Summary

John Gruber writes a personal tribute to Om Malik, the pioneering tech journalist and investor who died after a long battle with heart disease. Gruber reflects on their 20-year friendship, Om's unique character as someone who was simultaneously blunt and universally beloved. He traces Om's career arc from hard-charging breaking-news blogger to deliberate, thoughtful essayist — a transformation Om chose after a 2008 heart attack. Gruber recounts Om's immigrant origin story, arriving in New York in 1993 and supporting himself by selling luggage across from Yankee Stadium before breaking into journalism. The piece closes on the revelation that Om was writing some of the best work of his career from an ICU bed, and ends with a Dylan line: 'He not busy being born is busy dying.'

Key Insight

Om Malik embodied a rare and contradictory combination — fiercely honest yet universally beloved — and his life, from immigrant luggage salesman to tech journalism icon writing from an ICU bed, was one of relentless self-creation.

Spicy Quotes (click to share)

• 6

  "He did not mince words" and "Everyone loved him" do not usually apply to the same person. They did with Om.

• 7

  He was Om Fucking Malik. His presence improved any room, and lifted everyone's mood. He made grumps smile. You couldn't help it.

• 6

  He transformed himself from the bloggiest of quick-trigger bloggers into the most thoughtful of essayists. He went from documenting what was happening, as it happened, to explaining why.

• 5

  Om didn't keep his health crisis secret, per se. He kept it private. That was very Om.

• 8

  Good. You don't need them. They need you.

• 5

  Careers — hell, our entire lives — are like those suitcases. They don't sell themselves.

• 8

  Om Malik wasn't busy dying even when he was dying.

• 7

  It is a profound irony that a man with such a big and beautiful figurative heart could have such a lousy literal one.

Tone

elegiac, warm, personal