About 11 years ago, I cold-emailed Om for his guidance. I was an absolute nobody, living thousands of miles away. Not only did Om patiently explain how I should think about my career, he kept in touch over the past decade checking in on how I was doing. I left journalism last year to do something else -- coincidentally, again, following Om's footsteps -- and had been meaning to write a long email, sharing so much. I deeply regret missing the chance to have another conversation with him.
Om has been deeply impactful to my journalism career and beyond. He was way too kind and leaves a big vacuum.
Oh wow. What?! Just this morning I had an occasion to go thru his site/blog.
Still can't believe it. 60 is too young.
I met Om finally in 2013-ish at one of his GigaOm events in the SF Bay Area. Before that, I had been a long time reader of his GigaOm blogs and other writings at Fast Company, Red Herring, Light Reading, and elsewhere, including his book Broadbandits. He was one of the few bloggers / reporters who wrote it as he saw it; his takes were often brutally honest and pointed. He called upon the excesses of various telecom execs during the dot-com and telecom bust of 2000-2001/2. His book Broadbandits is basically an invective of the go-go days of telecom companies' incestuous deals (now seen in the AI companies too).
I had a few more occasions to meet him at dinners around the Bay Area. He was always gracious, and listened intently to what people said. As a venture partner, he focused on the people (founder) and their stories much more on the businesses.
I had heard about his troubles with his heart (~age 40-ish), which made him turn his life around to focus on only a few things that brought him joy - writing, photography, travels.
He will be missed. RIP, Om.
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(Update: the book is Broadbandits (not Telecom Bandits, as I mistakenly wrote)
It was 2010 and we were launching Twilio SMS. I went over to his office to pitch him the story, hoping we would cover the launch. He listened for 10 minutes while I walked through it, then said
“Yeah yeah I’ll write about it. But I want to talk about your health. Are you taking care of yourself? You could lose some weight…”
He wanted everybody to learn from his health journey. While mostly I wanted him to cover our news, and it was terribly awkward… walking home, I realized it was nice to be seen as a person not just a founder, a startup or a tech story.
This is devastating. Om was the godfather of early tech blogging and lifted up so many people around him. He was kind, caring and compassionate.
When I first started blogging around 25 years ago, he would have been amongst the first 10 readers. He linked to me, emailed me privately with feedback, praised posts and would call bullshit when he saw it.
He was never competitive with other blogs or bloggers and was never tied up in drama. He was very often a mediator in behind the scenes conflicts and was obsessed with truth over getting the scoop.
He loved tech and startups and most of all loved seeing other succeed and didn't have a gram of resentment within himself.
Everybody from that post-dotcom crash era of tech owes Om a large debt of gratitude. He will be missed. RIP Om.
He was a genuinely good person, and a genuinely honest voice, in an industry that had very few back when he was one of its pioneers, and has far, far fewer of those things today. A lot of people will write nice words about Om, and he deserves them, but a lot of those people won't necessarily live the values that they admire about him, because that's a lot harder to do.
He was unfailingly kind, but he did not ever compromise on doing the right thing, or calling out moral failings. It's a wonderful tribute to him to see so many people talk about how Om supported them, or opened doors for them, or lifted up their careers; I think the thing we owe him is not just to carry that work forward, but to do it with the same character, conscience and consistency of principle that he did.
GigaOM was truly awesome at its best. Om was a special guy, I met him a few times during my years in the Bay Area. He really embodied that selflessly-helping side of the Valley: helping others with no expectations, just because it’s good. He helped one of my startups get some exposure. I keep trying to pay it forward. I will miss him.
There is a really tremendous streak of people helping people with no strings attached that I hadn’t found anywhere else I’ve lived. Especially but not exclusively on the engineering / product side - for a long time you could take a greyhound to Soma and have a couch to crash on and a job interview lined up without knowing anyone. Introductions are made without a second thought (extremely contrary to my east coast experience where to get an intro, it must be “worth” something to the third party), it is (was? I moved away a few years ago) an extremely special and collaborative place.
As a life-long east coaster, I am reluctant/unwilling to make an introduction of someone I don’t know at all. It’s not that I have to get something of worth to make an intro, but I think my intro carries an implied vouch (at least a tiny one) and I can’t do that if I don’t know you.
