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Has “Founder” become a job title?

7 points by secretsinger ↗ HN
A ex-colleague working for a local startup mentioned to me that one of the three co-founders of the company had agreed to "step down" as a co-founder due to family commitments (not being able to put in the requisite hours). It made me wonder if I have missed a subtlety as to how the term is currently being used.

How would you define a "founder"? Is it literally, someone who was involved in founding a company or does it refer to a degree of commitment, risk, or other intangible asset.

3 comments

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andrew-lucker
Determining who are "founders" used to be as simple as looking at the articles of incorporation. Now we have language barriers and only grammar nazis would defend the original definition?
Alex3917
> Is it literally, someone who was involved in founding a company or does it refer to a degree of commitment, risk, or other intangible asset.

There isn't really any specific moment when a company goes from un-founded to founded. Often this happens over a period of several years.

So while colloquially we say that a founder was there when the company was founded, in practice that's really a proxy for someone having done a substantial amount of work that was compensated in equity before the company was derisked. So e.g. if you own 40% of the company by the time the company raises a seed round then you're clearly a founder, regardless of whether or not your signature is on the articles of incorporation.

whitepoplar
Founder isn't a job title, it's simply a fact. CEO, CTO, etc.--those are job titles. Empirically, it seems like people who over-emphasize their role as "founder" don't make good founders.