Om Malik, 1966-2026
26 points by fazalmajid
26 points by fazalmajid
Journalist, VC and overall swell guy Om Malik passed away on June 24th. He was a highly influential OG tech blogger, but the outpouring of tributes by his colleagues in the tech press also show how generous he was with his time and help.
Om's taste was impeccable, his nose for finding things early seems unbelievable when you look back at his history. He saw through BS. He wasn't always right, but he kept everyone honest.
Having no idea who this person was and why his passing is of interest to Lobste.rs, but curious to find out, could you point out some notable writings to check out? The wikipedia and about page are somewhat generic.
The website linked above is actually the person's website, just click "OM" in the top left to get to a list of recent articles. I skimmed a bit to find something that was not directly about the AI strategy of bit tech companies, and ended up reading Skype is dead. What happened? from February 2025, and then looked at the nearby Why NotebookLM matters. I don't know if these are more or less notable than other writing examples.
Well, the writing changed when he became a VC, but here are some notable pieces of his:
Some of these may seem obvious in hindsight, but Om was a connector and as a consequence a trend-spotter. He discovered Wordpress or Twitter many years before other journalists noticed.
Hmm.
I came to see what Lobsters' reaction would be. I suppose now I know.
In America, Malik was a noted and celebrated tech observer for a long time. Over here in Europe he was not so celebrated. I think things like the egocentricity of calling his website by his own given name -- Giga-Om -- rubs Europeans, or at least Brits, up the wrong way. (Also see: "Anand Tech".) My reaction to this sort of thing is "FFS, dude, get over yourself".
I occasionally read his stuff, but not often. However he was one of the most famous and visible people of Asian or Indian descent in American tech circles.
My reaction to this sort of thing is "FFS, dude, get over yourself".
Not sure if you still feel this way but in case anyone else does based on the name: he was one of the most down to earth, humble, kind people. He had a very calming energy. Great person. I haven't seen him in 5 years or so but prior to that saw him quite frequently.
I am sure you are right and he was. I never met him. I was merely given an honest reaction to one action of his. I absolutely do not mean to malign the man.
I think things like the egocentricity of calling his website by his own given name -- Giga-Om -- rubs Europeans, or at least Brits, up the wrong way
Yes. That's famously been a problem for Linux... and Debian. Oh, wait. (I guess, at least, we can be grateful it's "Ubuntu" and not "Shuttleworthix" or something.)
I've never heard anyone voice a complaint about the name of his site before. Seemed kinda clever to me, but I suck at naming things, so what do I know? People who knew him seemed to like him. I didn't always agree with his takes, but I respected his writing.
Linus wanted to call it "Freax" for that reason; Ari Lemmke renamed it, as I recall.
Debian is a portmanteau and a bit different -- but still a bit twee. Still, de mortuiis nil nisi bonum.
How did you react to Dyson, Sinclair, Ferranti, Marconi, Bowers & Wilkins, and, perhaps more directly similar to "Giga-Om", Amstrad and Racal?
Or to steer away from tech-specific things, Macmillan, Hodder & Stoughton, Chatto & Windus, Collins, Longman, Victor Gollancz, Jonathan, Cape, George Allen & Unwin, Mills & Boon, Routledge, Methuen, William Heinemann, Hamish Hamilton, Reuters, DC Thomson, Person, Faber & Faber, etc...
Founders, and especially writers and publishers, naming their business after themselves doesn't strike me as a particularly recent or particularly American practice. The list of Brits (or in the case of Marconi, immigrants who built a business in Britain) who choose to do so is not short, at any rate.
It seems to me that you and @yawaramin are not comparing like with like here.
These are companies producing things for sale, which to me at least is not the same at all as a writer naming his own website after himself and promoting it as a media outlet.
These are all surnames not given names, which again to me gives it a totally different spin: it's a family business, as opposed to an individual.
Those to me are important, salient differences. I guess this is not others' reaction?
Do Americans not realise that naming products differently for the American market to the world or European market is very much a thing and has been for many decades?
I used to own a lovely Japanese motorbike: a Kawasaki ZZR-1100. In America, this was marketed as a "Ninja 11". To this Brit, that sounds a little silly and childish.
I had a couple of very early Sharp Linux-powered pocket computers: the Sharp SL-5500. As I understand it, in the US market, this was a "Sharp Zaurus 5500".
There's a big difference to me.
John Smith opens "SuperJohn.com" as opposed to John Smith starts "Smith's printers"?
Whether or not it's because I'm American, the fact that I don't see much difference between using your given name and your surname for your business is certainly a sign that I'm not very attuned to this particular signal. Though Amstrad was the one that stood out to me as most similar.
Of course we realize that naming products per-market is a common thing. Some companies here even do it regionally within the USA.
I saw the "Ninja" motorbikes as silly, even in the realm of motorbikes.
Funny aside, since you mentioned this specific product: I owned a Sharp SL-5500. I bought it in the US. Although I'd seen the Zaurus name (and even used that name in an open source project that I contributed to, for integrating the contacts with my Mac) they weren't using it on the shipping units when I got mine.
Anyway, I enjoyed Om Malik's writing, and the name of his site never stood out to me. That's coming from someone who currently calls his blog "Geoff's Brain Dump," so take my naming sensibilities with grain of salt. Thanks for sharing more about why it stood out to you.
Europeans don't like things named after their creators? Then what are Siemens, Chanel, Dior, Mercedes Benz, Ferrari, Nestlé, Cadbury's, Philips, Bosch?
Also curious if you feel the same about Bose audio equipment?
How about MySQL and MariaDB (named after the daughters of the MySQL creator)?
How about MySQL
huh, TIL:
Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius' daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language.
It seems in the end he agreed with you:
I hate that Gigaom still exists in a zombie fashion. I think Om hated it too, although the most he would do to indicate that would be to give wry advice telling people not to name their site after themselves. (I didn’t listen.)
Yes, I remember him speaking highly about you long before WordPress became the juggernaut it now is. You seem to be moderating his WP site, were you also there for his last moments?
For sentimental reasons I'm OK with lobste.rs members obits (God knows we are all here for but a short moment), but this is a bit weird. I've never heard of this person and their contribution seems to be in journalism and they later came into money which they invested. My vote is this is out of scope.
I agree; journalism and especially VC seem very off-topic to me.
From the about page:
Some things that are off-topic here but popular on larger, similar sites: entrepreneurship, management, news about companies that employ a lot of programmers, investing […]
I like Lobsters because it tends not to praise or hype up entrepreneurs and investors, since that would be off-topic. I worked on IT for a VC and I got to see things about how business is done in VC that made me distrust VC people and also made me realize that they are often actively and knowingly working against what is best for society. So, it is nice to know that I can usually avoid the self-congratulatory pieces towards investors and entrepreneurs on this site.
This looks more suited for the orange site.
Re: the debate over whether this is on topic. Blogging (proper blogging) is the lifeblood of this site, and Om Malik was a pioneer of blogging. Maybe it’s borderline, but I think it is on topic, and I wish people could have a little more grace before the dead.
I was on the fence here, but eventually tagged off-topic.
That said I do think this is on the fence: over time lobste.rs folk, perhaps significant community members are also going to start passing - maybe we will want an obits tag eventually?
Never heard about that person and after quick research I fail to understand why was this posted here.