Kyle Bennett (HardOCP) joins Intel as Director Of Enthusiast Engagement

Here's another shocker, Kyle Bennett, the owner of HardOCP, announces he's joining Intel as Director of Enthusiast Engagement. In this role, Bennett will focus on face-to-face events with enthusiasts, similar to what he did in the past with workshops at QuakeCon and a few enthusiast events with AMD.

He believes this job will help Intel to get better in touch with the enthusiast community via two-way communication, which is something a lot of executives at Intel think needs to be done. Bennett will start working for Intel on April 1, 2019.

So what's going to happen to HardOCP? The site was one of the original big tech sites on the web , together with some other places like AnandTech, Tom's Hardware and The Tech Report. Bennett decided he didn't want to sell HardOCP as he's afraid of seeing it turned into something he's not proud of. Therefore, HardOCP will be "mothballed". This means the site will remain online but will not post any new content.

His HardForum property will be sold to a company he's familiar with, and will be operated via Patreon donations. Bennett will continue to post at HardForum, and will remain one of the forum's admins:

So what happens to HardOCP? I have thought long and hard about this. I do not want to sell HardOCP or HardForum and see those properties turned into something that I would not be proud of. HardOCP will be "mothballed." It will no longer publish news, editorial, or hardware review content. Of course, being the "Director of Enthusiast Engagement" and closing HardForum.com, one of the largest computer enthusiast forums on the Internet, does not seem to go hand-in-hand, but there are some conflict of interest issues that need to be tackled. HardForum.com will be sold to a company that I have done business with for years, one that I can trust to run it in the way you are familiar with. HardForum will be demonitised and all advertising and commission links removed. Simply put, HardForum will not make money in any way. It will be left up to its members to fund operations through Patreon. We already have Patreon funding in place, so this should not be an issue. Over the last year, I have gotten the HardForum to run lean and mean and I have no doubt that we will not see much change in its functioning. I will also still be an admin and member of our HardForum community. I will still be there interacting with you and the other members. Even though I am going to work for Intel, I am still a member of the enthusiast community and love being a part of it. It is not something I would ever give up.

It's interesting to see that a lot founders of major tech sites are ending up working for the companies they wrote about. As you may know, The Tech Report's Scott Wasson joined AMD, AnandTech's Anand Lal Shimpi is now working for Apple's hardware division, and PC Perspective's Ryan Shrout works for AMD.