Om Malik :: The Path of the One
During the afternoon on the 24th of June, Om Malik’s journey here on earth reached its terminus and his galactic journey began. The perfunctory obituaries littering the internet will tell you that Om Malik was a technology journalist “of note.” That description is just a tiny fraction of his story. Tributes, such as those from Ben Clymer & Matt Mullenweg, provide insight into Malik’s otherworldly intellect and personality. For those of us lucky enough to know him, the coming weeks, months and years present us with a challenge as we struggle to define what was so essentially “Om” like about Om. And further, those of us that know him will struggle to understand what our own path forward looks like in his humanly absence.
By the time I came to know Om, about 10 years ago, he was already retired as a technology journalist and in fact mostly retired from the investing community. He was focused on creativity through photography and writing. His writing (always done with a fountain pen on paper) was prolific. His love and curiosity of new technology inevitably led him back to blogging about technology right up until the end of his life. Om once told me that his superpower was seeing new technology emerging and understanding how humans would both use it and how the tech world would structure their businesses around it.
Om saw over the horizon with 20/20 vision.
An avid photographer, we would take long roadtrips together, often times 17 hours or more of driving in each direction. Trips with Om riding shotgun are some of my happiest memories. Om’s mind was simply astonishing, and I would take full advantage of my captive audience. We would discuss at length topics ranging from our hobbies - photography, Leicas, watches, pens, art, Japanese aesthetic, minimalism, maximalism, taste, etc - to a wide range of topics relating to technology. Riding in the passenger seat of my SUV, Om would provide hours long lectures - literal masterclasses - on topics ranging from Apple’s integrated memory architecture, to UV lithography, to A.I. (years before it was the rage), to investing, to his Hindu religion, and much much more.
Om’s mind featured an otherworldly clarity. He was “connected to the source” like no other person I’ve ever met. He knew how to clear the deck of all the meaningless bullshit and focus on the core issue (or first principle as the tech community likes to say). Conversations with Om could range from being highly technical, to extremely insightful, and even mystical in nature, often times on the same subject.
The quality of conversation would be on par with something like an interview with Rick Rubin, or the Martin Scorsese documentary about George Harrison. In depth. Insightful. Mystical. Magical. Some times painfully truthful. A good conversation is one where the listener responds how you expect. A great conversation is when the listener responds with ideas you never could have conceived or imagined. Om’s answers were always unexpected and never less than brilliant. Time and time again.
The clarity of his vision is reflected in his photography. Many photographers - great photographers the likes of Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sebastião Salgado, and even our close mutual friend David Brookover - populate their images with richness, layered with themes and complexity. I like to jokingly say they (we) “cram all the photons into the toy.” For Om his aesthetic was driven by how little he could cram into the toy. Minimalist concepts executed at the highest level, conveying only the information Om wanted you to focus on.
Clear mind. Clear canvas.
Om was a great curator. He turned me onto the concept of Premium Mediocre. We initially bonded over the idea that I had created a camera accessories company named after a state of mind (Wine Country Camera). It was odd and daring, but he understood it. He was interested in fine things. Handmade things. Items crafted by craftsmen who cared. He liked Grand Seiko watches with Zaratsu hand polishing - a craft that takes thousands of hours to learn. His Leica cameras were strapped and bagged with hand made leather from Kevin Fickling of Decryto. His denim was all hand crafted in Japan. Om had things “made for him.”
But Om wasn’t just the wise old sage. Om was always joking and smiling. He was wry and clever, and sometimes downright goofy. He had a divining rod in his pocket for always finding the best coffee shops. It didn’t matter if you were in Sausalito, Reno or Twin Falls, Idaho, Om would lead you to a coffee shop that would, if you closed your eyes while you took your first sip, make you swear you were sitting in Milan, Italy.
During the past year, as his heart disease advanced, our road trips wouldn’t go as far afield. But I would come to SF as often as I could. Our last shooting day together was on the 9th of February, crossing over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and Tiburon. Om was shooting a Leica Q3 for convenience and portability. He was decked out in his requisite hand made denim jacket and - to my surprise wasn’t wearing his “250 day a year” Grand Seiko on the wrist. Rather he was sporting a white Laurent Ferrier dress watch. “You’re wearing a Laurent Ferrier for a day out of photography?!” I remarked with incredulity. “Yeah man, why the hell not?” he replied with a wry grin. “You’re such a fucking gangster” I quipped.
The Laurent Ferrier was a highly curated decision. In part, he knew time was getting short and soon he would be hospitalized to stabilize his condition. But more than that, Om knew I loved watches, especially Laurent Ferrier, and it was a kind gesture for him to wear such a holy grail piece so that I could share in the enjoyment with him. At one point, we even swapped watches for a few moments. Him in my Seamaster. Me in the Galet Microrotor. It’s still the only Laurent Ferrier I’ve ever seen in person.
In David Foster Wallace’s landmark commencement speech “This is Water” he states “everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of.”
My own immediate experience supports my deep belief that Om was a guiding light for my personal universe, and for many others.
My own existence has been inextricably altered by the time shared with Om. Going forward, a personal challenge for me will be coping with - not filling - the void left behind in a world that no longer contains Om Malik. I have oft wondered why someone with such interstellar brilliance chose a journeyman such as myself as a companion. Om’s brother shared with me that Om was “born with wisdom” and loved to share it with others. He told me that Om would give council once to see how you reacted, and if your reaction wasn’t worth his time, he would never do give it again.
Like many of us, he silo’d friends. Pen friends with pen friends. Photography friends with photography friends. Etc. At his memorial I sampled a cross section of his people and in every instance was impressed with those he surrounded himself with. But a common theme amongst us was Om’s north star as a guiding light that simply cannot ever be replaced. I mentioned to a friend of his my desire to distill what is “Omy-ness” and he just laughed at me. “Good luck with that.”
If I’m ever suffering from self-doubt I can list “Good enough to be Om’s friend” on my personal resume.
Like Neo, Om’s power seemed to extend beyond The Matrix. Wednesday morning - after having spent Sunday through Tuesday with Om in the ICU - a wave of darkness washed over me. “I felt a great disturbance in the Force” to steal a phrase from another SciFi series. I couldn’t shake the feeling that yesterday’s goodbye would turn into goodbye forever - even though on the day previous I was pretty confident in returning the following week for another visit. In the afternoon I felt compelled to take a bike ride, and for every second of those 90 minutes I was sobbing, deep inconsolable tears. (A word of advice, bicycling and crying don’t go well together). Shortly after returning home, I received a text that Om had transitioned away from his earthly form during those exact 90 minutes. Eerily today at his memorial, one of his other friends shared a story that he had himself experienced exactly the same thing. He went for a long run, filled with tears and upon returning home was alerted of Om’s passing.
Om’s departure was felt.
Another of Om’s friends recounted how 2-3 times a week over the past couple of years he and Om would first go for coffee (The Coffee Movement in SF was his favorite) then for Poke Bowls in the Outer Sunset district at a little place called Hook Fish, then home to rest and reset. My wife jokingly called it “The Path of the One” again in reference to The Matrix. Following the memorial gathering at The Coffee Movement, my wife and I decided to complete “the path of the one” just once to pay tribute to our friend - and enjoy a fresh poke bowl.
The cashier at the Hook Fish take-away window was calling out order numbers sequentially for hungry patrons - thirty one! thirty two! thirty three! When they called our number I was forced to make a choice. I could choose to believe that our order number was a one-in-one-hundred chance, nothing more, nothing less.
Or choose to believe that the power of The Om extends beyond The Matrix.
Maybe I don’t have to continue this journey alone after all.