[andrea_s]

I'm always torn when I hear about the "CEO" of such a small company (or, in more extreme cases, the CEO of a one man band) - from one side, I see that it gives a clear impression of how the tasks are distributed within the company, but it still sounds a bit weird. What do you think?

[patio11]

Is social status policing a high priority for you? If so, that complaint makes a lot of sense. If not, it is a silly thing to worry about.

Note that if social status policing is a high priority, you should probably start working on rules for who is and is not allowed to call themselves a Founder, because as of late that title is receiving attention. (No lie: I once got told in the Valley that having Founder on my business cards was "A bit disingenuous, no?" because I wasn't as founder-y as Founders who founded foundable things.)

[andrea_s]

Actually it bothers me because I am the "CTO" of a 3-people company - when we started, I'd have preferred less glamorous titles, but my partners saw an advantage in using standard terminology to clearly separate our roles...

So no social policing - it just stirred some latent doubts about my current title :)

Of course in the end it matters little - this kind of silly discussion is good for a working Sunday afternoon. It's not like we can do anything to stop people from bandwagoning on the cool titles of this week...

Cordially, Ninja Pirate Space Robot Guru Software Proactive Artist Manager

[frostmatthew]

PG tweeted[1] about this yesterday:

I have misgivings about the tendency to make "founder" a title rather than a reference to a historical fact.

[1] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/526207483920932865

[pdpi]

I'm not sure it's about policing social status. To me, calling yourself "CEO" of a tiny startup reeks of self-aggrandizement, which is the sort of attitude that rubs me the wrong way.

[tptacek]

You might not be connecting the dots here. The concern or even attention to "self-aggrandizement" is itself a form of social status policing. That's literally what the term means.

[pdpi]

Maybe we have read "social status policing" to mean completely different things. To me, that suggests caring a lot about status, and worrying a lot about people laying claim to more status than what they're due. My issue here is with people turning status, either deserved or otherwise, into a bigger thing than it is.

Social status is only very rarely material to any given conversation, so I do care when people feel the need to bring it up, and when they feel the need to give themselves pompous titles, because they're signalling to me that they do care about status, and they're going to make it an issue in our dealings.

[nostrademons]

Aren't you also signalling that you care a lot about status by complaining about it? Usually when people actually don't care about something, they just make note of the fact that somebody else does and slightly alter their dealings with that person to get a more favorable outcome. An argument isn't a favorable outcome; negotiating more of something you do care about (like equity, or influence, or effort on their part) in exchange for something they care about (like titles) is.

[hnnewguy]

>What do you think?

It bothers me as well. I attended a social gaming conference during the height of the Facebook game fad, and every company had a "CEO", even if the company had one or two employees.

It's ridiculous, and only seems to be prevalent in the tech scene; when the plumbing proprietor shows up at your house, he isn't referring to himself as the CEO.

[frostmatthew]

> when the plumbing proprietor shows up at your house, he isn't referring to himself as the CEO

What does he refer to himself as?

Probably plumber - but what's the equivalent for a CEO? Head of Sales? Lead Developer? General Manager? The CEO's duties (at a startup) will vary from startup to startup. [I'm not disagreeing with you - I'm just not sure there's a better option]

[cjf4]

Small companies don't need "Officers."

[wglb]

Any corporation needs to report a certain standard set of officers in their incorporation papers: President, Secretary are often the minimum. Many think of President as roughly equivalent to CEO.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Corporations, yes. Companies, no. Nobody founds a corporation.

[wglb]

I am afraid you lost me with Nobody founds a corporation. I did this, insofar as I know.

[hnafficianado]

When we started our company, we were loathe to call ourselves CEO or CTO or anything else. It felt too big for where we were, and it felt self-aggrandizing. Instead we decided we'd just skip titles until we had more than three people.

This was a mistake.

It made it hard for external folks to understand who was the best contact for different types of requests, and we wound up with all of us doing every type of work.

It also made it internally, because we had inadvertently hamstrung our ability to specialize, even though we had unofficial definitions of what each of us did.

So we decided to stop giving a shit if somebody thought it was pompous, and we gave ourselves titles. It instantly solved a whole host of communication problems, many of which we hadn't even identified.

