Remembering Om Malik
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Photo: Christopher Michel
Om Malik died on Wednesday, surrounded by family and friends, after a long heart health battle.
- This one hurts, even though we hadn't talked in quite a while. Maybe that's why it hurts a bit more.
Om was an early internet entrepreneur who soon became one of the nascent industry's leading journalists. He blogged. He reported. He founded a tech media company — serving as both inspiration and competition for many of us — before later becoming a venture capitalist.
- In recent years he'd rededicated himself to writing, reminding us that he'd always been one of tech's clearest thinkers.
I'd be remiss if I didn't note that he was extremely supportive of my work, including when I was a lowly trade rag reporter. He even pinch-hit on my original newsletter and was an enthusiastic career counselor. Finally, Om was a financial supporter of our Peloton fundraising rides.
- I'm grateful for all of it.
Social media is full of such sentiments, but I wanted to share two particular remembrances. The first from Katie Fehrenbacher, an Axios Pro reporter who was part of the original Gigaom team. The second from Kara Swisher, who was in the same tech reporting and media entrepreneur trenches.
Katie: "Om had a unique way of looking at technology, using his knowledge of the underlying infrastructure to predict how people would use it. He also used design as a throughline in his career, shaping everything from his reporting to his media products to his hobbies.
- In 2006, I got coffee with Om at the Starbucks on Battery Street. As a young tech journalist, I was trying to convince him to help get me a job at Business 2.0. Instead he said he was starting something new and invited me to join Gigaom as the first employee. I took the job on the spot and spent the next nine years working alongside him.
- He wasn't only a boss, or a mentor, he was a close friend. Om loved people and was always so generous with his time. His legacy is the countless young founders, journalists, designers and investors he advised along the way.
- Om liked to say he wasn't a journalist after he became an investor. But it was in his DNA and in the weeks before he died, he wrote some of the most insightful stories on AI and tech out there. His loss is massive for journalism, for the tech industry and for all of us who considered him a friend."
Kara: "From the start of the Internet age, Om was always my inspiration for so many things. While we took different paths, he forged the trail we all followed.
- He was always there first, whether it was how to write about tech as a human endeavor, or how to throw amazing and substantive gatherings to bring the community together, to being righteous about the importance of holding leaders accountable.
- Unfailingly generous, perfectly spiky, deeply wise and just a true believer in humanity, he lived a life that was full and impactful. My one vision of him was his arms opened wide to welcome us all into his wonderful world."
Rest in peace Om. And thank you.
