Personally, I think this co-option of "hacker" to mean "semi-technical entrepreneur" is at best silly, and at worst leads to the sort of confusion of which you speak. Personally, I thought the hacker dojo should have been called "The Mountain View Computer Club" - it's got a nice retro feel. I mean, I'm a member, and I like the place, the people, and the organisation, but the name is unfortunate.

I think this is a separate discussion from reclaiming "hacker" to mean "technologist" - Hacker news is about semi-technical entrepreneurs, and we are rather different from people of similar technical skill levels that are not entrepreneurial. That's an important distinction. I mean, I introduce myself as "the tall guy" as a reference to "Every technical business has a tall dumb guy and a short smart guy." - It would be useful, I think, to have a word for 'semi-technical business guy" because while my compatriots could also call themselves hackers, I usually act in the semi-technical business guy role. (I mean, outside of my peer group, I'm a semi-business technical guy of unremarkable height- obviously, this is a continuum.)