Don't be afraid of organization. Don't be afraid of titles. Don't be afraid of somebody who thinks that you can't be a CEO unless your company is of a certain size or maturity.

It turned out that titles exist for a pretty good reason.

[dbdriscoll]

This is Dan (author of the article).

I agree in full with this comment. I actually never introduce myself as anything other than "a co-founder of reQwip" and when asked to print my role, I try to stick with that, occasionally allowing (when pressed) for "ceo" rather than the ALL CAPS version.

Which is very core to the point I wanted to make. This startup founding experience is not the glamorous joyride that many imagine based on the VentureBeat and TechCrunch and mainstream media articles that we love to read. This is a "shit, $5 for a beer?! ... maybe I will have water instead ..." lifestyle.

Startup life is an out and out hustle and grind. You find money to oxygenate the flame wherever you can. You think outside the box for unique ways to bring attention to your company that don't charge by the click. You recognize there is no script, you will never be on top of things, so just #JFDI.

And most importantly, you put your ego on the shelf. You identify what you suck at doing and add awesomely talented team members who can kick ass in those areas. You accept that kids half your age are probably already doing what you are doing and can do it better than you, so you work even harder to stay competitive (or you partner with them). And wherever and whenever a situation requires you to roll up your sleeves and do the hard and unsexy work necessary to keep going and growing, you do that unflinchingly.

I do the latter a lot, in no small part because my teammates are indeed better than me at almost everything. My job is just to block and tackle so they can do what they are so good at doing and shine as a result. Coffee bitch? That's me.

And yeah, those Uber rides help me pay for that coffee (as well as our marketing, ads, etc.). #JFDI

[gyardley]

Titles are tools, and you should use the right tool for the right job. Using the wrong tool at the wrong time makes you look like the tool, but in the right context they're useful.

I've found that using the 'CEO' title can make your company sound more established when dealing with people who aren't your peers - especially when doing business development with larger companies. Back when I was running an smartphone analytics startup, I had a 'CEO' business card for dealing with, say, Time Warner, and a 'co-founder' business card for dealing with indie game developers. This scheme seemed to work fine.

[CHY872]

In the UK, I'm the director of a company. I'm the director because there (according to my accountants) needs to be someone with the title of 'Director'. I don't do much directing, but apparently I'm in charge of that. I don't think it needs to imply anything, and I wouldn't be surprised if he quipped it at one point and the journalist went with it. Certainly, whenever I tell people I usually say it really loudly and slowly like as though I'm stupid.

[corobo]

People understand that you mean the top dog when you say CEO in an article. If they said "Manager of a startup" or "Guy who runs a startup" it doesn't sound as interesting

It's a bit clickbait, a bit common denominator - not necessarily bad things, it makes for easier reading

[dbdriscoll]

Yep, see my comment above in reply to another comment. I hate using the title CEO, but I also knew that I needed to use it here in order to get published and then get some attention for the article. Frankly, I hoped people would see "CEO" as ironic.

As I wrote a moment ago, I just call myself "a co-founder" of a startup and, when pressed on title, will use "ceo" rather than the ALL CAPS version.

A friend put it well: "Until you I-P-O, you're just a c-e-o."

Cheers, Dan (author of the article & a reQwip co-founder)

[sebastianavina]

I think it has something to do with the fact that everybody has shares on the companies, so somebody has to be the leader of the board. Hence they call themselves CEO's.

When you have traditional business and you are the only owner, you're simply "the boss" there is no point to have a CEO because everything the boss says is unquestionable.

source: I own several traditional business.

[frostmatthew]

> so somebody has to be the leader of the board. Hence they call themselves CEO's

Wouldn't Chairman/woman of the Board be more appropriate then? I agree with the parent that Chief Executive Officer is a bit funny when there is only one "executive officer" (like calling yourself "lead developer" when you're the only one) but there isn't really a better option.

[orky56]

Do you want someone's title to change as they grow the team and responsibilities change? I prefer CEO & CTO over just founder since it at least implies what their role is rather than just being "founder". It would also be worse if they threw in a title that purposely misled someone like "VP of Business Development" even though they are a business founder.