Hacker News Reader

Comment by c2 | Hacker News Reader

"Paul Buchheit, the founder of Gmail, had the idea to run ads within Google's e-mail service. But he and others say it was Wojcicki, with the backing of Brin, who organized the team that adapted that idea into an enormously successful product."

Nothing to do with the article, but I just find the "founder of Gmail" language a bit funny in this case. I don't normally associate the "founder" relationship with projects invested in and resourced (and, not to mention, wholly owned) by a large corporation. Being the initial developer != founder.

View on HN

We often see the word "founder" used as an abbreviation of the phrase "startup founder", but that only applies when used in the context of discussing a startup.

The word itself is perfectly applicable in various contexts that have nothing to do with startup companies; charities, political parties, bands, and internal projects. As such, referring to Buchheit as the founder of Gmail is reasonable.

Internal projects is the one outlier there I don't agree with. At every single company I've worked in, I've spearheaded new ideas and new projects I think it would be worthwhile for the company to pursue. It has happened that the company chooses to invest in the idea I brought forward, but in that case I wouldn't consider myself the "founder" of "idea X". I was the origin of the idea, the main cheerleader, the developer of the prototype, the project manager, etc., but not the "founder".

I don't know, maybe it's an asinine point, but I don't think that's typically how the word founder is used, and it still seems funny to me.

The exception seems warranted for a service with 190+ million monthly users.

I think people make an exception for GMail because in terms of innovativeness, it could easily have been a startup in its own right. People make similar exceptions for other companies, eg. Jef Raskin is often called "the founder of the Macintosh" despite it being developed inside Apple, Ray Ozzie is called "the founder of Lotus Notes" despite it being funded by Lotus.

But Ozzie was the Founder of Iris Associates -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Associates -- who actually created Notes.

And (from the article) Iris development was funded almost exclusively by Lotus, under contract, with an exclusive option to purchase all the IP generated. That sounds a lot like a wholly-owned subsidiary.

Most laypeople think in terms of products, not corporate entities. The various international Google subsidiaries are all separate corporations, yet the lawyers & VPs who set them up aren't considered "founders" of them. Meanwhile, business units that operate with significant autonomy and generate a product that's distinct from the parent company's main business usually do have a "founder" figure.

Where would you put Android on this continuum? It's a business unit within Google now. However, it's run with a large degree of autonomy, has its own codebase, and creates a product quite distinct from Google. And moreover, it actually was founded by Andy Rubin as an independent startup, but purchased well before they got to market.

"Founder of gmail" might be reasonable, but to my ear, "creator of gmail" sounds more natural.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com