That doesn't seem to be a fair description - it seems like he originally ran a software house that were paid to build a lot of the original reddit, was acquihired and given the title founder, and then stuck with the company through acquisition before being re-assigned to another of the acquirers properties.

Founder, not sure, but your narrative of someone barely involved doesn't stack up either.

Also, early on, it seems he brought the technical knowhow, acting as an outside CTO, and also had high PR / name recognition value, so I think they owed him some recognition for sure.