Startup L. Jackson Speaks Out About Diversity, Cool Products, And All The People He’s Not

Anonymous Twitter persona Startup L. Jackson has captured a large following in the tech community due to his biting commentary on Silicon Valley culture and regular startup advice. We’ve made our guesses about who he is, but we’re still not sure.
Product Hunt’s Ryan Hoover and Erik Torenberg interviewed the man behind the mystery for their podcast and agreed to let us post it on TechCrunch. The two edited the interview and masked his voice to protect his identity, but it could still shed some light on who he is.

“Interview with Startup L Jackson” Product Hunt

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1. “Interview with Startup L Jackson” — Product Hunt

41:09

Startup L. Jackson mentions in the interview that he’s flattered that we reported on semantic analysis linking his account to Svbtle founder Dustin Curtis, but swears that’s not him.
From the podcast we get a few nuggets of information about him, however: We learn that he was at a startup when he first made the profile in 2011; is passionate about diversity in tech; reads Techmeme every morning; uses WeChat; and is on LinkedIn, but doesn’t listen to Spotify.

He mentions people like Ben Horowitz, Sheryl Sandberg and Dave McClure in the podcast. Anyone of them could be him. Or not.
Finally, we learn that SLJ’s identity is an open secret with some of the Silicon Valley digerati. At least two-dozen people are aware of his real identity, he says, although they have remained relatively tight-lipped to date.

We’re still hoping to find out who he is, and would like to buy him a drink some day. Then again, who knows? Maybe we already have.