If I know you and can actually vouch for you, I’ll happily make any intro where I stand to gain nothing.
I somewhat frequently get a cold outreach asking me to recommend someone I’ve never met to something/someone I know and I can’t understand how that ever works.
Yep - a very common view/philosophy outside the Valley. For whatever reason, that's not the culture at all in SV. Actually "vouching" for someone is still gated by people's reputation, but introductions are understood to be less of a personal 'I think this person is worth hiring' and more of a 'You are both working on something interesting in a similar area, I think you should talk' or commonly, 'This person has some very weird but interesting ideas about something I know you're interested in'.
Random example but I was working with an algae biofuel company during the cleantech boom and we were having analysis problems as the equipment we were using kept fouling due to the harsh desert conditions where our ponds were. I was at a birthday party and obliquely mentioned that issue to a friend who had asked how it was all going and before I knew it, he'd called his former coworker who'd founded a company that successfully launched similar equipment to Mars which was obviously not user-serviceable so was built to be extremely robust. There was no 'ask' from anyone involved and nobody got richer from the exchange, but it was just a random occasion to connect people who might find each other interesting that was completely common in my SV experience.
I think the “Valley” is just sufficiently expensive and/or newly settled that the probability a person would be a net negative to introduce was low enough that there did not need to be as much gatekeeping as there is in the east.
If you were knowledgeable enough to move to the Valley, if you had the wealth and connections to move to the Valley, then you already passed some of the checks needed to be someone who would be a sufficiently good bet to introduce.
It might already be the case that the Valley has changed to be more similar to the East.
I think you and I (also east coast) seem to have similar philosophies. I'm more retired than not these days. I'll certainly respond to a query by email or talk at a conference about my various former professions/experiences (which more often than not never get responded to). But I'm not going to refer someone just because we went to the same school but I've never met or because we had coffee for 30 minutes (unless they really impressed me in some way).
I think the strength of the "vouch" is understood to be much weaker in Silicon Valley - it's more like - I've talked to this guy for 30mins to an hour and I can vouch that he (or she) is not a waste of time for you to talk to them for a similar amount of time. It's not a vouch that they're the next Steve Jobs or you have diligenced their background.
It’s a fair point about the valley’s tremendous wealth and problems, but what would Om say? It’s a little off the topic of remembering his life and work?
Not even the richest person can simply cure thousands of people of addiction and set them on the right path in life. If you want to prove me wrong, surely even with non-millionaire resources, you could afford to just take in one into your home, feed them, and fix their problems. I’ll be genuinely glad to be proven wrong.
There's plenty of great examples of governments deciding to deal with drug abuse in a more humane way, resulting in much better outcomes, see Portugal or Switzerland etc
> I hear that SF has one of the highest rates of homelessness...
My understanding is that homelessness in California is a business similar to dating apps (tinder etc).
If dating apps would actually find you a partner, they would all go out of business. So dating apps mainly keep you on the hook, fishing for subscriptions.
You may be right, but your angle of causation is wrong. California is not creating homelessness to milk money out of rich MSNBC shitlibs. They created homelessness as a side effect of them making housing very expensive... in order to placate those same rich MSNBC shitlibs who you think are being defrauded.
California's ruling class is a landed gentry of boomers that all bought into the housing market before Prop 13 froze their tax rates in place. They will weaponize anything to stop any construction which they think might lower their property values. Hell, Beverly Hills used their school district in order to launch a frivolous lawsuit against the LA Metro D line expansion, because Beverly Hills is full of rich idiots who think public transit ruins property values[0].
So California can't get rid of homelessness - not because it means the homeless shelters[1] will be out of a job, but because homeless people are the natural consequence of making housing unaffordably expensive. The only actual solution to homelessness is the one thing California will never do on pain of death. The homeless shelters are there to create moral cover for NIMBYs making the city too expensive to live in. So the homeless shelters aren't ripping off the shitlibs; the shitlibs are paying them to sweep the problem under the rug, and they are dutifully doing so.
[0] Cars ruin property values, because cars require lots of very expensive infrastructure like highways and stroads, and nobody wants to live or shop next to a giant pollution generator. In contrast, access to public transit increases land value! But the California gentry all drive so they don't care about this.
