GigaOM: 6.4M monthly readers
Om Malik's tech blog GigaOM had 6.4 million monthly readers when it shut down in 2015.
Snapshot · This Week in Tech (Audio)
TWiT 1090: Flock of SQLs - Apple & Microsoft Grapple With Soaring Hardware Prices
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Jun 29, 2026
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Meta Tracking Employees, Notion Mail Shutdown & Om Malik Tribute
At 2:29:25 · chapter starts 2:21:30
The final segment moves through several short but significant stories. Meta's Model Capability Initiative — which captured US employee mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screenshots since April — was suspended not for ethical reasons but because sensitive employee data including private conversations and performance reviews was inadvertently accessible to all Meta staff. Notion Mail is shutting down September 22nd because more than half of its users manage emails entirely through AI agents without ever opening their inbox, making the email client itself redundant. Leo reflects on how AI-maintained software will mean faster and more frequent updates across all categories going forward. The episode's emotional close is a tribute to Om Malik, the GigaOM founder who died Wednesday at 59. Leo describes Malik as a deep philosopher, a master Leica photographer, and someone who had appeared on the show 14 or 15 times. He notes with poignancy that some of Malik's finest writing — including a June piece on Anthropic's Mythos — appeared just weeks before his death. GigaOM launched in 2001 and reached 6.4 million monthly readers before shutting down in 2015; it launched the careers of Stacy Higginbotham, Kevin Tofel, and many other prominent tech journalists.
Om Malik: A Farewell to One of Tech Journalism's Greatest Voices
Om Malik built GigaOM into a 6.4-million-reader publication, mentored a generation of tech journalists, called Leo Laporte 'the Yoda of tech,' and was writing some of the best work of his career — including a June piece on Anthropic's Mythos — when he died at 59. He was a master of the Leica camera and a deep philosopher of technology.
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