It was real in the sense that ben174 was in fact working at LowerMyBills.com at the time, 2003-2004: http://www.bugben.com/ (His resume)
However, most likely that was not his CTO. Its more likely that someone ran the command
/whois ben174
and it returned the hostname associated with his IP, which on IRC was typically public at the time. Then this person trolled ben174 by claiming to be from his company.
However, most likely that was not his CTO. Its more likely that someone ran the command
/whois ben174
and it returned the hostname associated with his IP, which on IRC was typically public at the time. Then this person trolled ben174 by claiming to be from his company.