Andrew Sampson (born in Atlanta, Georgia, 1995) is one of America’s few and most renowned Black tech founders. During the financial crisis of 2007–2008, Andrew became homeless and dropped out of High School their first year to focus on coding full time.

Their many works include Rainway, a cloud-streaming stack that famously brought Cloud Gaming to mainstream audiences and helped Microsoft reach billions of devices. Borderless Gaming, a tool that has been adopted by millions and influenced the way video games are displayed on Windows. Netflix Roulette (sold to Reel Good, 2018) is a viral web app that provided developers with an alternative API to access Netflix data after the company killed its public API. Andrew also contributed to The Forest, a first-person survival horror simulator that popularized the genre and became one of the best-selling video games of all time.

Andrew has received numerous awards, including Forbes 30 Under 30, Techstars, and Thiel Fellowship grants, and startups, Fortune 500 corporations, and international institutions use their inventions.

Andrew is awesome. I’ve learned a lot from him in our discussions on many topics. Proud to have his help and his team’s help. – Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming

As a counterbalance to the world of technology, Andrew is an avid analog street photographer who utilizes 35mm and medium format film cameras to capture candid photography of humanity worldwide.

Their style of photography embraces the chaos, mess, and confusion that is the human experience rather than mainstream clean aesthetic content that is easier to digest. Andrew’s subjects consist of everyday people, spaces, and moments in daily life — the good, the bad, and the ugly.

You can view Andrew’s photography here and their essays that focus on race, mental health, and socioeconomic inequality here.

Andrew lives in New York City and Paris.