[1] Please interpret "homeless shelters" to mean "any government agency involved with homelessness management". Technically speaking SF has a lot of unsheltered homeless because, well, living unsheltered is just not as hellishly awful as it is in other cities.
When I was first trying to start companies, I would ask everyone for advice. Some people are more engaging and helpful than others. Some people expect something in return.
In SV, in the 90s/00s, no one wanted anything in return. Everyone was there to help. We all understood that the entrepreneur’s path is a nearly impossible one, and if you have somehow followed it to success, you want to try to guide others to that successful place.
After ~20 years I’ve left SV but I retain the mentality :) AMA
There’s a large group of people who want to help and see you succeed- even if it won’t benefit them directly.
I stepped away nearly a decade ago so I don’t know how true that is for the tech “scene” today, but it was really great and inspiring for a very young transplant like me.
sad but that’s why I left. To use a tired DnD analogy, SV used to be kind of a chaotic/neutral place, I liked that. We all helped each other. Now it’s lawful/good but good implies moral choices, many of which I agree with but for some
disagreement means shunning. So I left.
One of the regrets I have is not following through when Om messaged to hang out a couple of months ago. A painful reminder to take some time off your busy lives to catch up with old friends. You never know if you’ll get another chance.
TBF it isn't really any of our business. Do we know what happened? This could have been going on for years. My best friend, had Parkinson's, so death was always on the cards, it was still sudden when it actually happened.
And I appreciate the understatement in "Taking a Few Days Off", I'd put that on my headstone.
Wow, Om was one of my first bosses. It’s hard to separate my memory of him from the era; he defined it. I have such nostalgia for both. He loved tech and startups… not buzzy tabloid stuff, but true journalism. A lot of people may not know GigaOM, but he helped shape a generation of tech.
Thanks for everything, Om. I was a fan before I worked for you, loved my time on Pier 1 in SF, and have always appreciated your steadfast love for technology.
I still remember him being one of the best writers about tech (a bit more than "journalism" in that a lot of it was of more evergreen value...) from the dotcom boom and then the peak "interesting" web apps period (2004-~2015 or so, when AJAX/etc was still new, and things hadn't calcified so much). Didn't know about his later health issues, I assumed he had just moved on to other interests naturally. RIP.
I’m too young and too far away from the Valley to have ever met Om or been influenced by his early blogging work. However, I have avidly followed his blog ever since I came across it maybe 10 years ago. I love his writing. So crisp and honest, yet it had depth. His blog was one of the few I’d look forward to every day. I was waiting for him to return after he promised he’d do so in his last blog post. I certainly didn’t expect this. Om Shanti, Om. You will be missed.
Personally, it's sad news for me and many other founders Om helped.
Back in 2008, my company, TringMe, was making news with browser-based telephony. We had been covered by TechCrunch, but never by GigaOM. So I decided to email Om directly and ask, half-jokingly, "Are we not worth your time?" I also asked if he had any advice.
He apologized, explained that health issues had limited his writing, assured me it was never personal, and then offered a simple piece of advice: "Bring me fresh and exclusive information."
We took that advice seriously. Our next launches, VoicePHP and the first Mobile VoIP app for BlackBerry, were both covered by GigaOM.
What I remember is not the coverage, but the kindness in his reply. He did not have to respond to a founder he barely knew, let alone with honesty, encouragement, and actionable advice. We stayed in touch after that.
Thank you for sharing this. While everyone remembers his writings, encouragement, and contributions to tech/business, the photos put up by him are beautiful as well.
"My favorite thing Om wrote was actually an interview with Brunello Cucinelli in 2015. And to this day, I think it’s the single best thing you can read on running a business. Better than any book, better than any article." -Jason Fried
I liked the mid-2000s, gigaom and techcrunch actually had articles worth reading (not all, TC got sorta gossipy rag at one point). Om's were generally well thought out.
This is so sad to see. I consider myself lucky to have worked with Om for a few days as he was advising the company I was working for during a big growth stage. I'll always remember his kindness and wisdom.
