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Ask HN: What do you think about a CEO providing human name to his business?

news.ycombinator.com

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Ask HN: What do you think about a CEO providing human name to his business?

#1

Post by amts »

As I may get a CEO assistant job at a company dealing with lab equipment and reagents more aligned with my main science interests [1], I googled that company and found that its CEO seems to have a few other similar pharmaceutical companies. But one of them is named with a female human name.

I think that business entities are a bit more abstract to bear the labels used for human bodies and it sounds strange for me. I would never buy anything from a company with any human name. This CEO is a PhD and his dissertation is aligned with my main interests, but I do not want to get into another type of bs with this CEO assistant job.

What do you think about a CEO providing a female human name to one of his businesses?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37560705

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about a CEO providing human name to his business?

#4

Post by Centrino »

To be clear, you mean a first name, also called “given name”, not a surname?

Do you feel uncomfortable when hearing about the Ariane rocket?

Mercedes cars bear the name of the daughter of the founder.

Dave is a highly ranked banking app.

LA Times: “Companies are using human names to seem more friendly”. https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-company-human-name-20...

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about a CEO providing human name to his business?

#5

Post by amts »

Centrino wrote: post #4

To be clear, you mean a first name, also called “given name”, not a surname? Do you feel uncomfortable when hearing about the Ariane rocket? Mercedes cars bear the name of the daughter of the founder. Dave is a highly ranked banking app. LA Times: “Companies are using human names to seem more friendly”. https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-company-human-name-20...

Yes the first name only

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about a CEO providing human name to his business?

#6

Post by amts »

Centrino wrote: post #4

To be clear, you mean a first name, also called “given name”, not a surname? Do you feel uncomfortable when hearing about the Ariane rocket? Mercedes cars bear the name of the daughter of the founder. Dave is a highly ranked banking app. LA Times: “Companies are using human names to seem more friendly”. https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-company-human-name-20...

A company with this name is a pharmaceutical company, it seems so unprofessional to me

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about a CEO providing human name to his business?

#8

Post by jaclaz »

Maybe it is because I am getting old, but I cannot see the problem, maybe it is slighty unusual, but there is nothing that can be seen unethical or unappropriate (IMHO).

Companies using surnames or first name+surname are very common but there are already more than a few using first names only.

Moreover it could be also an acronym "cleverly" assembled to a first name.

Personally I am more perplexed by the names that some people give to their sons.

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