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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

> I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all just "Us" and "We".

I tend to assume that a lot of times this is because "We" is a lie, it's "Me" and they want to avoid revealing that it's someone's side project.

I could be completely wrong. I am a lot.

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I wouldn't go as far as to say "We" is a lie especially with malicious intent. In short, "we" can be an appropriate way to refer to a company as a whole. Btw this is a hotly discussed topic among solo founders (whether to use "I" or "We") so it's nothing you can be "wrong" about!

One academic solved the problem of not wanting to use "I" and simultaneously not wanting to refer to himself as "we" in a rather creative way. Meet F.D.C. Willard, the first-ever feline to co-author a physics paper:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._D._C._Willard

Not to jump on you specifically, but seriously, why does this matter? I'm not saying "don't think about this thing I don't think people should talk about," I'm saying, "in what way is pronoun selection important?"

It might matter to your customer. Especially if you are trying to succeed in the B2B market. My side project is a piece of software I am confident has real value, and therefore the price won't be chump change. My biggest early hurdle will be convincing companies that they can trust I will be there to support them. I won't lie, but I'm not going to advertise how small the operation is.

> "We" is a lie, it's "Me" and they want to avoid revealing that it's someone's side project.

Or if it’s a small group of co-founders and they don’t want to paint a target on their back, and have their employers suing for the IP they created on weekends and evenings.

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