On May 30, 2006, after nearly five years as my personal blog, we incorporated GigaOM, the company. Just 24 hours later, our investors, True Ventures, wired me the seed money to get going. They also presented me with a check in an envelope that had three simple words: Live the dream. GigaOM was True’s first investment. A few days later, I told my boss, Josh Quittner (who just joined Flipboard) that I was going to leave Business 2.0. Of course, someone leaked the news to Gawker’s Valleywag.
And just like that, five years have gone by. These have been the startup equivalent of street fighting years. I’ve shared the lessons I’ve learned on occasion, but when I look back over these past five years, I always think of people. I never think of the stories I did, the news I broke, the analysis, the interviews, the money, the fundraising, the offices. I just think of the awesome people who have worked to make my dream come true.
I didn’t want to write a five-year blog post. I didn’t want to do a stat-based round-up, though it would have been pretty cool. So when I brought my dilemma to Chris Albrecht — a dear friend, confidante and our creative chief — he suggested that perhaps we should do a video. And so we did. We have a lot of people, so not everyone is in this video, but they are all part of who we are. They are GigaOM!
One regret — Chris is not on camera, but he is in the video – he shot it, edited it and conceptualized it. And like everyone else in the team, Chris did everything to make me look good.
In the end, this video is about us and also about you, our readers, our community. You give us strength to do what we do, every day, every hour and with every single post. We succeed sometimes, we fail often, but we try. Thank you for lavishing us with your attention, for without you, we are no more than “yet another dumb website.”
Watch this video for free on GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends
