Yesterday was my last day at my full time job as a physician. I plan to work on MacRumors.com and other web projects full time.
The most likely reaction I expect from regular MacRumors readers is “You weren’t working on MacRumors full time already?”
As crazy as it seems, for these past 8 years, MacRumors has been a hobby or part-time job. I think most people would have made this move long before me, but the momentum of my “other” career made it difficult for me to break free.
I started MacRumors.com in February of 2000. I was in my 4th and last year of medical school. I had been dabbling in the web for fun and decided to focus a natural interest of mine (Apple) into a website. My work on the site has since had its ups and downs. Over the next 8 years, I completed medical school, an Internal Medicine residency, a fellowship in Nephrology and even worked two years in private practice as a physician (Nephrologist).
During that time, I’ve been fortunate enough that my hobby has become successful enough that I am able to transition it into my career. While the trend may have been clear for past couple of years, I was slow to recognize it.
One of the most frustrating things over the years, however, has been my inability to dedicate the proper time to improve MacRumors as I might have wanted. In addition, as a web-tech-guy I constantly have ideas and plans for other web projects that I’ve never had the time to pursue. By settling on this as my career, I will be able to execute some long standing plans.
Wish me luck!
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Twitter: http://twitter.com/arnoldkim
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My Active Sites
Normalkid – my personal blog
MacRumors.com – Mac news and rumors
TouchArcade.com – iPhone games
Contact Me
arn@normalkid.com
arn, i didn’t know you were a doctor until i came across a new york times article! i’ve been reading your site almost every day since you launched it eight years ago! here’s to another 888 years!
Man, you are wicked!
Thank you for your contribution to mac community!!!
Woah, must have been very time-taxing to juggle medicine and quality site moderation. Now that you are full time, maybe you could update the UI or graphics of MacRumors? I always felt the site looks a bit non unified graphically, compared to the quality of the content. Content is great, by the way.
Good look and go on with your dream, greatings form vienna/asutria
Hi Arnold,
I am a korean as you but from Daegu, Korea.
Congratulations in order.
Please, with the power of your Macrumors.com,
I hope you press on Apple to launch Iphone in Korea soon.
Thx.
Dal Soo Kim
As a second year medical student I am surprised, awed, and concerned for you all at the same time.
Sadly though the biggest thing I got out of the story was that you didn’t go into medicine for the career, you did it for the money.
I know it sounds blunt but when you consider the hours, money and effort that was put into achieving your MD degree, to just give up on being a physician for another job tells me that money was your main motivator
cheers !
@Richard
I appreciate the candor. If I was in it for the money, I would still be doing both. In the end, there’s only so much time in the day, and the critical choice was between spending more time or less time with my family. I didn’t want to look back in 20 years and regret that.
Good luck in your training, but I would think in 10 years, you would make the same decision. Feel free to email me arn@normalkid.com if you’d like to discuss it further.
Good luck!
I like the macrumors as I like the Apple.
I may create one website to absorb people all over the world.
[...] community, always providing reliable news and rumors and a thriving forum. The owner and creator, Arnold Kim, was recently featured in the New York Times because he decided to quit his job as a medical doctor [...]
Must be nice!
I will be hopefully be there one day. Again, Congrats!
Wow, How lucky you are. I’m sitting here closing charts at 8 pm.
I have a blog too, but it’s nothing like this. Well done and I do so envy you but wish you all the best.
Just a quick request, if I have a patient with hematuria or 3+ proteinuria can I still bum a corridor diagnostic workup from you?
Good Luck and Do No Harm.
LDD.
Dr. Kim,
Over the years I have visited the MacRumors site because of the gadget geeks in my home, ok myself included. The thing I didn’t know is that Arn was the same person as the Arnold I was working with in the medical field. (lol)
I love blogging, but wow I must say you have taking your hobby to another level. KUDOS!!!!!!
[...] rumor-based site relating to all things Apple. To our surprise, Kim recently announced he quit his job as a physician, and he now run’s Mac Rumors full time, and is said to be focusing on other [...]
[...] as of the 1st of July 2008 Dr. Kim has hung up his stethoscope and has devoted himself full time to macrumors.com, his family [...]
Glad to hear you quit! I just left my IT job a week ago to pursue blogging full time as well. I’m convinced it will work out for the best.
[...] been keeping busy… in fact, I might have been keeping too busy. In retrospect, the quitting decision was clearly the right decision. One major perk of not being a physician is that for the first time [...]
[...] it’s already been a year since I quit my job and dedicated myself to web projects, and it’s gone really quickly. I’ve kept [...]