Om and I went a long way back. I tried to convince him RSS was the way journalism could escape capture by Big Tech. In retrospect, showing him the ad-blocking features of my feed reader might not have been the most persuasive...
He was a tremendously funny character. What's little known about him was he was a bag fiend just as much as a camera lover. A big chocolate enthusiast as well, until his heart troubles forced him to be more careful.
Someone who enjoys collecting backpacks, briefcases, messenger bags etc. I recall meeting him by chance near South Park and comparing notes on our bags of the day.
I started out as journalist so I always appreciated great writing when I reinvented myself as a tech entrepreneur. There were three writers beginning in the nineties who were my tech troika: Kevin Kelly, George Gilder and Om Malik. Sadly now the only one still writing regularly is Kevin Kelly.
I remember watching GigaOm on Revision3 back in the day, I think I stumbled upon it via Diggnation... nope I think it was CrankyGeeks actually.
It was the first newsletter I actually subscribed to back in the day! Sad to hear about his passing, his appearances on podcasts introduced me to the more business side of tech where I was just a hobbyist teen at the time.
I knew Om when I was an ankle-biter writing for a Gawker blog. He was gracious and generous. Felt like everybody's favorite uncle. I hope I can be as kind to others as he was to me.
I interacted with Om a few times. Genuinely good soul. I met him a while back - about ~15 years or so. In spite of his busy schedule he took time out to speak with me.
Gave me some valuable tips on startup world.
I don't say this about a lot of people but the world is less of a place without Om.
You were way too young to leave us Om. I will miss you.
Sidenote: In the heydays i.e. about 15-20 years back or so Techcrunch and GigaOm were competitors. Techcrunch was founded by Michael Arrington, known for his brusque and no holds barred blogs and barbs. He would roast his competitors alive, if he could. Well, all except Om. For Om, Micheal had nothing but praise.
I paused to read whenever a new Om’s essay popped up in the RSS feed; for me, Om was an uniquely observant voice of tech, who never compromised and always looked at the world from a human perspective.
I had started blogging (on blogspot!) those days and like many others, I also used to follow Om's articles on RSS.
I still remember very clearly coming across his article where he had linked to my blog. I felt on top of the world! Because why would a renowned SV journalist link to a lowly blog?
I'm quite sure that my reason to continue blogging over all these years can be attributed to that small gesture.
Just the title here has me transported to a time and place long forgotten.
Om Malik was the guy who had the biggest influence on the direction of my life, by far. It was through him I met Naval Ravikant in 2007, and then through Naval I met my co-founder that led to my startup exit in the '10s.
Luck surface area. I really owe so much to Om. I really can't imagine where I would be without that chance.
I never met or knew him but, like many here, I've been following his blog for a decade or so. By impression and reputation he was a kind, thoughtful, and creative soul who did good by the world - and I'm saddened that he has gone. My condolences to his friends and family.
Really sad. I grew up reading his writing. I emailed him some thoughts on one of his blog and he immediately replied in a lovely way very recently. What a shock and a loss.
We almost went with Om for our seed round, and he remains on my list of "one of the good ones". It's rare to meet folks where that becomes so apparent so quick.
I used to be tech-journalist in an earlier avatar and Om was someone who I always turned to for inspiration and context. I learnt a lot from the way he wrote, thought and perceived the world of technology. Om shanti, I wish you a great new beginning.
So many years reading his newsletter, and forever grateful for Om. He replied to a cold email a long time ago with very specific, helpful advice on a project I was working on. What a legend!
GigaOm was one of the early publications that my younger self enjoy to follow, it was a good formative years. Later I knew when it got acquired that the OM of GigaOm was from its founder.
Sad! He (and Michael Arrington) were the first two tech bloggers I read religiously back in the web 2.0 days. Had Malik’s personal blog in my RSS feeds until now. It has been only a week or so since I read his last post.
My condolences to family and friends. Om writting has always been a reference since Web 2.0 era. Also enjoyed his photographabout friends and travel. Sad news RIP
Sad. I remember first meeting Om in NYC, just as he was getting ready to move to the Bay Area and before his blogging career took off. As a side gig, he was one of the originators of the South Asian social scene (desiparty.com). Spoke with him briefly and just remember him being nice and friendly. RIP Om!
