In this episode, Maureen Taylor speaks with Glen Meakem, founder and CEO of Forever.com. Glen shares his inspiration for starting the company in 2012—recognizing a gap in long-term, secure, digital storage for family memories. Forever offers users a permanent digital home to store and share photos, videos, and documents with guaranteed access for future generations. Unlike other cloud platforms, Forever emphasizes ownership, privacy, and permanence, supported by a sustainable financial model. Glen also discusses their digitization services, metadata functionality, and commitment to customer support and continuous innovation, highlighting Forever’s mission to preserve memories for lifetimes to come.
Key Bullet Points:
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Glen Meakem founded Forever.com in 2012 to fill a gap in long-term digital memory preservation.
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Forever.com provides permanent cloud storage for photos, videos, and documents, guaranteed for your lifetime plus 100 years.
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The Forever.com Guarantee Fund ensures sustainable digital preservation through an endowment-like financial structure.
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Services include digitization of analog media, real-time phone backups, photo book printing, and more.
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Users retain full ownership and control over their data, with options to manage legacy settings and metadata.
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Forever offers exceptional customer support via ambassadors and dedicated service teams.
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Constant updates ensure the platform evolves with changing technology.
Related Episodes:
Episode 260 : The Photo Marketplace Shift: What It Means for Your Memories
Episode 237: How Storied.com Transforms Family HIstory into Captiving Stories
Links:
- Forever.com
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- Need help preserving your photos? Check out Maureen’s Preserving Family Photographs ebook
- Need help identifying family photos? Check out The Family Photo Detective ebook
- Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.
About My Guest:
Glen Meakem is the Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of FOREVER, the leading cloud platform for people and families to save, organize, and share their photos, videos, documents, audio files, and stories now and for generations into the future. Learn more at www.forever.com.
Prior to FOREVER, from 2005 through 2012, Mr. Meakem was the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of a technology focused venture capital firm called Meakem Becker Venture Capital (“MBVC”). MBVC made many successful investments and performed in the top quartile of funds from its vintage year of 2006. During this time, Mr. Meakem also hosted a syndicated radio show and podcast called “Glen Meakem on the Weekend.” Prior to this from 1995 through 2004, Mr. Meakem was the Co-Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of FreeMarkets–a successful business-to-business e-commerce company which he took public on the NASDAQ exchange in a record-setting IPO and then led for five years before selling to Ariba (which was later sold to SAP).
Early in his business career, Mr. Meakem was a product manager at Kraft, a consultant with McKinsey & Company, and a manager at General Electric, where he served on Jack Welch’s staff. A former officer in the United States Army Reserve, Mr. Meakem also volunteered and served as a combat engineer platoon leader in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the First Gulf War.
Mr. Meakem has won numerous awards including the Anti-Defamation League’s National American Heritage Award, Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Western Pennsylvania, and Syracuse University’s Salzberg Medallion for Exceptional Business Achievement. He was also named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and was awarded an honorary Ph.D. in Business Administration by Robert Morris University. Mr. Meakem earned his B.A. cum laude from Harvard University, which he attended on a military scholarship, and his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Maureen Taylor:
Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective® helps clients with photo related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com