We Lost a Great One Gordon Mah Ung

This week was supposed to be a down week at STH given Christmas, but I received a text message that stopped me in my tracks. The text mentioned that we lost Gordon Mah Ung who many may know from publications like PCWorld, Maximum PC, The Full Nerd podcast, Computerworld, and more. PCWorld has a great piece remembering Gordon, but I decided to pull our piece for today because, frankly, I never got to say thank you to Gordon.

We Lost a Great One Gordon Mah Ung

For those who do not know the history of STH, it was mainly a personal blog when it launched in 2009, but by 2011 and into 2012 it started getting more frequent postings and we started doing more reviews. That was about the time that I started freelance covering servers for Tom’s Hardware while much of our AMD coverage ended up on STH. Covering Xeon meant I started to attend industry events and that is when I first met Gordon. I was the new guy, and Gordon was the guy everyone in the room knew.

Over the last decade-plus, I have attended a huge number of industry events and calls with Gordon. He was a real journalist. When others would simply lob softball questions or take statements at face value, Gordon was often the one to ask the question to ruffle feathers. His model of being well-known and respected enough is something that greatly influenced STH. He was one of the few who could simply offer his independent thoughts. When I started making the push to build STH full-time, I knew this was something I wanted to emulate.

A huge regret I have is not getting to join The Full Nerd podcast. In the summer of 2023, I remember doing the LTX Expo event in Vancouver and that was right around the time Gordon was taking a leave due to his diagnosis. Wendell and I did the sit-down with JJ and Adam, but Gordon was missed.

Further, The Full Nerd was one that I had been tracking for a long time on the YouTube side as we grew, I always thought that it was the size and standard that we could only hope to achieve.

Final Words

There is a lot out there, and frankly, a lot from folks who knew Gordon much better than I did. Perhaps that is the message for this holiday season. Gordon was someone who had an immense impact on STH. When I received that text it only took a few seconds for the regret to set in. I never stopped to tell him just how much impact he had on STH and what we do in a slightly adjacent field. Maybe that is the message for everyone on STH, take that opportunity.

On a broader note, one of two areas for our family’s philanthropic work in 2025 was set to center on pancreatic cancer at the Mayo Clinic. We generally do not discuss that side, but this certainly adds fuel to that focus for next year.