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Who?

Todd Mills, the random guy who created the most sweeping fast-food phenomenon in a generation.

How?

Brain cancer, age 41.

The Legacy:

Yes, the guy who came up with the idea of a taco shell made out of Doritos -- an item that Taco Bell would sell more than 500 million of in one year and that would make more than a billion dollars for the company -- wasn't even an employee. He wasn't a cook, or even one of the scientists in the lab where Taco Bell grows its "beef."

PlazacCameraman/iStock/Getty Images

"Cow"

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Nope, he was just a guy in Arkansas who used to make taco dishes out of Doritos and couldn't figure out why restaurants weren't doing it. In 2009, he started a Facebook page begging Taco Bell to adopt the idea. He'd probably forgotten all about it when, three years later, the company called and offered to fly him out to their test kitchen, which hopefully is not the den of unimaginable horror we're picturing.

They told him they were launching his idea, and when the product exploded (utterly changing the fortunes of the chain in the process -- they wound up hiring 15,000 new employees to keep up with demand), Mills didn't ask for a penny. He came down with cancer shortly after, and his family set up a website to take donations to cover his medical expenses (they're still taking donations, by the way). When the CEO of Taco Bell heard about their plight, he happily donated ... a thousand dollars. Which is nice, we suppose, but by our count his company makes that amount in Doritos Locos Tacos sales every three minutes.

Taco shells made from Doritos movement / Facebook via LA Times

To be fair, that doesn't include the required cost of upgrading the nation's sewage systems.

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But that's the point: There was no lawsuit or demand for credit. Mills wasn't that type of guy. He just wanted a goddamned taco shell made of Doritos, and he wouldn't stop until he got it. Most of us can only hope to have that kind of impact.

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