Talk:Intel/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Arthur Rock a founder

The Origins section lists Arthur Rock as a founder based upon two sources, one of which is a primary source, i.e., apparently a draft or copy of part a pre-IPO Convertible Debenture offering. IMO this is sufficient for inclusion but than eliminating we should at least talk about it. FWIW it seems relatively simple, if not easy, to verify by finding either the offering or the IPO at which point we can correct the article, if necessary. If @Coolcaesar: wants to tag the section as disputed that's fine but eliminating the material seems inappropriate. Tom94022 (talk) 17:07, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Please review Wikipedia:No original research, specifically the part about "Primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." Most debt and securities instruments are primary sources but are filed, not "published." Only annual and quarterly reports are often circulated broadly to libraries and can be said to be "published." Also, what we have is a bare link to a PDF with no information on the provenance of that document. If it turns out that debenture was sitting in a drawer in someone's private file cabinet for decades, then it hasn't been "published." The point of WP:NOR is that Wikipedia cannot be a first publisher.

Under WP:V, the burden is on the editor (in this case, an anon IP) inserting information to provide sufficient citations to reliable sources (including sufficient foundation to show that a source is reliable). Speculation that one could find the IPO documentation later is a proof surrogate, an rhetorical tactic that is no substitute for citations to reliable sources. IPO documentation is notoriously hard to find before 1996 (before use of EDGAR became commonplace).

If you look carefully at Intel's official timeline, it's clear that Intel acknowledges Arthur Rock's role as a founding investor and its first chairman, but not necessarily a founder in the sense that word is normally used.

I just came across a reliable source on Google Books that does argue Rock could be considered to be a "third co-founder," but since the company doesn't seem to regard him as a founder, I'm not going to bother to add a cite to that source. Then one would have to lay out the whole crazy debate over who are the founders of Intel and that's not an issue I care about enough to spend two hours researching it and typing it up. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:38, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is a substantive distinction between "founder" and "founding investor" nor between "filling" and "publication". Since thanks to your research there is now an RS having Rock as a "third co-founder" and one as a "founding investor (added to article) it seems to me that the article doesn't violate either NOR. I agree that finding pre-Edgar documents is difficult but it is not impossible, but that reference is now one of four sources that exist so I'm not sure it is worth the effort. Tom94022 (talk) 17:00, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

@Coolcaesar: see READ THE INTEL CONVERTIBLE NOTE BY ARTHUR ROCK for context. Tom94022 (talk) 16:15, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

That SLS Web page speaks to the context in which that note was created, but not its provenance (where it's been all these years).

Please review WP:V and WP:RS. There is a fundamental difference between filing and publication.

Anyone can "file" a document with a court or a government agency. That's why courts of law declare people to be vexatious litigants to put an end to their nonsensical and frivolous filings. Also, documents that are filed sit in only one place forever. In the past 20 years, some databases have begun to collect and scan in filed documents to make them easier to search online (behind paywalls), but their collections are notorious for being piecemeal and incomplete.

The point of "publication" is that (1) the editor acts a filter and (2) published documents are distributed. For example, I can find old hard copy issues of U.S. News and World Report magazine in bound hardcover volumes in libraries all over the world. So if one person adds an assertion to a WP article supported by a citation to a U.S. News article from 1987, I can find the issue cited and then challenge the assertion as failing verification (because the article does not exist or does not actually say that). The point of WP:V and WP:RS is that by preferring secondary sources over primary sources, we increase the reliability of the encyclopedia because the majority of journalists, writers, and editors are ethical professionals who strive to maintain their credibility by publishing accurate work.

Also, that's incorrect to say that "thanks to your research there is now a RS having Rock as a 'third co-founder.'" No, there isn't. It's merely one argument put forward by an academic researcher (not a professor), which I believe is incorrect because it looks like she's confusing an investor with a founder. That's why I'm not going to add that source to the article.

There is a fundamental difference between an investor who merely brings money to the table, and a founder who has to formulate and pitch a business plan to investors (especially angel investors) and then actually execute by hiring and firing employees and managing them on a day-to-day basis in order to bring products and services to market and make a profit. Rock had more involvement than most investors because he was also the chairman of the board, but a board of directors only meets every few weeks or months. The founders of a company necessarily have to be on-site every day, especially in the first few months. --Coolcaesar (talk) 15:18, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

It seems to me that an article published in the Stanford Lawyer by its editor Sharon Driscoll qualifies as a RS for publishing and authenticating the document. The original deletion was because the document needed "contextual information" which has been provided. That with the addition of Intel's description of Rock as a "founding-investor" should end this discussion. Most of the objections are personal opinions as to meaning of founder, meaning of publication, requirement for provenance" etc; please read "WP:NPOV" Tom94022 (talk) 20:51, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

You did not respond directly to nearly all the facts I raised above. They're not opinions, they're facts. You have not established consensus on this issue. You really need to read up on what is a founder of a company and what it means to publish a document.

The mere fact that Stanford scanned in the debenture and linked to it in their article says nothing about where it came from or whether it was ever published. For all we know, it could have been sitting in a drawer at Stanford Libraries Special Collections in a warehouse in Newark or Livermore all these years, or it could have been in Intel's corporate archives in Santa Clara. I have accessed archival documents at Stanford (Douglas Engelbart's papers). Archival documents are not normally "published". That's why the APA has issued special guidelines on how to cite archival documents. Archival documents are "published" only for the most important celebrities in history. For example, the Einstein Papers Project publishes Albert Einstein's personal papers.

