I'm not one of those who thinks it's Adam Back, I believe it's Szabo - which means of course that I find your anecdotes perfectly convincing :)

And it seems also the thing you mention about taking money on bad terms should be independently verifiable, which the journalist writing this article should probably have checked.

I have trouble believing Satoshi would pursue a venture capital startup founder life in his personal life, assuming he didn't burn his wallets. I would find it a lot more likely that he pursued an academic career at his own tempo, writing a paper here and there, maybe teaching undergraduates even, etc. But that's a lot closer to my dream life, so maybe I'm biased there as well!