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from pg > Aaron's not wrong to call himself one of the founders. The company behind Reddit was a merger of two startups, one that made Reddit and one that made

from pg > Aaron's not wrong to call himself one of the founders. The company behind Reddit was a merger of two startups, one that made Reddit and one that made Infogami, and in that situation the founders of both startups are considered founders of the combined company. http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cofounder_aaron_swartz_discusses_how_he/c1okmc http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cof...

gojomo 15y ago
And further: 'founder'/'cofounder' are not technically-rigorous terms, but a matter of common agreement. Followers of the iterative/lean approach should recognize that 'founding' is not a point event, at a single moment (of inspiration, document-signing, code-commit, whatever), but rather a process that continues. Any team that adds a new key person early could reasonably consider that person another 'founder'/'co-founder'/'founding employee'. Consider all the 'looking for co-founder' posts, from people who've already made some progress.
argos 15y ago
alexis doesn't seem to agree https://twitter.com/#!/kn0thing/status/93374221685755904 https://twitter.com/#!/kn0thing/status/93374221685755904 one talks about a merger and the other of an acquisition
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  They seem to still be pretty pissed at him.
  - encoderer 15y ago
    What's the backstory there?
    - redthrowaway 15y ago
      He went to europe while they were in the middle of crunch time, then promptly took a week of sick time upon his return. They fired him shortly thereafter. Steve talks about it here: http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/d2njs/til_there_was_a_third_cofounder_of_reddit_who_was/c0x40yz http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/d2njs/til_the... In Aaron's words: "Yeah. I was unhappy working in an office and didn’t hide it. So I’d come in late and set up lots of off-site meetings and stuff. And my boss wasn’t really thrilled about that. Also, I think he was upset about me disappearing for so long on vacation. One of the places I went to in Europe was the Chaos Computer Conference. And while I was there I hung out with my friend Quinn Norton, who was reporting on the event for Wired. She took my photo for one of her articles and it was featured on wired.com’s front page. “Heh,” I joked. “I bet the first time my boss finds out where I am is when he sees my photo on the front page of his own website.”" So yeah, he earned his firing and the emnity of his coworkers the old-fashioned way. Edit: Also, there's some speculation on the thread I linked to that Aaron was a cofounder who received a payout in the CN deal. He wrote web.py, sure, but if he walked away with $1MM+ without showing up to work, that could explain why they still hate his guts.
- gojomo 15y ago
  This link from one of the Reddit threads suggests that at least at one time, and perhaps begrudgingly, Alexis would call Aaron a 'co-founder': http://web.archive.org/web/20070823200504/http://startupstories.com/2006/11/29/passion-for-your-users-will-come-back-alexis-ohanian-co-founder-of-reddit/ http://web.archive.org/web/20070823200504/http://startupstor... I know nothing of the internal arrangements and disputes. But knowing how these things often go, it's easy to imagine that Aaron was tangentially involved, and the Reddit team needed more help, but Aaron still had another project, where his 'founding' stake/claim was larger. Offering a founder-ish stake and founder-ish title for bringing that other project in-house (even if the combined team pursues something else) is a common resolution to such a situation.

gojomo 15y ago

And further: 'founder'/'cofounder' are not technically-rigorous terms, but a matter of common agreement. Followers of the iterative/lean approach should recognize that 'founding' is not a point event, at a single moment (of inspiration, document-signing, code-commit, whatever), but rather a process that continues. Any team that adds a new key person early could reasonably consider that person another 'founder'/'co-founder'/'founding employee'. Consider all the 'looking for co-founder' posts, from people who've already made some progress.

argos 15y ago

alexis doesn't seem to agree https://twitter.com/#!/kn0thing/status/93374221685755904 https://twitter.com/#!/kn0thing/status/93374221685755904 one talks about a merger and the other of an acquisition

redthrowaway 15y ago
They seem to still be pretty pissed at him.
- encoderer 15y ago
  What's the backstory there?
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    He went to europe while they were in the middle of crunch time, then promptly took a week of sick time upon his return. They fired him shortly thereafter. Steve talks about it here: http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/d2njs/til_there_was_a_third_cofounder_of_reddit_who_was/c0x40yz http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/d2njs/til_the... In Aaron's words: "Yeah. I was unhappy working in an office and didn’t hide it. So I’d come in late and set up lots of off-site meetings and stuff. And my boss wasn’t really thrilled about that. Also, I think he was upset about me disappearing for so long on vacation. One of the places I went to in Europe was the Chaos Computer Conference. And while I was there I hung out with my friend Quinn Norton, who was reporting on the event for Wired. She took my photo for one of her articles and it was featured on wired.com’s front page. “Heh,” I joked. “I bet the first time my boss finds out where I am is when he sees my photo on the front page of his own website.”" So yeah, he earned his firing and the emnity of his coworkers the old-fashioned way. Edit: Also, there's some speculation on the thread I linked to that Aaron was a cofounder who received a payout in the CN deal. He wrote web.py, sure, but if he walked away with $1MM+ without showing up to work, that could explain why they still hate his guts.
gojomo 15y ago
This link from one of the Reddit threads suggests that at least at one time, and perhaps begrudgingly, Alexis would call Aaron a 'co-founder': http://web.archive.org/web/20070823200504/http://startupstories.com/2006/11/29/passion-for-your-users-will-come-back-alexis-ohanian-co-founder-of-reddit/ http://web.archive.org/web/20070823200504/http://startupstor... I know nothing of the internal arrangements and disputes. But knowing how these things often go, it's easy to imagine that Aaron was tangentially involved, and the Reddit team needed more help, but Aaron still had another project, where his 'founding' stake/claim was larger. Offering a founder-ish stake and founder-ish title for bringing that other project in-house (even if the combined team pursues something else) is a common resolution to such a situation.