from Hacker News

Trade Secrecy in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory (2009)

by NaOH on 5/22/25, 8:41 PM with 21 comments

• by staplung on 5/22/25, 10:51 PM

  That’s nothing on the Slurm factory from Futurama

  https://youtu.be/cRRMmb5cK0I?si=SoNzN-57mFlu6eDI

• by alwa on 5/23/25, 12:04 AM

  > …some aspects of the story are baffling from the vantage point of trying to understand how Willy Wonka and his competitors act. First, given the value of the information inside the chocolate factory to Wonka‟s competitors, it is surprising that they did not try to win golden tickets to enter and spy in the chocolate factory. They could, in theory, have bought up hundreds of thousands of candy bars just as Mr. Salt did to indulge his daughter, Veruca, to maximize their chances of winning a ticket worth its credential in gold.

  Seems the Slugworth who was up against Timothee “Lil’ Timmy Tim” Chamalet’s Wonka read this paper in the years since Gene Wilder’s Wonka (and Ronald Dahl’s)—and wised up to the corporate espionage side of the golden ticket racket…

  Then again, he made the competitively-shrewd move to recruit rather than plant agents: there’s a lesson in there for us all, no?

• by FridayoLeary on 5/23/25, 12:57 AM

  >Second, it is surprising to see that Wonka put little to no restriction both on who could win the contest and on what the winners could see inside the factory and do with that information after they left.

  The author is making an unjustified assumption that Wonka had no contingencies in place. Consider the sadistic cruelty he shows towards children, and the fact that he's not worried about law enforcement. And consider his narcissistic personality.

  There's more then enough evidence to suggest that he would and could ruthlessly silence any of the competition winners who would dare to leak his secrets.

  That, really is the best method of preserving your trade secrets, and the reason why willy wonka is so successful.

• by MarkusQ on 5/22/25, 9:39 PM

  c.f. The Candymakers, W. Mass et al