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Comment by birdyrooster | Hacker News Reader

Co-founder? Really? I am pretty sure that isn’t how that works.

A case could be made... From wikipedia:

He was the original angel investor, first chairman, and second CEO for Apple Computer, Inc., providing critical early funding and managerial support. At the company's founding, Markkula owned 26% of Apple, equivalent to each of the shares owned by cofounders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

Fine! I guess I have to reconsider what a founder is.

When Apple Computer was founded, it's cap table contained three people - Jobs, Woz, and Markkula. That seems like a reasonable definition of cofounder, even if he wasn't an active participant in the company.

What about Ronald Wayne?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Wayne

Wouldn't deny him either, as he was there at the beginning, though of a slightly different iteration. By the time the "modern" apple computer corporation had formed, though, he was out.

Lots of people are founders in title and historical reconning. I keep seeing Aaron Schwartz listed as a founder of Reddit, and I personally agree - he was the first employee in legal fact, but he was there before there was a product, which makes him a founder in an important sense.

That’s not true at all. Apple was founded in 1976. Nine months later Markkula was added to the cap. table, in 1977, thanks to his investment. Early investor and employee, yes, founder, no.

Yes. Investor in Apple, rather than 'third co-founder' as the title is complete clickbait.

Don't tell that to all the people who believe Elon Musk founded Tesla.

Elon's experience at Tesla is a great example of why the technicals of who incorporated the original entity doesn't matter.

Are you kidding? Without the founders Tesla would not have existed. They took the risk and had the vision. Musk then came in later as an opportunist.

Tesla would not exist without Musk either. It was on life support even with Musk nearly going bankrupt throwing money into it while he was running it.

Are you kidding? Without the founders Tesla would not have existed. They took the risk and had the vision. Musk then came in later as an opportunist. Definitions very much matter. Truth matters.

I'm going to assume this is a good-faith confusion about the history of Tesla, so I'll link to it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc.

The company existed for 6 months before Musk became involved. It had no product, no prototype, and not even a real design for a product. It took most of a decade to turn that into a real car, all of which time Elon was involved.

True. Yet there wouldn't be a Tesla today without Elon. Arguably that is a kind of founder in its own right.

And Elon wouldn’t exist without his parents. Tesla wouldn’t exist if George Washington hadn’t won the war of independence from England. Does that make them founders of Tesla? Everyone contributed, but truth matters.

Maybe they made him solder a resistor.

Well apparently he did write a check book balancing program for the Apple II, so by that measure he probably wrote more code than Steve Jobs.

The article also says he was the third employee after Jobs and Wozniak.

owner != founder

He wasn't just an owner, though. Being 3rd on the payroll, 1st CEO and having as much shares as the other 2 co-founders definitely blurs the line (and crosses over into co-founder territory, IMO).

Additionally, depending when when incorporation happened, he may even be officially a cofounder (and not just a logical one)

Jeez, 26% of $3 trillion?!

Woz considers him a co-founder. He says it in this tweet:

https://twitter.com/stevewoz/status/1633261412373127168

Followed by this photo of them having dinner:

https://twitter.com/stevewoz/status/1633262344964038656

Success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan.

Post-success it's pretty common to play around with that definition.

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