Over the past year, I have enjoyed reading The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs from an anonymous blogger who assumed the persona of Steve Jobs -- Apple's CEO. It was incredible funny, acerbic, and just what you would expect to read from one of the world's most famous and eccentric chief executives. Want to know who Fake Steve really is? Read on.
I wrote a blog a while back that every major company should have a "Mis-Chief Officer" whose job was to poke fun at the top dog without getting his head handed back to him. Well, Fake Steve was the court jester, AKA Mis-Chief Officer, for Steve Jobs and I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed reading his ramblings about what the real Steve Jobs probably did think and say -- in private of course.
Well, Fake Steve's identity was finally uncovered by the New York Times after a lengthy investigation. He is Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes magazine. God love ya, Mr. Lyons!
Lyons said he invented Fake Steve after several CEOs turned into bloggers themselves but rarely spoke candidly and wrote incredible pablum. Says Lyons, "I thought, wouldn't it be funny if a CEO kept a blog that really told you what he thought?" And so his fake blog was born -- and yes, it was very, very funny!
Over the year, Lyons admitted that he became hooked on Fake Steve, developing his own lexicon and catalogue of insults for his fake character. Bill Gates became the Beastmaster, Eric Schmidt (Google's CEO) became Squirrel Boy, and so on. He saved his best jabs for Larry Ellison though. It was good stuff.
What is the future of Fake Steve? Well, Forbes says they plan to move the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs to Forbes.com in September. Hmm, now that is a formal part of the Forbes empire, I fear its unfiltered nature may go the way of the dinosaur.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
Yours in BI success,
Fake Claudia
Technorati Tags: Fake Steve, Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
Posted August 6, 2007 5:26 PM
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