His claim to fame is making small ICs in his home garage while still a teenager, fairly recently. That's no small achievement.

(He seems to have had access to the kind of garage and equipment other engineering kids can only dream of though. I know someone who really wanted to do the same thing a few years earlier, who had the knowledge but couldn't get themselves a suitable place and budget to do it.)

Sam graduated in 2022. So his job was being a university student.

Being a university student is not a job. He has over 100k subs on youtube. That should definitely net him some income while he was a student.

YouTube views only translate to income if the viewers respond meaningfully to the ads. We don't know the conversion ratio for his channel.

I mean it's like calling Einstein a patent clerk. It's not false, but it omits a lot.