Has “Founder” become a job title?

7 points by secretsinger 9 years ago | 3 comments

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.

Alex3917 9 years ago |

> 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 9 years ago |

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.

andrew-lucker 9 years ago |

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?