I think it is not correct to refer to a person of a “cofounder” of an org because they seem to be a generalist taking responsibility for the org, if they did not actually co-found the org and are not referred to as a cofounder by the org.
This seems like a simple error / oversight, rather than a deliberate choice.
But I definitely don’t feel like the assessment of “this person was in a defacto cofounder role, in practice, so it’s not a big deal if we call them a cofounder” holds water.
FWIW, I also don’t think this holds water, and at least I don’t use co-founder this way these days (though maybe Ray does). The LessWrong/Lightcone team developed very gradually, and I think it’s reasonable to call the people who came on board in like the first 1-2 years of existence of the project co-founders, since it grew gradually and as a fiscally sponsored nonprofit we never went through a formal incorporation step that would have formalized equity shares in the same clear way, but I think while it might make sense to call anyone coming on later than that some title that emphasizes that they have a lot of responsibility and stake in the organization, it doesn’t IMO make sense to refer to them as a “co-founder”.
I’m not arguing that this usage is good, I just think it’s the usage Ben and Ruby were implicitly using. I’m guessing Drew is in a role that is closer to me, Jim or Ruby, which was a time period you were explicitly calling us cofounders. Which it sounds like you still endorse?
(To be clear I agree the word is misleading here, and Ben should probably edit the word to something clearer. I also don’t really think it made sense for the Lightcone team to talk about itself having 5 cofounders, which I think we explicitly did at the time. I was just noting the language-usage-difference.
But also this doesn’t seem cruxy to me about the substance of the claim that “Drew was involved enough that he had some obligation to notice if fishy things were going on, even if they weren’t explicitly his responsibility”)
I don’t think I would call Jim or Ruby cofounders, especially in any public setting. I do think to set expectations for what it’s like to work with me on LessWrong, back then, I would frequently say something like “cofounder level stake and responsibility”, though I think that has definitely shifted over time.
I think it is not correct to refer to a person of a “cofounder” of an org because they seem to be a generalist taking responsibility for the org, if they did not actually co-found the org and are not referred to as a cofounder by the org.
This seems like a simple error / oversight, rather than a deliberate choice.
But I definitely don’t feel like the assessment of “this person was in a defacto cofounder role, in practice, so it’s not a big deal if we call them a cofounder” holds water.
FWIW, I also don’t think this holds water, and at least I don’t use co-founder this way these days (though maybe Ray does). The LessWrong/Lightcone team developed very gradually, and I think it’s reasonable to call the people who came on board in like the first 1-2 years of existence of the project co-founders, since it grew gradually and as a fiscally sponsored nonprofit we never went through a formal incorporation step that would have formalized equity shares in the same clear way, but I think while it might make sense to call anyone coming on later than that some title that emphasizes that they have a lot of responsibility and stake in the organization, it doesn’t IMO make sense to refer to them as a “co-founder”.
I’m not arguing that this usage is good, I just think it’s the usage Ben and Ruby were implicitly using. I’m guessing Drew is in a role that is closer to me, Jim or Ruby, which was a time period you were explicitly calling us cofounders. Which it sounds like you still endorse?
(To be clear I agree the word is misleading here, and Ben should probably edit the word to something clearer. I also don’t really think it made sense for the Lightcone team to talk about itself having 5 cofounders, which I think we explicitly did at the time. I was just noting the language-usage-difference.
But also this doesn’t seem cruxy to me about the substance of the claim that “Drew was involved enough that he had some obligation to notice if fishy things were going on, even if they weren’t explicitly his responsibility”)
I don’t think I would call Jim or Ruby cofounders, especially in any public setting. I do think to set expectations for what it’s like to work with me on LessWrong, back then, I would frequently say something like “cofounder level stake and responsibility”, though I think that has definitely shifted over time.
In practice I don’t think there was any pump against linguistic drift to abbreviate ‘cofounder level responsibility’ to ‘cofounder’.
e.g.