People in Silicon Valley and the tech industry in general draw a sharp distinction between founders and investors. Sometimes a founder will invest in their own company, but the two categories are not the same thing. The published literature is quite clear on this. The founder of PeoplePath wrote an entire book about founder turnover in which he defines a founder as both a shareholder and an executive of the company. And this book on startup boards by three seasoned venture capitalists is clearly treating the founder and VC investors as distinct categories in its discussion of who gets to chair the board. As does this book in discussing the power of VC to overcome capital bottlenecks.

For example, Mike Markkula is not normally considered to be a co-founder of Apple, even though he was the company's original angel investor, first chairman, and second CEO, and he also wrote its first business plan and engineered the incorporation of the company. The majority of published sources treat the two Steves and Ronald Wayne as Apple's co-founders, because they signed Apple's original partnership agreement in 1976. Only a minority of sources call Markkula an Apple co-founder.

One more thing. I was just at the picnic, as I have been most years. What am I referring to? --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:50, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

• As far as consensus goes no one has joined this discussion so I suggest you need more justification to remove the long-standing statement about Rock which may go back to at least 2011, particularly given that your original reason for removal, now overcome, was the lack of context.
• As far as provenance goes, that seems to be an irrelevant strawman argument, since the document has now been published by Stanford and authenticated by Rock.
• As for founder, there are many definitions including one who gets founder's stock. Intel confirms Rock as a "founding investor" and other sources confirm he received founder's stock. AFAICT, only Jobs, Wozniak and Rock received founder's stock. Your Markkula example confirms his distinction from Rock - there is no evidence that he received founder's stock so by any measure he was not a founder of Apple. BTW, "angel investors" usually purchase debentures convertible to common stock.

Tom94022 (talk) 16:23, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I reread the Stanford Lawyer article again with fresh eyes and I'll concede the point on provenance. Rock does expressly state that he wrote it, although "it" is not very clear at first. One has to read the whole article carefully to be clear on what document he is talking about.

In the debenture itself, Rock never states he is a founder. He merely states that Intel was "incorporated" by himself and the two others, and that he has been associated with the "formation" of several other companies. But anyone who works on the incorporation of a company or co-signed its incorporation papers can say with a straight face that they "incorporated" or "formed" the company. That doesn't necessarily mean they "founded" the company.

Again, Intel is careful to not call Rock a founder. For example, he's not even mentioned in this company article on Intel's founders. He's only a founding investor. So the best way to resolve this is to expressly note in the body of the article itself that Intel characterizes Rock as a "founding investor" but refers to Moore and Noyce as its two "founders," and then list only those two in the infobox.

The duration of the listing of Rock as a founder in this WP article is of no relevance. We have problems all the time with people inserting unsourced information into Wikipedia that isn't caught and reverted for many years.

Again, you're advancing an unusual definition of "founder" that most people don't use, including people in ZIP code 94022 in Silicon Valley. Anyone who lives or has lived there would know about the annual town picnic, which is what I was just referring to above. Anyone from 94022 would have shot back, "Yes, I was at the town picnic too," or, "I hope you had a good time, but I didn't make it to the town picnic this year."

As a lifelong reader of many English-language news sources including the WSJ, NYT, Bloomberg, the Guardian, the Mercury News, the SF Chronicle, etc., I have not encountered such an unusually broad interpretation of the term "founder." So it appears to be original research in violation of WP:NOR, plus it implicitly amounts to using Wikipedia for advocacy in violation of WP:NOT. I've already cited published, reliable sources for the commonly understood meaning of "founder" as someone who actually creates, starts, and manages a company on a day-to-day basis as an executive, versus a mere investor who puts up money but doesn't actually run the company. Do you have any sources supporting your position that "founder" can be used for someone who merely receives stock in connection with the formation of a company and serves on the board but does not act in an executive capacity? --Coolcaesar (talk) 15:12, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

See Definition of founders stock. The citing of ones understanding of a term based upon one's reading sounds like OR and I would note that I read most of the same journals, live in that ZIP code and do not reach the same conclusion as to "founders" meaning nor that particular June 3 picnic. The duration in the article is an indication of consensus, and so far no one has joined this talk so there certainly is no consensus for removal, if you want to invoke WP:DISPUTED or WP:DISPUTE please do so but given the lack of interest so far, Rock should remain as a founder in the article. Tom94022 (talk) 16:54, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

First, the town picnic was on Sunday, June 4, 2023. They usually hold the picnic on Sundays.

Second, you are citing a definition of "founders' stock" as stock that is given to the founders of a company. Your application of that term to Rock doesn't make sense, unless you are inferring from that definition that because Rock received stock concurrently with the two co-founders of Intel, that logically makes him a founder too. Under that reading, anyone who receives shares as part of the incorporation of a company is therefore entitled to be called a founder. Is that a fair statement of how you're applying that definition?

Most people in Silicon Valley see it the other way around: an executive who actually conceives of, starts, operates, and builds a company is a founder, but a venture capital investor who injects cash in exchange for equity is not a founder. In other words, "founder" status is based on what one does to create a company, not what one receives from a company. This is consistent with the Merriam-Webster definition of "founder," which is one who "founds or establishes". Notice how the word "founder" is defined in terms of verbs normally used in the active voice, not the passive voice. --Coolcaesar (talk) 14:05, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

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