Attribution is not vanity. It is how trust survives when the work outlives the room where it started. Houston’s voice traveled the world; Parton’s signature stayed on the composition. When a U.S. vape brand works through China manufacturing, the same discipline applies. The atomization technology matters. The PM who answers at 2 a.m. matters. The FDA-readiness folder matters. And the brand on the carton still has to be yours when a buyer in Dallas or Denver opens the box without you in the room.

We do not help founders become famous. We help them become legible — to factories, to labs, to their own future selves six months from now when they cannot remember what they agreed to in a hurry. Parton made legibility look like art. Founders make it look like a PDF. Both are defenses against being rewritten.