Unmasking Startup L. Jackson

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-17/unmasking-startup-l-jackson-silicon-valley-s-favorite-twitter-persona

by jackgavigan • 10 years ago

357 87 10 years ago

bloomberg.com

grandalf• 10 years ago

What always impressed me was the quality of the humor, like a young Chris Rock unafraid and insightful.

tosseraccount2• 10 years ago

https://twitter.com/startupljackson is the twitter site.

We need a list of sometimes anonymous, poignant and politically incorrect twitter feeds for other industries.

For Finance, check out https://twitter.com/ReformedBroker ("Downtown" Josh Brown) and "gselevator" https://twitter.com/GSElevator) (author was also eventually unmasked)

"Teach the coal miners and frackers Python and Ruby."

classic.

kelukelugames• 10 years ago

Why do you think SLJ was politically incorrect? He never said anything rude or ignorant.

He often tweeted about diversity and inclusion and coined the term "culture debt" for startups.

update: okay I think the words pc and un un pc have become meaningless because they mean too many different things.

potatolicious• 10 years ago

I think OP was using "politically incorrect" in its original definition - i.e., speaking in a way counter to what's politically popular/accepted by the elite.

Which in Startup L. Jackson's case was definitely true - he called out a lot of the Valley's cultural myopia, excesses, and failures in a way that he would have been unable to do without the pseudonymity or pretense of satire.

Unfortunately the word has also been co-opted by some to mean "liberal" or "progressive", which is a shame.

ska• 10 years ago

For that matter it is not clear that the term "politically incorrect" has any useful meaning anymore, now that it has been a rhetorical football for so long.

xiaoma• 10 years ago

What's politically correct is often both rude and ignorant. Just think of what views were PC about various ethnicities in Germany in the 30s.

Of course nobody in power (or who wanted to be accepted by society) would say those views were rude or ignorant. It was only after politics changed that people would look back and call the formerly dominant ideology what it was.

The question is, what beliefs does society currently enforce that are wrong? Don't answer publicly, since by definition there would be a serious social cost for you speaking what society doesn't want spoken.

Or have we maybe outdone every preceding generation and actually managed to be right about every belief we hold dear?

PhasmaFelis2• 10 years ago

"Politically incorrect" now means "something which is slightly edgy, and which I like."

khc• 10 years ago

I've been following @SarcasticRover for a while, do robots count?

tosseraccount2• 10 years ago

"Celebrate 'Pi Day' by being irrational and going on forever."

good! thanks.

Scuds• 10 years ago

In that case: @horse_js

strictnein2• 10 years ago

https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity

jackgavigan• 10 years ago

NO FORGET https://twitter.com/FAKEGRIMLOCK !!!

m52go• 10 years ago

I like @Wu_Tang_Finance (https://twitter.com/Wu_Tang_Finance).

huac• 10 years ago

this is a bad feed. trust me. here's their only two good jokes: "cash rules everything around me, except when other asset classes offer better risk-adjusted returns" and "straight outta wharton, a crazy n-- in a cubicle" - everything else they tweet is garbage

Perceptes• 10 years ago

I'm a fan of https://twitter.com/PLT_Hulk and https://twitter.com/jsjeopardy

vram224• 10 years ago

I've found @DEVOPS_BORAT to be funny too. Kept seeing his tweets for over a year or two; humorous ones about devops, from an imaginary Armenian devops guy with broken English. Seems to have stopped tweeting a while ago.

strictnein2• 10 years ago

Yeah, about three years ago now.

daodedickinson• 10 years ago

And last tweet explained why. I hope found job.

smcl3• 10 years ago

When it comes to devops on twitter I've found @fart's stuff to be pretty great. Particularly this: https://medium.com/weird/why-i-am-the-most-important-devops-... - a little sample below:

"This data is encapsulated in what are called “Data Beans” which are stored on the hard drive as zeroes (Optimal bean or “prime bean”) and ones (Flatbean or “bad bean”). These Data Beans are stored magnetically and retrieved as necessary. If a user requests too much data at one time they can suffer from data poisoning.

The computer’s RAM also stores Data Beans in the cloud. No one knows how this is done or why "

curiousgeorgio• 10 years ago

Also, @fart (aka Jon Hendren) pulled off one of the best examples of trolling the media I've ever seen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WqCj_3U0Lc

vram224• 10 years ago

That is hilarious! Thanks.

vram224• 10 years ago

Oh, beans from a fart, wow, though it should really be the other way around ...

tomjakubowski• 10 years ago

Borat is supposed to be from Kazakhstan, not Armenia. Did @DEVOPS_BORAT break canon?

datawrangler2• 10 years ago

@DEVOPS_BORAT has Kazakhstan[1] listed as the location in their profile, so no. :)

[1] https://twitter.com/devops_borat

vram224• 10 years ago

Ah, thanks for the catch. I sometimes mix up or forget the exact names or locations of those Central Asian countries, also the ones in the Caucasus and the Balkans. Have to keep googling and looking at maps to get it right. Will get better over time, am still somewhat new to them ...

