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NYT Exposes the Identity of Fake Steve Jobs
mattatwork writes "NY Times writer Brad Stone figured out the real identity of Fake Steve Jobs. With classic nick names like 'freetards' and 'beastmaster' Fake Steve captured an audience of 700,000 visitors to the site and around 50 emails a day. According to Daniel Lyons, the senior editor at Forbes magazine who maintained the blog, there is no definite plan for the future of the site. 'Mr. Lyons said he invented the Fake Steve character last year, when a small group of chief executives turned bloggers attracted some media attention. He noticed that they rarely spoke candidly. "I thought, wouldn't it be funny if a C.E.O. kept a blog that really told you what he thought? That was the gist of it." Mr. Lyons says he recalled trying out the voices of several chief executives before settling on the colorful Apple co-founder. He twice tried to relinquish the blog, but started again after being deluged by fans e-mailing to ask why Fake Steve had disappeared.'"
Was this a mystery that just had to be solved?
Where is the Undo button for my life? Not to mention the Esc key.
Actually, given who it turned out to be, the motives and biases are rather clear in hindsight. I'm almost willing to bet that Steve Ballmer wasn't among the "other CEO voices" Mr. Lyons tried out...
But then, maybe it was a means for ol' Dan to get out his juvenile side?
I dunno - this is starting to sound too much like a flamebait -ish pack of conspiracy theories. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was funny here and there - but seeing who's behind it makes me wonder if it wasn't just a larger propaganda campaign on Lyons' part.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
What ever happened to As Seen On TV?
I believe I was the first one to write a fake Steve Jobs' blog. I stopped when it reached the top 5 results for a 'steve jobs' search and Apple's legal department contacted me. http://web.archive.org/web/20040102222820/http://j ustonemorething.com/
I used to work at Microsoft, and from reading minimsft, I'm pretty sure he really does work there, or at least did at one time. His take on what's right and wrong at Microsoft shows not just a great deal of insight, but a great deal of knowledge of what it's really like on the inside. If he doesn't work there, he's got to be talking to some pretty knowledgeable people who do, and who are willing to say these things to an outsider at the potential risk of their jobs.
So, if I were an investigate reporter trying to find out who minimsft is, I'd start by moving anyone who is not a current or former blue badge to the bottom of my suspects list. The stuff about being a manager and being male may be true or may be obfuscation, so I wouldn't put too much stock in it It's not hard for a non-manager there to make the same observations mini-msft makes. I accept that minimsft is probably male, if for no reason other than most of the people working there (at least in coding jobs) are men.
Minimsft may well be exactly what he describes himself as. OTOH, I wouldn't be surprised if he were actually a mid or senior-level manager. Turning an oil tanker can be hard, even for someone with a lot of clout, and revolution is sometimes easier to start from the bottom than from the top. Microsoft is certainly an oil tanker, or perhaps an aircraft carrier might be a better description. They, too, take a lot of time and space to turn, but once turned can move pretty quickly and bring a lot of power to bear on the target.
Can Microsoft be turned? Now that's an interesting question. The corporate culture there so powerful, pervasive, and seemingly immutable. Turning Microsoft may not be impossible, but it would be very, very hard.