruthless Ray. But remember that they wrote up a contract (which Ray willingly agreed to) that insured they would not have to actually do any work, assume any risk, and would have total control of everything. After Ray works his butt off to get the whole system started everyone is turning a profit except for him. Dick and Mac won't even hear him out when he asks for a modest increase in his share. Being as Ray's hard work has netted the brothers a nice profit it seems pretty harsh that they deny him an opportunity to make just enough to ensure he won't lose his house. They also veto any suggestion he makes for changes or improvements in running the business, even perfectly reasonable ones (even the infamous milkshake powder, while inferior in quality, is a result of a perfectly valid concern on the part of Ray and the franchisees that it's affecting their profits). In the end Ray gives them the $2.7 million they ask for in the buyout. On top of what they had already made this is one heck of a profit for two guys who essentially deserved just a licensing agreement and finder's fee. The argument can thus be made that while they are perhaps less overtly cut-throat and ruthless than Ray is shown to become, they are not as different as they might like to think or act, being just as willing to profit off someone else's ideas and hard work as Ray is — Ray just plays the game better than they do in the end.
  • One scene which hints at the above interpretation is the scene where Dick, after a frustrating phone call with Ray, fumes that he and Mac have "let the wolf into the hen-house" by going into business with Ray. The subject of the phone call was Ray asking to renegotiate his franchising deal with the McDonald brothers for a modest increase in his share of the profits, which they have summarily rejected despite the fact that Ray is the only one involved who, despite his hard work, is not turning a profit. While it's suggestive of the difference in values between the two parties (Ray's profit-minded drive versus the smaller-scale artistry of the brothers), it's also suggestive of a certain amount of Self-Serving Memory, since it's easy to argue that at that point Ray is the one being preyed on by the McDonalds rather than the other way around.
• Genius Bonus: In one scene, Ray has an impromptu piano duet in a fancy restaurant with his future wife Joan, who's married to one of his business associates at the time. In Real Life, Ray Kroc briefly worked as a professional pianist many years before getting involved with McDonald's, and he really did frequently play the piano in bars and restaurants.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In the Mexican Spanish dub, Ray Kroc is voiced by René García, who previously voiced Butt-head, who, along with Beavis, work as a employee in a McDonald's parody. In this film, he's the owner of the real thing instead.
• Informed Wrongness: By Ray himself. He tells Mac that he's a dog-eat-dog, rat-eat-rat businessman who would stick a hose in his competitor's mouth if he were drowning. But throughout the movie, he consistently engages in perfectly legal and ethical business practices. While exploiting a loophole may be seen as underhanded that is a move of desperation, not his normal method of operation. Had the brothers been willing to give Ray just a bit more, while they were getting very rich, Ray likely never would’ve found the loophole. Likewise all of his investors and franchisees are treated very well and make a huge profit as a result. Eventually, his secretary even rises to a very powerful position in the company at a time when that was nearly impossible for a woman and he makes a loyal burger flipper one of his top lieutenants. He even gives Dick and Mac the $2.7 million (in 1961, which would be $27.9 million in 2024 currency) they ask for without negotiating, even though he was in a very powerful position and likely could've forced them out with nothing. (Remember that the brothers didn't do any work in constructing the franchise or put up any money in the whole deal. So they got one heck of a good pay day in the end for essentially just licensing their name. Even their Speedy system could not have been trademarked.) No, he does not ever pay them the 1% of the annual profits they ask for, but it's highly disputed whether they actually asked for it in real life.

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