The article says that the author co-invented the notion of a data scientist around 2008 ("In many ways, that meeting was the start of data science as a distinct professional specialization").

This seems false to me. For instance, as early as 2004, Yahoo hired someone who later became "Chief Data Officer" -- and who departed, bearing that title, by 2008 (http://www.fayyad.com/, http://www.fayyad.com/news_details.php?news_id=7). That is, by 2008, there were "Chief Data Officers" who were leaving web businesses.

And Hal Varian, whose Google title is "chief economist", was pushing the same ideas about data science (and recruiting stats people) publically around February 2008 (e.g., http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/02/25/hal-varian-answers-yo..., search for "ubiq"), if not before.

Even if some particular usage of the term "data scientist" can be shown to be first made by the author, it would seem like there's not a bright line there. For instance, the whole concept of "data mining" as a specialty distinct from, say, statistics, machine learning, or computer science, has been around since the early 90s.