I had a very similar single experience with Om: I was introduced completely randomly while he was at True Ventures; he couldn't have been nicer, more curious, or more genuine despite me almost certainly reading like a total waste of time.
It's both heartwarming, and bitterly sad, to see so many other posters confirm he was one of the good ones.
A sad day for us who learn of his passing. I hope it was painless and peaceful, as befits a person who gave so freely of himself. His collected body of work is a trustworthy chronicle of the Internet and the WWW's glow up era. It will inform generations to come. They will know Om too.
And through the same work, he remains alive to us; we who sought his dogged, prodigious, plain speaking influence, insight, and direct access to the beating heart of the place where it was all being invented and grown and scaled and blown up and resurrected.
Om's writing brought the excitement and possibility of the world to me, circa 2004. A 25-something B-school student, in faraway Pune, India, viscerally experiencing and studying the telecom boom at home, while also looking towards The Valley to see what might come to be, next.
I read him on GigaOm, and his various other later avatars / manifestations, but he is always going to be "Om Malik on Broadband" for me. As he will be for many of my cohort.
I'll repost what I wrote on his wall just now. Probably the most impactful SF/SV passing for me since Jobs.
"I first met Om in the mid-2000s when I started in public relations. He was patient, kind – not what you’d expect from a journalist hounded by every PR agency trying to get column inches. I met him again when we were fundraising for my first startup in 2006 – he listened with intent, he provided genuine feedback, he supported us emotionally. I would see him occasionally at the odd event or two in the years that followed. He always had a smile, always gregarious, always maintained a presence without agenda – or effort, for that matter. He embodied the hidden human amid the sterility and coldness that would slowly engulf Silicon Valley in the years that followed. I’m blessed to have benefited from his kindness across the few brief interactions, and I wish his family and friends the comfort in knowing he left an outsized impact on many of us."
The guy was a mensch. He made this space welcoming because he cared about the individual.
Take care of your heart, people. If you smoke, quit. If you eat a high cholesterol diet, change it. If you don’t exercise, start.
Heart disease sneaks up on you, and it can happen to anyone. There are frequently no warning signs, as without an angiogram, there’s no clear indicator in normal checkups (EKG can look normal the day before MI, coronary arteries are the same density as surrounding tissue on normal no-contrast xray).
Most people’s very first sign that they have heart disease is a totally unexpected first heart attack. 60% of them die of it, within minutes of their first symptom.
If you have familial history, be extra careful. There are new groundbreaking drugs like Repatha that can slow the progress a TON.
You aren’t special, it along with cancer are the #1 cause of non-accidental death if you make it to adulthood. It doesn’t discriminate.
My experience of Om was only through his written word, but a new article or post by him was a thing of joy. Not to agree with, but simply to hear a good, honest voice.
As soon as I read this, I thought, "Wait a sec, hasn't it been a little while?"
My sincere condolences to his family and colleagues.
So sad. I first met Om in 2001 or so. I pissed him off because I wouldn’t meet with him to do an interview for our startup. He always loved getting the early scoop and we weren’t ready for any publicity. In later years, we would laugh about it and I gave him the early scoop on the next one. During those years he became a friend and we would sometimes grab lunch and chat about all manner of things, from tech to family. I dished on some of what I watched go down in the dot-com bubble for his Broadbandits book. Later, I would go on to write contributed articles for GigaOm. Goodbye, buddy. 60 is too young. You were one of the best. Maybe you’re getting the early scoop in a different way.
“For the soul, there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain”.
Great guy. Check your bmi and fix your diet today not tomorrow till it hits normal, you’re running out of time. Cutting out sugar alone will get you half way to the target ideal healthy weight.
I just remember on a podcast, he said he thought eventually amazon would have physical stores. Listening to this I thought that sounded terribly outlandish, and so did the cohosts. Their whole deal was to make online retail so much smoother than brick & mortar. Then a few years later, amazon announced physical stores.
Black bar for Om please. Truly sad for this loss, was so grateful for his impassioned writing and storytelling about our industry. You will be missed deeply Om. May there be all the pens in the world for you in the afterlife.
Generally speaking, the practice of commenting here with "I thought one thing from the title, then realized it was something else" is exceedingly uninteresting.