Many readers suspect that Slate will be hoaxed by fake donors, kids, and parents claiming affiliation with the repository. These skeptics ask how I can ever know whether anyone is legit, especially since my sources are sheltered behind a promise of confidentiality. It's an excellent question. The skeptics are right that it is impossible for me to know for an absolute certainty if someone such as The Entrepreneur was in fact a donor. After all, the repository's records are inaccessible, if they still exist at all.

But in the case of The Entrepreneur, I am as sure as I possibly can be that he is the real deal. He supplied, unprompted, many, many corroborating details about the repository, its employees, and how it did business—details that no one but someone extremely familiar with it could have known. He also holds a prominent position in society and business and would seem to have no incentive to invent an affiliation with the sperm bank. And the details he gave me about his personal and professional history check out.