← Om

2026-06-25

Writing about someone who wrote for the sheer joy of it is not easy, but I will try.

Om was prolific and fearless, and we loved him for it. A beast of a writer who spoke truth to power in a sector that was rapidly becoming all-powerful.

Om didn’t marry, or have kids. But yesterday in the room at Stanford, I bore witness to the handful of friends he touched more than most — founders, CEOs and investors known for leading and inspiring, making hard calls with stiff upper lips — weep as if they lost their own kin. Because, yeah, Om was absolutely kin to courageous folk who take pride in craftsmanship, aim for excellence, and try really damn hard to be good people.

A lot of us have an Om story, and here are some of mine.

The day after my big True Ventures pitch for my first startup, Hiten took me to see Om at a party hosted by a member of (I would later discover) Om’s quiet crew of deeply loyal founder friends. This would be the first time I’d spend any real time with Om, though I had met him briefly a few years back at Structure 09 where he made a bunch of industry titans sweat on stage.

Now it was my turn, the inexperienced somewhat star-struck first time founder. The man grilled me hard on my then-nascent photo sharing app. I was sweating bullets despite how cold it was sitting outside, 9pm in SF. After a bit, there was his mischievous smile. Just Om being Om, testing me.

Being familiar with grief, I knew there would be hidden triggers when I woke up this morning. Telegram wound up being mine. I had been messaging him when he was still awake during his last few weeks. Now I can’t, and that realization almost took me out.

Even when we had periods of losing touch, I knew he was there if I needed him. His timing was impeccable with the inbound messages. Lost my dad, got an email exactly when I needed to see it. The first company I started got acqui-hired — and his note wasn’t the congrats everyone else sent, but one of kindness and understanding. Had kids, sweet notes each time. Wife got sick, we kept it quiet, he found out eventually and there was that note of love again. Shut a company down, another note saying how proud he was of how hard I swung. The list is long.

But there were two memories I keep close. One funny (probably just to me) and another life-changing.

Om was unaware of what I drove until eight or nine years after I met him. “You drive a Saab?! I wasn’t expecting that…. You know only engineers drive Saabs!”

The life-changing one. I was walking around with him as I was deciding to pull the trigger on starting Farmstead, maybe I was biting off more than I could chew. Om stopped me for a sec in the middle of SOMA and carefully said “You and I, we come from a country where we are not encouraged to do new things. You have to figure out how to break that pattern.” That was both a witnessing of history and simultaneously the push of encouragement I never knew I needed — I’ve never been the same. The man had some magic in him.

I’ll miss Om for many things — his humor, vulnerability, kindness and his excellent photography. But I will most miss him for all of us who build the future: the steady flame of intensity that was constantly analyzing and writing and narrating everything we change. He was the moral center to count on in an industry that “has an empathy problem.” Someone who earned his wisdom and had it on tap for the folks who were lucky enough to get it.

I love you Om, miss you bro.