It had to end sometime. One of the great pieces of satire to ever hit the blogosphere is shutting down. Ladies and gentlemen, Fake Steve Jobs is no more.

The final few posts cap two plus years of The Secret Diaries of Steve Jobs, a sorta-fictional account of the life and times of the Apple CEO and silicon valley in general.

Creator Dan Lyons officially announced the demise of the blog today with a fittingly vague and only slighty coherent rant topped off by one of Fake Steve's trademark misattributed quotes. Gossip site Valleywag claims that Lyons killed the blog out of fear that Real Steve was not long for this world, but it probably his a little more to do with Lyons' move from Forbes (which owns the blog) to Newsweek.

I could fill up several pages and a few hours of work with a long gushing rant about how wonderfully FSJ skewered the tech world on a regular basis. But instead, I'll let the blog speak for itself with a collection of some of my favorite FSJ quotes...

On Google:
They're going to look like a bunch of spoiled coddled self-involved Lego-playing 20-somethings who have free massages and dry cleaning and groovy ethnic food and have been turned loose with no adult supervision to do whatever the **** they want, and who all are suffering from acute Attention Deficit Disorder so that they never finish anything because they get bored and move on to the next stupid idea that some bozo has dreamed up on a white board. You know why they're going to look like that? Because that's what they are.

On the ill-fated Microsoft/Yahoo deal
It's like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they'll run faster.

Fake Steve on the iPhone launch
To those of you who serve under me at Apple, I say this: Yes, I have berated you, and insulted you, and exasperated you. Yes, I've fired your friends for no reason, and made you work harder than you ever thought you could work. Yes, I've taken you away from your spouses, your children, your transgendered domestic partners. In some cases your devotion to me has cost you your marriages. You've sacrificed a great deal for this. But has it not been worth it? For the rest of your life, you'll be able to say that you were working at Apple when the iPhone was introduced. You were here on the day when the course of human history was changed forever. Plus, you'll get a free 4-gigabyte iPhone, a $500 value. Not bad, right?

And finally, Fake Steve on Real Steve's management style
Keep them guessing. Keep them afraid. Otherwise they get complacent. Creativity springs from fear. Think of a painter, or a writer, or a composer working furiously in his studio, afraid he's going to starve to death if he doesn't get this piece of work just right. That's where greatness comes from. Well, same goes for engineers and designers at Apple and Pixar. They come in every day knowing it could be their last day. They work like hell, trust me.

Namaste, Dan Lyons, and best of luck. I honor the place where your blog and my adulation become one.

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10 Jul 2008