LTT is starting to lose subscribers

Having worked at quite a few startups that grew to LTT’s size, there are basically two kinds of CEO/COO; those who want to drive the culture, and those who don’t believe in corporate culture.

I feel Linus is of the second brand, and I’ve seen it enough to know that culture emerging in those conditions get out of control and becomes almost impossible to rectify.

Good luck to LMG, but the top is where culture starts.

Agreed. Their response made it worse. Watching the PR response today is why I’ve unsubscribed. No thanks.

Madison replied today on X (twitter), haven’t figured out yet how I can copy the link, but a quick search for former LTT employee does the job at the moment.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1691693740254228741?refresh=1692174340

Here's Madison's take on it. There will likely never be concrete proof. And Linus' team is actively deleting comments on their channels about it.

The one that really bothered me was one where he went to one of his employees houses to work on a project and was super disrespectful the whole time. At the beginning of the video the guy was talking about how he's just bought the home and was so proud, then there were multiple parts in the video of Linus making fun of different parts of his house. And I recall a part where the guy specifically asked him not to put something on a table he was afraid would break and Linus was like "no, it's fine" and does it anyways. The whole video made me super uncomfortable, I think it was actually one of the last videos I watched from the channel

I remember a few years back when Dennis almost fell through his roof while he had him running cables and there was no concern for his wellbeing, just shitting on him for being useless. Made me super uncomfortable to watch

TIL paying your employees for work is "using them"...

This is Linus Sebastian, not Linus Torvalds. Has nothing to do with Linux. In fact, he tried running Linux a few months ago and made a huge mess of it.

The kid bought a silver YT button from the NCIX channel at auction. Linus tried to buy it back from him, but after some discussion, realized he should just let him keep it .

Some people supposedly harassed that guy online and eventually he killed himself.

People blame Linus for this because... 🤷 Ragebait, I guess.

There's absolutely no excuse for hounding a child to suicide.

Can someone explain to me followers and the seemingly weird cult that forms. LTT, Sony, Microsoft, Apple etc. Why are people weirdly defensive of these companies and ignore evidence, death threats etc?

Be more careful when putting things like that in videos. He’s said many times not to go attacking people he talks about, but he should know the minority of his fan base won’t listen, and he should just not mention it instead.

I wonder who are all these million people per video. Stopped watching LTT years ago.

Subscriber count is kind of a bad metric.

How about floatplane subs?
https://grafana.elizabeth.codes/public-dashboards/10023c4c479744e191760225708c0124?orgId=1&from=now-36h&to=now&refresh=5m

Cause it looks like that over the past 36 hours they've lost >3000 subs there... which IIRC is a paid service.

Edit: Another way to look at how much they've lost is ~10%

Funny you should mention Top Gear! As someone from the UK, I'm embarrassed that Jeremy Clarkson is famous globally, he's such a bigoted, xenophobic, sexist man, and an embarrassment to our country :-(

It's interesting that you talk about top gear because top gear was an entertainment show first and a car show 87th. If you think top gear was a car show you missed the point.

More pointedly: the only thing Google cares about is making money. If what you’re doing doesn’t detract from that goal in any way (mind you, that’s a VERY broad brush), they don’t give two shits.

Should have spent $500 on employee time!

What a pro-worker stance you have considering the instance you're on.

So me, using an ad blocker to prevent incorrectly vetted ads (that contain malware), stealing my information or compromising my computer, tracking my moves, or outright spying on what I say/type/consume is piracy? Then call me fucking Jack Sparrow baby

Maybe you are young, or incredibly naive (I am not trying to be offensive), but the internet used to be RIDDLED with unsafe ads. There is absolutely no reason you should ever believe they are safe now. