Revealed the person of "fake Steve Jobs"
For the past 14 months, the high-tech industry community absorbed information from an anonymous blogger who took on the guise of Steve Jobs, President of Apple and one of the world's most famous businessmen.
The mysterious author used the blog “The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs ” to ridicule Steve and his reputation as a difficult and selfish leader, as well as to ridicule other high-tech companies, technical journalists, venture capitalists, open source fans and the aura of excellence throughout Silicon Valley.
The stabbing messages of “fake Steve”, as everyone knows him, attracted the attention of a huge number of readers, even the real Steve Jobs and Bill Gates confirmed that they were reading the “secret diary”. At the same time, the “fake Steve” managed to avoid all attempts at Silicon Valley to reveal his persona.
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Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Daniel Lyons, the chief editor of Forbes magazine, who lives near Boston, enjoyed the attention.
“I'm stunned that it took so long,” Lyons says when a reporter interrupted his Maine vacation on Sunday to ask him about “fake Steve.” “I didn’t keep it so well a secret. I have been expecting this call for many months. ”
Lyons writes and edits technical articles for Forbes and is the author of two books, the previous book of 1998 is the novel Dog Days. In October, Da Capo Press will release his satirical novel written in the spirit of “fake Steve” - “Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, A Parody”. Unlike improvised thinking in a blog, “Options” is a well-thought satire that represents Apple’s head in fighting real life problems about backdating options and getting help and bad advice from friends such as Larry Ellison, Bono and El Horus The book partially led to the disclosure of Lyons. Last year, his agent showed the manuscript to several publishers and told them that the already published author is an anonymous author, as well as what he writes for the main business magazine.
The NY Times Company calculated Lyons, finding an author who would meet these criteria, and after, compared the blog entries of “fake Steve” to Lyons blog entries.
Lyons said he came up with “fake Steve” last year, when a small group of company presidents became bloggers for the attention of the press. He noticed that they rarely spoke frankly. “I thought it would be fun, probably, if the president of the company keeps a blog that says what he really thinks. That was the essence. ”
Lyons said that he restored the sound of the voices of several presidents in his head before his choice fell on the head of Apple. He tried to quit the blog twice, but started again after the ardent fans of “fake Steve” bombarded him with letters asking what happened to “fake Steve”. Although some thought that the “fake Steve” worked for Apple, Lyons never interviewed Steve Jobs and did not write about the company. "I have no information from inside the company," says Lyons. “I had to go and buy books and biographies in order to learn a lot from the preceding.”
Lyons says that being a “fake Steve” has become his habit. He has developed a unique vocabulary and list of attacks for his character. Bill Gates is the master of monsters, and Eric Schmidt, the president of Google, is a squirrel boy.
Last month, when a reader asked “fake Steve” about Apple’s plans, he replied: “My plan is to live forever and stay at the head of the company, well, perhaps with some limitations on my credentials. The truth is, I'm not human. I am a demigod, son of Zeus, born of a mortal woman, but my father is the sovereign of the gods, the ruler of lightning. "
Lyons receives about 50 emails per day from the blog, many of them with ideas for further posts, and he says that the site has been visited by about 700,000 unique visitors in the past month. Recently, someone who identified himself as Lisa - the daughter of Steve Jobs wrote a letter: "You are completely different from my father, but you have a funny blog."
The game of “guessing game” around this character was very lively; some assumed that they were some of the journalists, or former employees of the company, or even Steve Jobs himself.
Even Richard Karlgaard got involved in this game, reflecting on the topic of "fake Steve." Once he wrote: “The game of“ guessing game ”has begun. Who is writing this? Send me your thoughts. I’ll be happy to buy the most expensive iPod to the one who opens the “fake Steve” first. ”Lyons said that he was uncomfortable, and later he revealed himself to his superiors and colleagues.
Karlgaard said that he had never laughed like that and did not hold insults. “It seems to me that this is the most brilliant caricature about an important part of American culture that I have ever seen. We are very proud to be one of us. ”
Forbes planned in September to transfer the Secret Diary to Forbes.com , but at the moment they can speed up the process.
Lyons neatly used the “fake Steve” person to promote his interests. For example, articles from other magazines and their journalists were often criticized by “fake Steve,” while Forbes sidestepped. Fake Steve also criticized open-source fans, calling them "freeloaders." Lyons wrote several articles for Forbes in which he criticized the free software movement and its founder, Richard Stallman.
He said that he never wanted his blog filled with malice, and that he was an ardent supporter of Apple products. “If I thought that the guys from Apple want to find this man and kill him, I would not do that. I hoped it would be fun and mischievous. It seems to me that the guys from Silicon Valley like the fact that they make fictional characters. It's like a comic strip. ”
On the question of whether he was afraid that he would be summoned to court for some statements of “fake Steve” and personal messages, Lyons answered: “Yes.”
But the real Steve Jobs doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in the disclosure of the fake Steve’s disguise. In a conversation on IM, he replied that he was not interested in reading the work of Lyons.
The mysterious author used the blog “The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs ” to ridicule Steve and his reputation as a difficult and selfish leader, as well as to ridicule other high-tech companies, technical journalists, venture capitalists, open source fans and the aura of excellence throughout Silicon Valley.
The stabbing messages of “fake Steve”, as everyone knows him, attracted the attention of a huge number of readers, even the real Steve Jobs and Bill Gates confirmed that they were reading the “secret diary”. At the same time, the “fake Steve” managed to avoid all attempts at Silicon Valley to reveal his persona.
')
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Daniel Lyons, the chief editor of Forbes magazine, who lives near Boston, enjoyed the attention.
“I'm stunned that it took so long,” Lyons says when a reporter interrupted his Maine vacation on Sunday to ask him about “fake Steve.” “I didn’t keep it so well a secret. I have been expecting this call for many months. ”
Lyons writes and edits technical articles for Forbes and is the author of two books, the previous book of 1998 is the novel Dog Days. In October, Da Capo Press will release his satirical novel written in the spirit of “fake Steve” - “Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, A Parody”. Unlike improvised thinking in a blog, “Options” is a well-thought satire that represents Apple’s head in fighting real life problems about backdating options and getting help and bad advice from friends such as Larry Ellison, Bono and El Horus The book partially led to the disclosure of Lyons. Last year, his agent showed the manuscript to several publishers and told them that the already published author is an anonymous author, as well as what he writes for the main business magazine.
The NY Times Company calculated Lyons, finding an author who would meet these criteria, and after, compared the blog entries of “fake Steve” to Lyons blog entries.
Lyons said he came up with “fake Steve” last year, when a small group of company presidents became bloggers for the attention of the press. He noticed that they rarely spoke frankly. “I thought it would be fun, probably, if the president of the company keeps a blog that says what he really thinks. That was the essence. ”
Lyons said that he restored the sound of the voices of several presidents in his head before his choice fell on the head of Apple. He tried to quit the blog twice, but started again after the ardent fans of “fake Steve” bombarded him with letters asking what happened to “fake Steve”. Although some thought that the “fake Steve” worked for Apple, Lyons never interviewed Steve Jobs and did not write about the company. "I have no information from inside the company," says Lyons. “I had to go and buy books and biographies in order to learn a lot from the preceding.”
Lyons says that being a “fake Steve” has become his habit. He has developed a unique vocabulary and list of attacks for his character. Bill Gates is the master of monsters, and Eric Schmidt, the president of Google, is a squirrel boy.
Last month, when a reader asked “fake Steve” about Apple’s plans, he replied: “My plan is to live forever and stay at the head of the company, well, perhaps with some limitations on my credentials. The truth is, I'm not human. I am a demigod, son of Zeus, born of a mortal woman, but my father is the sovereign of the gods, the ruler of lightning. "
Lyons receives about 50 emails per day from the blog, many of them with ideas for further posts, and he says that the site has been visited by about 700,000 unique visitors in the past month. Recently, someone who identified himself as Lisa - the daughter of Steve Jobs wrote a letter: "You are completely different from my father, but you have a funny blog."
The game of “guessing game” around this character was very lively; some assumed that they were some of the journalists, or former employees of the company, or even Steve Jobs himself.
Even Richard Karlgaard got involved in this game, reflecting on the topic of "fake Steve." Once he wrote: “The game of“ guessing game ”has begun. Who is writing this? Send me your thoughts. I’ll be happy to buy the most expensive iPod to the one who opens the “fake Steve” first. ”Lyons said that he was uncomfortable, and later he revealed himself to his superiors and colleagues.
Karlgaard said that he had never laughed like that and did not hold insults. “It seems to me that this is the most brilliant caricature about an important part of American culture that I have ever seen. We are very proud to be one of us. ”
Forbes planned in September to transfer the Secret Diary to Forbes.com , but at the moment they can speed up the process.
Lyons neatly used the “fake Steve” person to promote his interests. For example, articles from other magazines and their journalists were often criticized by “fake Steve,” while Forbes sidestepped. Fake Steve also criticized open-source fans, calling them "freeloaders." Lyons wrote several articles for Forbes in which he criticized the free software movement and its founder, Richard Stallman.
He said that he never wanted his blog filled with malice, and that he was an ardent supporter of Apple products. “If I thought that the guys from Apple want to find this man and kill him, I would not do that. I hoped it would be fun and mischievous. It seems to me that the guys from Silicon Valley like the fact that they make fictional characters. It's like a comic strip. ”
On the question of whether he was afraid that he would be summoned to court for some statements of “fake Steve” and personal messages, Lyons answered: “Yes.”
But the real Steve Jobs doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in the disclosure of the fake Steve’s disguise. In a conversation on IM, he replied that he was not interested in reading the work of Lyons.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/31191/
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