

How Do I Know You Are Mr. Right Co-Founder? - chris100
http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2010/10/15/how-do-i-know-you-are-mr-right-co-founder/

======
tiffani
The last Mr. Co-founder I had was a sham for the very reasons mentioned here.
All talk, very little output with a side of excuses at every sit-down. I was
too young and naive at the time to realize what we had was less of a
partnership and more of an "I'll treat you like someone I found on
canYOUbuildthisforme.com." Definitely a good thing to not be impressed by
talk. Not every person who can administer a server can write code to run on
that server. Wish I'd known that back then. Lessons learned. :)

~~~
mattm
One of the lessons I've learned in life is that there are some people that
will impress you very much when you first meet them. They will talk a lot
about how much they're doing and what's going on for them and it will sound
very impressive.

After knowing them for a while I start to see that they are just full of it.
This has happened multiple times that I find there is a strong inverse
correlation between the amount of talk someone does and the amount they
actually get done.

~~~
jayliew
People who has shipped stuff has a portfolio/track record of stuff to show,
thus they don't feel the urge to sound overly impressive when meeting someone
the first time. imho

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jdp23
because, y'know, why would anybody ever consider a female co-founder?

it's a very good article, but i sure wish he had picked a different title.

~~~
alain94040
Once in a while, I write my blogs using "she" for the entrepreneur. That's how
I try to balance things out.

If you know of a non-pedantic way to write and be gender neutral, I'm
interested. "He/she" is really annoying to read. I sometimes use "their" as a
replacement for "his or her", although it's not grammatically correct. Any
better ideas?

Maybe a legal disclaimer at the end of the blog stating that any use of "he"
can be replaced by "she" (kind of like a a great constitutional amendment to
pass).

PS: note that the use of "Mr. Right" seems to imply that the original founder
is a woman, so that startup would be 50/50, not bad considering today's
reality.

~~~
mmt
_If you know of a non-pedantic way to write and be gender neutral, I'm
interested._

Just use "he." No, hear me out.

I hope it's fairly obvious that "language is usage is language." Given that,
one could very well keep using the plural pronoun as neuter[1], and, if it
gains enough popularity, it will be grammatically "correct."

An alternative is to continue using the traditional neuter pronoun, which is
also the male one. My disruptive proposal is to use it for _all_ situations,
especially when the antecedent is obviously female. Don't have separate
pronouns for the sexes, and all pronouns become neutral automatically.

Another alternative is to use the pronoun "one." It may be awkward, especially
with echoes of the passive voice, but, for me at least, it's more comfortable
than hijacking a plural pronoun to use in the singular.

A final alternative is to use "it," but, besides a potential for being
derogatory, it carries a significant risk of injecting confusion about what or
who is the antecedent.

Disclaimer: I am male.

[1] I'm not entirely comfortable with " _gender_ -neutral", since I'm aware,
as I'm sure the OP is, that there are non-English languages that have a
concept of word gender separate from sex. My first language, Russian, even has
a neuter gender, so even that's not entirely satisfying a word.

