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Comment by jbail | Hacker News Reader

An entrepreneur is someone who takes risks to start a company. That's the definition I've always used. If you assign more weight to the title than that, that's up to you, but I don't see anything wrong with someone calling themselves an entrepreneur because they start a company. There is risk, even small, in every venture. Failure, for one. Loss of time, for another.

More annoying to me are people who call themselves "President/CEO" when they have no employees or not enough employees to even have a corporate hierarchy where "President/CEO" would carry some swagger.

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"Founder."

"Lemonade Stand Founder", "Google Founder" -- note how it puts the emphasis on the enterprise, not on the person. Problem solved. :)

But yes, people don't seem to understand that CEO implies that there are other executives, of whom you are the chief. It's not just a startup issue, I've also worked at large companies where Managers don't manage and VPs don't report to Ps. It makes sense; titles are the cheapest form of compensation.

Of course it leads to title inflation. By 2050 everyone will be a CEO, and they'll report to the CECEO.

I agree. I've been "Lead Developer" on development teams of one - and I didn't give myself that title. That's what the corporation gave me and printed onto business cards.

For me, I felt most uncomfortable when I first got hired as a "senior engineer." I was 25 and only ~2 years out of school. I told the HR person, I don't think I'm senior. Didn't matter. They were tasked with hiring senior level talent, so that's the level I needed to be. Turns out, I was more senior than I thought and did great in the post. It just was weird at first because I felt as if I hadn't earned it.

If you’re not an entrepreneur, you might be: Designing a new product.
Developing a new idea.
Looking for funding.
Looking for a partner/co-founder/developer/CEO.
Working on an app.

Working on a side project.

Whatever you are, be a good one. -- Abraham Lincoln

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