It has been 16 months since I left my job at Business 2.0 (may it rest in peace) to start a company, that I dreamed off for most of my life. The idea was a simple one: reinvent media business, remix it for the 21st century and infuse it with ethos of high quality journalism - the kind I learned from fine editors at Forbes.com, Red Herring, Business 2.0 and many other publications.
Our journey began with the web equivalent of an acorn, GigaOM, from which I hoped an oak would grow. I made mistakes, learned from them, and when all failed, I turned to you, my community and sought your counsel. As the sapling started to put down roots, and tiny leaves started to sprout, I realized that we needed a constant gardener. So we brought in Paul, who in first two months has taught me how to dream big. Mike joined hands to bring some of his sales magic. Carolyn joined to reign in the editorial chaos.
Today , I am thrilled to announce another key addition to the team: Surj Patel. He joins us as Vice President of Development.
Surj is known to many of our readers, especially those who have roots in the telecom and broadband industry. He used to run Etel conference for O’Reilly Media. He has done long stints at French mobile operator, Orange and the BBC. A cheerful, go-getter, Surj has been a believer in our little company from get go, and has ideas that will help with our evolution into a new kind of a media company - one that not just informs but reinvents our business.
As an alumnus of MIT Media Lab, Surj has been foreseeing the future of media long before all of us. He is going to incorporate some of those ideas into our ever evolving business. Our mission for next 12 months is to start engaging our community of readers, learning from them and applying their consolidate intelligence to our editorial with new formats. Please join me in welcoming Surj to our fast growing family.
PS: Andy Abramson got wind of it before everyone else. The man knows how to work the phones.
17 comments so far
3:04 AM PT
Great Team Om! - Just out of interest, if it is Surj or Suraj (i.e. Sun) ?
4:40 AM PT
Welcome surj! and good luck gigaOM! Seems you got an A Team.
4:55 AM PT
Congrats to Surj and Om!
6:21 AM PT
Surj! Om! Great news… Goodness all around. Surj, I hope this means we’ll get to spend some more time together.
8:00 AM PT
[...] UPDATE - Om put out an official announcement today. [...]
10:47 AM PT
I worked with Surj when he was at Orange. Great guy. Terrific hire. Congrats!
11:07 AM PT
Hey Om malik,
At first I did defend your article on techcrunch where he misquoted you for facebook tanking story.
reading this sarticle, I kind of got a hint that you want to grow this business.
here are a few suggestions -
Look and feel of this website is so old school to the point of being uninviting(and that includes the dull red color). Try switching to classic and jazzy theme(like what msn has).
For some reason, I get a feeling here that you or any other writers are unapproachable where as in techcrunch Mike and team always seem approachable(I don’t know why).
The whole moderating comments can be done after they are posted. It just shows that the development team you have have not done a good enough job of automating certain things.
Conclusion - The feeling is that techcrunch looks like google(read fun) and gigaom looks like microsoft(read disciplined).
Dhiren
2:44 PM PT
Congratulations Surj old boy! Best wishes for the future, look forward to speaking soon, thanks for all you help again dude, its rocking.
Well done OM you’ve got one of the good guys on board, but you know that already :)
1:25 AM PT
@thinker
Amazing how I got the exact opposite feeling than you.
I feel like this site sometimes could really use a boost, but Om is far more approachable than Michael Arrington.
Regarding the blog, I’d like to see more place for the content, and less place for the advertisement.
definitely.
Thanks
5:49 AM PT
I am 100% sure Surj will be a great asset to the Om empire. I really hope Surj is happier in this role and finds a better outlet for his talents/personality.
Best of luck Surj! :)
7:33 AM PT
All the best Suraj…
11:33 AM PT
Thanks to you all for your kind comments and good wishes. They are much appreciated and I am somewhat humbled by them.
@Bradley - of course, how could I resist visiting you guys at the Brickhouse.
5:17 PM PT
Surj is one of the most dangerous criminal minds I’ve ever encountered; insinuating his way into some of the world’s most influential technology organisations - the BBC, Carbon, O’Reilly, MIT and now GigaOM.
Akin to a low-level Lex Luthor, he’s a man that needs to be observed carefully. The accumulation of the world’s most cutting-edge knowledge in one such unstable personality can only lead to criminal enterprise the like of which civilisation has never encountered.
Watch him like a hawk - one day his overclocked Indian brain will enslave us all in a storm of hirsute brown power.
7:10 AM PT
Congrats to both of you, Om and Surj! I look forward to seeing what emerges out of your partnership!
Dan
1:32 AM PT
@thinker, you wrote “For some reason, I get a feeling here that you or any other writers are unapproachable where as in techcrunch Mike and team always seem approachable(I don’t know why).”
Me thinks you are dead wrong. Om is one the few writers at his level who I always find approachable. He even answers emails!
Another thing, I like about OM is that he tells it to as it is, unlike some bloggers, who are just interested in promoting themselves.
Regarding ads on the site, I agree with you, too many ads, but heck someone has to pay their salaries… In any case you can always sub to a RSS feed!
5:12 AM PT
Congratulations Surj!
2:19 AM PT
[...] couple weeks ago, my good friend Surj (aka GigaSURJ!) and I got into a late night videochat about the pain of video calls as his daughter Naiya caught [...]
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