Anand Lal Shimpi (born June 26, 1982) is a former tech journalist and American businessman who is the founder of the technology website

AnandTech ''AnandTech'' was an online computer hardware magazine owned by Future plc. It was founded in April 1997 by then-14-year-old Anand Lal Shimpi, who was CEO and editor-in-chief until August 2014, with Ryan Smith replacing him as editor-in-chief. ...

, a hardware news/review site. He wrote a book in 2001, titled ''The Anandtech Guide to PC Gaming Hardware''. He retired at the age of 32 from the publishing industry to join the hardware division at

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

in 2014. Shimpi started AnandTech when he was 15 years old. The site originally focused on

motherboard A motherboard, also called a mainboard, a system board, a logic board, and informally a mobo (see #Nomenclature, "Nomenclature" section), is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems. It ho ...

reviews and was hosted on

GeoCities GeoCities, later Yahoo! GeoCities, was a web hosting service that allowed users to create and publish websites for free and to browse user-created websites by their theme or interest, active from 1994 to 2009. GeoCities was started in November 1 ...

. Over a period of 17 years, the site grew to be one of the most respected sites for tech reviews.

Early life

Anand Shimpi was born to Lalchand Shimpi, an Indian-born computer science professor at St Augustine's University, and Razieh, an Iranian-born teacher in

Raleigh Raleigh ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte) ...

, NC. When Shimpi was in third grade, his father enrolled him in a computer course. He built his first PC in sixth grade and soon began building PCs for others. He is a graduate of William G. Enloe GT/IB Center for the Humanities, Sciences, and the Arts and

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State, North Carolina State, NC State University, or NCSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1887 and p ...

with a degree in

Computer Engineering Computer engineering (CE, CoE, or CpE) is a branch of engineering specialized in developing computer hardware and software. It integrates several fields of electrical engineering, electronics engineering and computer science. Computer engi ...

with emphasis on microprocessor architecture and design.

Career

Shimpi started

in 1997 at the age of 15. He called it Anand's Hardware Tech Page. He first started reviewing motherboards; later he would go on to review CPUs, hard drives, RAM, and other computer components. His tech reviews were in-depth and thorough, making it the preferred site for hardware engineers and enthusiasts and receiving praise from spokespersons at

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

and

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

. He served as its

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

from 1997 to 2014. AnandTech grew from a small

website in 1997 to a 50 million page view per month publication . He reportedly was able to get his hands on an

AMD K6-III The K6-III (code name: "Sharptooth") was an x86 microprocessor line manufactured by AMD that launched on February 22, 1999. The launch consisted of both 400 and 450 MHz models and was based on the preceding K6-2 architecture. Its improved 25 ...

before any other reviewers. In 2013 he was named as an expert in the BBC's coverage of the

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...

and

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

. On August 30, 2014, he announced his decision to retire from the technology publishing industry to work at Apple's hardware technologies division and named longtime AnandTech editor Ryan Smith as his successor. On February 15, 2020, Bloomberg reported that Anand sent confidential documents to Gerard Williams III after the latter had left Apple to form NUVIA.

Publications

Shimpi is the author of the book The ''AnandTech Guide to PC Gaming Hardware'' () and has a regular column in ''Computer Power user (CPU) Magazine'' called Anand's Corner.

References

External References

The Road Ahead by Anand Lal Shimpi
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shimpi, Anand Lal 1982 births Living people American technology writers Writers from Raleigh, North Carolina American people of Indian descent Businesspeople from Raleigh, North Carolina American chief executives American male journalists American writers of Indian descent American writers of Iranian descent Enloe High School alumni Apple Inc. people