Mitchell Hashimoto is a real programmer in the old vein. It's lovely to see him succeed. Ghostty is fantastic to use.
There was a devtools blackhole era once where if you got in that business you were just giving things away and never got to reap the rewards. Then there was this era of founders who figured out how to make it sticky and capture value in a Pareto-optimal way.
Ferrari, McLaren, Pagani, Lamborghini, Tata, Honda, Toyota, Wal-Mart, Zuora (named after the two founders), Garmin (also named after the two founders).
He mentioned in an interview Hashicorp was just a corporate entity that he used as a teenager to do some contracting here and there. He and the other founder weren't that keen on using it but the name stuck.
I don't know the specifics of naming that particular company, but being the majority stakeholder of two companies myself I can tell you that naming companies is just as hard as naming things in programming. Both of my companies are named after myself, one directly so and the other being a portmanteau of my business partner's and my names.
It had very little to do with self aggrandizing and more to do with the tax authorities need a name and time was limited. The names were used mostly as placeholders and then stuck. Branding is hard.
Charles Schwab has written (my memory) that putting one's name on the business stakes its reputation there, and such a business is theoretically more trustworthy.
There was a devtools blackhole era once where if you got in that business you were just giving things away and never got to reap the rewards. Then there was this era of founders who figured out how to make it sticky and capture value in a Pareto-optimal way.
Love to see it.