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We try to bypass clichés, but "whiz kid" seems the best tag for Mark Gurman, a young man heading west to seek his fortune.
Gurman, who graduated five weeks ago from the University of Michigan, is snapped up by the Bloomberg media company as a San Francisco-based consumer technology writer. His salary is undisclosed, but has to exceed the six figures he earned annually as a part-time senior editor for a tech site called 9to5Mac.
Mark Gurman was on Forbes' "30 Under 30" list, ranked among the top 25 bloggers by Time and cited as one of 16 people to watch in consumer tech by Wired.
Noah Kulwin, associate editor of Recode, broke the news at that Vox Media site:
Over the last few years, Mark Gurman has made a name for himself as the go-to guy for Apple product scoops. And now he's taking his talents to Bloomberg.
Gurman has broken stories on the iPad, Siri and almost every other device in the Apple catalog.
Kulwin posts a four-paragraph memo to Bloomberg staff members from editor Brad Stone, which says in part:
Mark's story is one of the most remarkable in technology journalism. As a high school sophomore in Los Angeles in 2010, he became one of the most prolific and authoritative Apple writers on the internet, first as a contributor and then a senior editor at the website 9to5Mac. He's appeared on Bloomberg TV and other broadcast outlets and his many scoops on the iPhone and other products have been cited and followed extensively. . . .
He's been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, listed among the top 25 bloggers by Time Magazine and singled out as one of 16 people to watch in consumer tech by Wired. . . .At Bloomberg, Mark will widen his coverage area to include consumer electronics and other services not only created by Apple but also Google, Facebook, Amazon and other top tech players
The new hire talks about his first post-college job on Twitter, where he exceeds 49,000 followers:
I’m very excited to be joining the amazing Bloomberg team in July to cover Apple and many other tech companies https://t.co/HaUsJ4oT68
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) June 2, 2016
Gurman earned a bachelor of science from UM's School of Information, where he focused on information technology and entrepreneurship. A profile in The Michigan Daily during his freshmen year was headlined "Unearthing Apple's secrets between classes." Here's a choice snippet from that article:
In addition to a reported six-figure salary, his knowledge also comes in handy for assisting his friends and family with simple technological repairs.
News coverage of the young phenom went far beyond the 2013 student newspaper article.
A year later, Columbia Journalism Review titled its profile "Apple can’t hide from a 20-year-old reporter." Fortune magazine took notice in 2012 and 2015, saying the prodigy is "Apple PR's worst nightmare." Under that headline. Philip Elmer-DeWitt wrote last year:
There’s no magic to it. Gurman has good sources in both the developer community and within Apple, and he works them relentlessly.
Gurman is the son of real estate agents in Los Angeles.
