Unless they are officially speaking on behalf of the fund... yep.

It doesn’t appear that this guy was speaking on behalf of the pension fund, just personally, so really he isn’t an investor.

I don't know about that. Institutional investors have a raft of obligations to their clients, including not doing things like intentionally making their investment go down in value. This is a complicated topic, hence why securities law is a thing, but I wouldn't dismiss something an institutional investor says just because they're not speaking officially. It's still their career, investment track record, and client obligations on the line.

A lot of VCs aren't investors either by that definition.

Yep.