‘Fake Steve Jobs’ blogger comes out as Forbes editor

A BLOGGER calling himself “Fake Steve Jobs,” whose parody of the Apple Inc chief executive amused and enthralled Silicon Valley, revealed himself on Sunday as an editor of Forbes business magazine. Dan Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes, admitted to writing as Fake Steve after a New York Times reporter found resemblances between the blog and Lyons’ published work and asked him whether he was behind the long-running satire.

Lyons told the Times he had started the fake blog last year to poke fun at the lack of candidness he saw in the growing number of CEO blogs that were attracting media attention. Forbes.com confirmed the Times’ account and posted an audio interview with Lyons, who lives near Boston and who had managed to evade media sleuths for more than a year.

“I was hoping to stay anonymous for a while longer but on the other hand I knew I couldn’t stay anonymous forever. It had to happen at some point,” Lyons said. “I hope that it doesn’t ruin the fun of the blog that people know who’s behind it.”

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The blog, fakesteve. blogspot.com, has gained a loyal readership for its frequent posts wrapping puerile put-downs and celebrity name-dropping around sharp analysis of business and technology trends.

Fake Steve, also known as “FSJ” or “El Jobso”, blasts Linux fans as “freetards” and skewers leading journalists as “filthy hacks” before signing off with the Indian salutation namaste.