Sam Barnett's Art

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I'M SAM BARNETT

I've been a full time artist since 2021.
Prior to being an artist, I used to build tech companies & burn buns at McDonalds.

I've been a full time artist since 2021. Prior to being an artist, I used to build tech companies & burn buns at McDonalds.

How did I land up here?

How did I land up herE?

How did I land up here?

In 2016 I took my young daughters to a playground in San Francisco. My girls joined the pack of kids running riot who were between 5 and 9 years old. I fell into a daydream but was startled awake when the mob of kids began playing 'grown ups' and pretending to work at tech companies. One 6 year old kid even said "Here at Google, we do no evil". I did a double take. WTF.

I had built tech companies for 12 years and my kids were being brought up in this warped yet brilliant world. Worried that my professional choices in tech were distorting my girls' outlook on the world - I realized I needed to expand their horizons so they could find their own paths.

My daughters and I began reading about people who had led remarkable lives. I hoped my girls would be inspired to find their own gifts and passions in life through stories of ordinary people they could relate to, who had shown extraordinary resolve to follow a path that was true to them.

Together we painted these remarkable people’s portraits on canvas and 50 foot murals across San Francisco. I secretly hoped that the grit, courage and purpose of these amazing people would magically seep into my girls. I told myself I was doing this as a responsible father - to prepare my daughters for their lives ahead.

Years later I realised that was BS - I was actually doing it for myself. I was unconsciously hoping that I would absorb some of these people’s courage & resolve so that I could make some big life changes myself, moving away from my life building tech companies to become - what I was too embarrassed to admit - a full time artist.

In 2021, I left my life in technology and became a full time artist.

In 2016 I took my young daughters to a playground in San Francisco. My girls joined the pack of kids running riot who were between 5 and 9 years old. I fell into a daydream but was startled awake when the mob of kids began playing 'grown ups' and pretending to work at tech companies. One 6 year old kid even said "Here at Google, we do no evil". I did a double take. WTF.

I had built tech companies for 12 years and my kids were being brought up in this warped yet brilliant world. Worried that my professional choices in tech were distorting my girls' outlook on the world - I realized I needed to expand their horizons so they could find their own paths.

My daughters and I began reading about people who had led remarkable lives. I hoped my girls would be inspired to find their own gifts and passions in life through stories of ordinary people they could relate to, who had shown extraordinary resolve to follow a path that was true to them.

Together we painted these remarkable people’s portraits on canvas and 50 foot murals across San Francisco. I secretly hoped that the grit, courage and purpose of these amazing people would magically seep into my girls. I told myself I was doing this as a responsible father - to prepare my daughters for their lives ahead.

Years later I realised that was BS - I was actually doing it for myself. I was unconsciously hoping that I would absorb some of these people’s courage & resolve so that I could make some big life changes myself, moving away from my life building tech companies to become - what I was too embarrassed to admit - a full time artist.

In 2021, I left my life in technology and became a full time artist.

DULL PROFFESSIONAL STUFF

Founder & CEO at Struq
Personalizing the Internet with AI. Scaled across Europe and the US. Acquired by Quantcast.

Chief Product Officer at Quantcast
Responsible for ~$400m of annual product revenue and some of the most widely used technology tools on the internet.

President & Partner at Entrepreneur First (EF)
EF created the first pre-seed VC which invests in the best technology talent to build startups from scratch. EF is backed by the world’s leading tech company founders (Reid Hoffman, The Collison brothers, Demis Hassabis etc). If you're thinking of starting a technology company, go and see EF.

Organized the Guinness World Record: Largest Ever Art Lesson
Broke the record: 70,000 registered - 48,000 attended. Key Learnings here.

McDonalds
Fired twice - once for burning buns.

Artist
First exhibition: Royally Big Portrait. The BBC commissioned me to paint the King. I taught kids across the UK to draw King Charles III. We combined all the kids drawings to create one major portrait of King Charles to break the Guinness World Record for the most contributions to a digital piece of art. The portrait was exhibited on the world's largest digital screen (The Outernet), where it was visited by 2.5 million people which broke the record for the most visited private exhibition by a debut artist. Christies auctioned the portrait which was then hung in the National Portrait Gallery.

FAQ

These are questions I get all the time…

Are you that dodgy australian Sam Barnett that imported tigers from the tiger king?

Sorry to disappoint but I am not that Sam Barnett...

There are lots of Sam Barnetts – one of them is super dodgy. Are you him?

One Sam Barnett is a big actor and has been in some good stuff. There is another bald Sam Barnett who has done some dodgy stuff (son of an Australian politician involved in importing tigers from the zoo featured on the Netflix series Tiger King). I am not him. This dodgy Sam Barnett is a pain in my ass. For my sake (& the tigers), Australian Sam Barnett, please stop doing such daft stuff - you are making all Sam Barnetts look bad (especially the bald ones).

Is Sam Barnett your real name?

Sam Barnett is a dull name. A common name. The entirety of my name is Sam Barnett. I don't have a middle name. Sam is not short for anything more interesting (Samuel, Samson etc). My sisters have cool & unusual names. I'm just Sam Barnett. That's it. Thanks Mum.

Why do you sign your work as sb?

You guessed it, those are my initials. For those that didn't get it: Sam Barnett = sb. The initials of the non dodgy, dull named Sam Barnett who is hacking away trying to create art.

What is FIND.SB?

All the other gazillion Sam Barnett's have bought all the good domains names related to Sam Barnett. I was rather chuffed to buy sambarnett.art - However the domain has sssssooooo many letters! You can't fit it on anything. Trying to find a short domain was hard as they cost mega bucks. After months of looking, I discovered the Soloman Islands have their own Top Level Domain which matched my initials (.sb)! As I had been experimenting with putting people in art, I decided to go with "find.sb" as it was short & cheap. Managed to get the instagram handle too (@find.sb). Twitter was not so kind - find.sb was taken so have a naff handle - Thanks Elon...