I think it is less a trend and more a fact that in early stage companies titles don't mean much, even CEO doesn't mean much in the earliest days. I joined Twil

I think it is less a trend and more a fact that in early stage companies titles don't mean much, even CEO doesn't mean much in the earliest days. I joined Twilio as the first non-founder so basically employee #4 and at that time we had no idea what to call me. To be clear, I built a team that was 18 people when departed and hired another dozen people who ended up in various other roles (support, ops, product, etc) so while the title was undeserved in the beginning it was an understatement in the end.