When Sam Gold was 13, his parents gave him a bar mitzvah choice: a party, or a trip.
He went to San Francisco. But he wasn’t interested in the Golden Gate Bridge, or curvy Lombard Street. He wanted to visit the headquarters of Apple and Google.
Sam is now a Staples High School sophomore. He hasn’t lost his fascination with some of the most innovative companies on the planet. If anything, he’s teaching them some lessons.
Sam Gold recently, at Google’s pop-up shop in SoHo.
Sam has already made a name for himself on YouTube. Posting as Sam Henri, he’s a content creator and social influencer. Sam’s 5,800 subscribers love his unique take on all things techs.
He’s high enough on the food chain that Google sent a web router, and Philips shipped WiFi-enabled light bulbs, for him to review. Check out his channel — he’s going places.
Sam is also a very talented graphic designer.
Sam Gold had fun editing this photo. Yes, that’s him on the wall.
But it’s as an Apple fan that he may be most impressive.
From age 3, when he got his first iPod Nano (from his Nana), he has loved all things Apple.
So last April — when the man running the biggest Apple archive on the internet suddenly terminated his channel — Sam took notice.
And instantly flew into action.
He’d already spent years using tools like the Wayback machine to archive over 800 Apple-related videos. They included ads, keynote speeches, even weird internal training tapes.
The earliest video was from 1979 — decades before Sam was born.
In 2001, Steve Jobs introduced the iPod. Sam Gold has that video — and many others.
Within 24 hours he’d uploaded them all to his own, new unofficial Apple archive YouTube channel.
As you’ve figured out by now, Sam knows his way around the internet. Before posting his 80 gigabytes of videos, he checked YouTube’s Terms of Service. He was sure his archives were legit.
But a week later YouTube flagged Sam, for violating their TOS. They called his Apple channel “spam” — although he was not charging anyone, or making any money off it.
Repeated requests for clarification from YouTube went unheeded.
So Sam turned to the tech-savvy Reddit community. Suggestions poured in.
His archives were not gone, of course. He kept them on a disk. That was perfect for one Reddit user, who had a petabyte worth of storage on his server. (A petabyte is a million gigabytes. Or, in layman’s terms, “a shitload.”)
He offered it to Sam. The teenager quickly transferred his archives from a disk to the server. That’s where — right here — they are now, available free to the world.
Apple’s amazing video archives — all in one place, courtesy of Sam Gold.
But that’s not the end of Sam’s story.
A reporter for Vice heard what happened, and contacted Sam. That led to a front-page story on Motherboard, Vice’s tech platform.
Which, in turn, led to the possibility of Sam freelancing for that well-read, edgy and influential site.
Which leads to this “06880” request.
Later this month, Apple makes a big announcement. They’re expected to announce the next generation iPhone.
Sam has tried to get on the press list. So far, he’s been unsuccessful.
So: If any “06880” reader has Apple connections, please help Sam travel (once again) to California.
It’s the least Apple can do for the kid who saved their entire video archives.
BONUS FUN FACT 1: In addition to Google and Philips, Apple sent Sam some products. Unfortunately, it’s not an iPhone or other device. The largest information technology company in the world gave him a hat, pen and water bottle.
BONUS FUN FACT 2: This summer, Sam decided to see how many certifications he could get online. He is now an official Universal Life minister, ordained to perform weddings, funerals and (I am not making this up) exorcisms. Sam declined to get certified as a lactation consultation, however. He saved that $35 fee — perhaps for his upcoming trip to California.
