You've touched on a few of the conceits in his writing style: 1) He writes as if you're at least somewhat familiar with the stories he's been telling all these

You've touched on a few of the conceits in his writing style: 1) He writes as if you're at least somewhat familiar with the stories he's been telling all these years. 2) The stories are presented as parables, and the details may not all be 100% consistent from year to year. The "parable" conceit could be a convenient dodge to avoid fully justifying or proving his points, but I've found the coherence and strong voice of the writing to be respectable enough so far. If you're really curious about the names of the startups you can easily Google up his LinkedIn profile. Click through to the book covers on his site to find out his real name. Rands is a pen name that goes along with the familiar storytelling style of the blog.