Om Malik

Om Malik is a San Francisco based writer, photographer and investor. Read More

Tough Start to 2023

I had a fantastic start to 2023: in the mountains, taking photographs, and being completely meditative. That didn’t last long — on my way back, I picked up something, and by the time the work week got rolling, I fell sick. All sorts of symptoms — sore throat, nasal congestion, aches, pains, and high fever. It felt like it was flu — flu shots are no protection — but worse. I was so tired and could barely crawl out of bed. 

So was it the deadly virus? I don’t know. I test three days in a row. The results were negative. Maybe it was the new variant? Or the flu is extra strength this year. I wouldn’t know. It was bad enough for me to go without coffee for over eight days. I didn’t read anything and barely listened to any music or podcasts. And, of course, I could not watch

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Musings
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Love What You Do

A very happy rainy, soggy hump day! Let’s start by wishing my friend, Matt Mullenweg, a very happy birthday! It is amazing to see someone you met as a teenager turn into a man and a titan.

The New Yorker recently wrote about the quiet quitting.

Quiet quitting is not a life philosophy or policy proposal that needs logical scrutiny. It’s also not a political weapon to be wielded to prove how much more woke or conservative you are than everyone else. It’s both more incoherent and essential than all of that. Figuring out how work fits into a life well lived is hard, but it’s an evolution that has to happen. Quiet quitting is the messy starting gun of a new generation embarking on this challenge

The New Yorker.

I can understand why every generation needs to go through this challenge to find work-life balance. Many of my friends

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Musings
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Why internet silos win

Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter and turned it into a tawdry reality show in which he is the star, the villain, and the comedian, everyone has been talking about a new decentralized web. New products, such as Mastodon, and new technologies, such as Activity Pub, are part of a new desire to build a new “fedeverse.” This is utopian thinking about taking the web back from the centralized web platforms.

One of my favorite bloggers, designer Lars Mensel notes:

We all feed social networks and online platforms with unprecedented amounts of data, hardly accounting for the fact everything might vanish when the ownership of a network changes (as seems likely with Twitter’s ongoing nosedive) or the business model collapses.

Mensel is right. And it makes sense that more of us should be doing it, but we don’t because, in the end, we want an easy way out. Manuel

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Technology
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(Mis)adventures in flying

I took a quick break for the holidays and went out to take photographs in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. The photography was amazing, and I got a chance to connect with nature. I managed to do some hiking as well. However, the biggest adventure was when flying home. In the winter, United offers a  direct flight from Jackson Hole to San Francisco, which takes just over two hours. So, when I got to the airport, I was hoping to be in my apartment by 6.30 pm, ease into the evening, and get back to work. 

Of course, the weather gods had something different in mind. The flight took off two hours later, primarily due to local weather conditions that had backed up the flights. And as a result, our flight got to San Francisco in the middle of a rainstorm and crazy winds. The smaller planes like ours were having

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Musings
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Goodbye, 2022. Hello, 2023.

It has become quite a habit now: at the end of the year, I look back and see how often I have tended to my digital homestead. In more prosaic terms, it translates to the total number of posts during the year. Over the past 12 months, I posted 128 times (129, if you include this post.)  I have to say — things aren’t as spiffy as they used to be. In 2021, I posted 164 times, while in 2020 (during the pandemic), I was posting pretty much every single day.  (307 posts, in total and resulted in this e-book, The Longest Year)

There are two ways to parse the 2022 data. My 2022 goal was to be respectful of the reader’s attention. I am glad that when I did write, I wrote about what felt important and not as “content filler.” Looking back, my posts around Twitter, Elon, and

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A Letter From Om
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Time has a strange habit of slinking away. It does so quietly that we don’t notice it till it’s too late. And what you are left with are fragments, or what we grandiosely call memories. You remember some days, a few moments, and a handful of faces, and they all add up to become your past. Today is one of those red letter days — fifteen years ago, I faced mortality, and somehow I came out on the other side. Looking back, what seemed like a dark period in my life has turned out to be the best thing that has ever happened to me.

It taught me the lessons we learn late in life early: excess, perfection, and accumulation are fair-weather friends. I learned that by giving time to play its hand, I would stop being impatient. Life, as it turned out, has been much better than how I

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Musings, On Photography, Photo Features
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Sometimes a shoe is not just a shoe

people raising their hands
Photo by Edwin Andrade on Unsplash

Thank You, Santa Claus, for making this the best gift ever!  Allbirds trend in Silicon Valley is over! 

The Wall Street Journal reports, “Allbirds customers’ average annual spend has dropped by more than $31 since 2018.” Which means slowing revenue growth and increasing losses. And a primary reason, as Journal points out, is that tech bros and brogrammers have moved on from the near-ubiquitous shoe brand and its bland sneakers.  “Tech bros ditching their Allbirds? It’s like tigers tossing aside their stripes,” the Journal quips.”Few fashion items are as closely associated with the coding crowd as the muted kicks from this San Francisco startup.” 

Fashion is a reflection of a culture’s values and beliefs. And for most of the past decade, technology and all its symbols were part of the cultural zeitgeist. With the near ubiquity of technology, its societal impact, and the outrageousness

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My Essays, Technology
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What we don’t say in Silicon Valley anymore

Mr. Bridge & The Foggy Morning.

In my time writing about Silicon Valley, it has gone from being a place of naive curiosity to a place where posturing is everything. And the reason we have this state of affairs is that, with extreme success, the denizens of the valley have ostracized these four phrases from their vocabulary:

  • I’m sorry
  • I don’t know
  • I was wrong
  • I need help.

Nothing is more potent than admitting I was wrong or that I don’t know. And that I need help. It all starts by actually admitting you are sorry. Thank you Inspector Armand Gamache for the reminder!

December 22, 2022. San Francisco

Musings
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A December Note

 

How did it get so late so soon? 
It’s night before it’s afternoon. 
December is here before it’s June. 
My goodness how the time has flown. 
How did it get so late so soon?
– Dr. Seuss

It has been a few weeks since I sent one of these updates. I thought I would write one last month. Like all writers, I, too, have developed a penchant for procrastination. It is a deadly affliction, especially if your think in words and write to bring order to your inner self. So this morning, when a 4.0 Earthquake woke me up, I knew I couldn’t go back to sleep, and I took it as a cue to sit down and write this quick note. 

Over the past few weeks, I have been busy playing with new technologies and jotting down ideas for future (longer) pieces. It is a much better use of time and a good

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A Letter From Om
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