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Comment by abadpoli | Hacker News Reader

The NPR piece on Reddit this morning stated it was founded by Steve Huffman and Alex Ohanian, and didn’t even mention Aaron Swartz.

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This is probably because PG encouraged spez and kn0thing to pivot from their original idea and become founders of reddit in June 2005 and Aaron Swartz joined reddit in November 2005 after a conversation with PG, who suggested he work with spez and kn0thing on stabilizing the code since reddit had an early tendency to crash.[0]

I found reddit back in 2005 and remember the post announcing that Aaron had joined the team and giving a bit of his background. Reddit was a lot different back then since there were no subreddits.

[0]https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/the-brilli...

He wasn't really a founder though. He was brought in months later because his own startup idea hadn't got any traction. He's a founder only in the same way that Elon is a "founder" of Tesla - a retroactive title that was the result of a deal.

I suppose to make the title legitimate Elon should’ve formally started another company, and then acquired the other?

It seems like getting in and operating in a pivotal way within the first 12 months is a valid time frame to still be given a founder title if the other founders agree to it. Since when you decide to incorporate is not consistently/necessarily at the same time for finalizing the foundational team members for a getting a company on its feet.

The Elon-hate is so crazy to me.

He pitched in a lot of cash at a do-or-die moment in Tesla's history.

He then served as the CEO and driving force through some extremely lean and tough years, including working like hell to raise capital (which isn't optional if you're making cars)

Would we have Tesla today without Musk? No. Would electric cars be ubiquitous if it was up to the likes of Ford, GM, Mercedes, Toyota to push the tech? No.

It is, of course, entirely OK to dislike him - but at least admit his contributions.

The whole point is that it isn't enough for him to be recognized for his contributions. He must rewrite history to paint himself as the singular genius while discounting the work of others who were also a part of the story. There is a messianic figure that he presents in his own self-mythologizing that I find dangerous and troubling.

It is, of course, entirely OK to admire his contributions - but at least admit the dark side of his persona and the means he's used to achieved his ends.

>He must rewrite history to paint himself as the singular genius

But that's closer to the truth in this case than anything else.

It's not an exaggeration to say that all Musk gained when he joined Tesla seven months after the founding—bringing the first substantial amount of outside capital—was the brand name.

I agree with you on your comments about his contributions, but that doesn't mean he deserves the title of Founder of Tesla (Nor does Aaron, RIP).

Neither of them FOUNDED the company, they joined in later on.

How is this Elon-hate? Is a founder someone who founded a company or someone who joined it later? Calling someone not a founder doesn't change their contributions to the company.

None of that makes him a founder, simple as that. You're blowing that comment out of proportion.

>working like hell to raise capital

Sounds like some really back breaking labor, was this during his 80 hour work weeks?

You're right - it's super easy to bounce around from one rich person to the next, trying to get fat cheques from them for your unproven and almost-certainly-going-to-fail hardware startup that would only work if enough other rich people also give you big cheques, based on nothing but a pinky-promise that you'll try your darndest to invent, manufacture, and sell cars well enough to get them their money back, one day, maybe, if all goes perfectly.

Why don't you do it too?

Raising capital in a new industry sucks, lol. A cushy job is still a job, and the human brain does a REALLY good job at building the same amount of attrition across roles in relativity - whether you're breaking your back in the mine or cold-calling 400 people a day from a Herman Miller chair.

> Would we have Tesla today without Musk? No. Would electric cars be ubiquitous if it was up to the likes of Ford, GM, Mercedes, Toyota to push the tech? No.

These may all be true, but that doesn't make Elon the founder of Tesla. As for the general sentiment of Elon-hate over the last few years, well, he has only himself to blame...

The reason people like to point this out is because it highlights the fact that Elon's fragile ego is not a new phenomenon. It was always there, even before he decided to go full crazy.

I'm not on the Elon hate train (not a fanboy either, but I mostly agree with the positive things you said about him.) However, I did think pointing out the comparison would head off any "how dare you, Aaron deserves to be called a founder" comments.

> it was founded by Steve Huffman and Alex Ohanian

That is true. But a bit later Reddit was joined with a company Aaron Swartz had founded, so he became a cofounder of this new arrangement of Reddit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20241

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Entrepreneurship

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