grumblestumble• 10 years ago

since this has devolved into everyone's favorite tech-related parody accounts, i'll throw https://twitter.com/iamdevloper and https://twitter.com/NeckbeardHacker into the mix.

datawrangler2• 10 years ago

Also some occasional javascript related gems here: https://twitter.com/realDonaldJS

_s• 10 years ago

@sadserver (https://twitter.com/sadserver) and @sadoperator (https://twitter.com/sadoperator) also have a bunch of gems!

circuit_breaker• 10 years ago

@PHP_CEO is one of the funniest Twitter accounts I've seen.. example: "IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT SOMEONE CALLED JASON HAS BEEN ENCODING AND DECODING DATA IN OUR APP. PLEASE CHANGE YOUR PASSWORDS"

melvinmt• 10 years ago

PHP Ceo's response to one of sama's tweets [1] had me literally laughing out loud:

".@sama SO I SHOULD SELL SOFTWARE… AS A SERVICE?

WOULD I DO THIS ON COMPUTERS?

PLS ADVISE

THIS SAGACITY IS SURELY WORTH 10% OF MY COMPANY"

"@sama IF YOU HAVE ANY INSIGHTS ON HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE THIS WOULD ALSO BE APPRECIATED"

[1] https://twitter.com/sama/status/652242405966483456

inopinatus• 10 years ago

Do parody accounts now form the most diverting Twitter content? It ain't an endorsement of the medium.

addendum: fair enough; make that "parody | satire".

Analemma_• 10 years ago

While PHP_CEO might be distracting entertainment, some of the best accounts, including the ones mentioned on this thread (@StartupLJackson, @SwiftOnSecurity, @internetofshit, etc.) are not parody but satire, which is definitely a worthy use of the medium.

88e282102ae2e5b• 10 years ago

I mostly follow scientists in my field, which is a good way to hear about developments that are relevant but slightly adjacent to my specific interests, and also the politics of science

ljk• 10 years ago

Mostly. Some of my favorite accounts from before I quit:

https://twitter.com/onetweettony

https://twitter.com/stealthmountain

https://twitter.com/needadebitcard

leeoniya• 10 years ago

also check out @DEVOPS_BORAT, hilarious. but sadly no longer tweeting.

raphman• 10 years ago

Previous unmasking (without naming him) based on screenshots from his account:

https://syrah.co/joshdickson40/5604e5e10fc1786b0152a51a

vermontdevil2• 10 years ago

So was he right?

thieving_magpie• 10 years ago

Yes - in the article he shows tweets from Startup L. Jackson that feature their conversation.

joshdickson7• 10 years ago

Yeah, I'm surprised by how many people still ask me this. There's proof in the piece, but I also write long so I don't blame you if you missed it :)

cm3• 10 years ago

Why? I mean why is it important to identify who's behind something that doesn't hurt anybody? Can't we just enjoy the art?

lquist• 10 years ago

A fair question :/

Unfortunately your answer is this thread itself. As I am writing this comment it is Link #1 on HN. That is to say that people love this kind of content and it drives pageviews, so media outlets are incentivized to write about it. We have only ourselves to blame :/

betenoire• 10 years ago

@raphman_ posted this link which directly addresses this question: https://syrah.co/joshdickson40/5604e5e10fc1786b0152a51a

I hadn't seen this, good read if you haven't either.

nxzero• 10 years ago

People are just curious by nature. In this case, appears that the guy just wanted everyone to know who he is; bit ironic to me.

joshdickson7• 10 years ago

I am not talking my own book here because I was looking into it for other reasons mentioned in the linked piece - but, you can absolutely make the case that because the account's influence had grown so large, there was significant potential for conflict of interest that the public ought to know about. That sounds crazy, but that's also how big the account got.

Now, I obviously disagree with that opinion, but I'm also not a member of the media. It was also apparent after looking into it that there was absolutely no COA that would have justified outing him at the time.

azernik• 10 years ago

In this particular case? Because SLJ himself decided to. In TFA, it mentions that a) SLJ hasn't posted since December 31, and b) voluntarily gave an interview.

Now that Startup L. is retired, Thompson doesn’t mind the secret getting out.

ChuckMcM• 10 years ago

I miss @devops_borat, I don't recall if that person was ever outed but some of his one liners really nailed it.

fowkswe• 10 years ago

I was always a big fan of https://twitter.com/hipsterhacker

He's for the most part inactive, but occasionally drips out something acerbically relevant.

Kalium• 10 years ago

HipsterHacker is always a hoot. I'm reasonable certain the person has a day job, though.

an4rchy• 10 years ago

Wow.. this guy with 93 tweets has 53k followers... that feels like its the highest followers/tweet I've ever seen. f/t (gotta trademark this)

billbail• 10 years ago

Highest ratio I've ever seen is from Sean Lock with 2 tweets and almost 95k followers.

https://twitter.com/theseanlock?lang=en

noir_lord2• 10 years ago

I quite like @shit_hn_says

logic• 10 years ago

Unmasking Startup L. Jackson

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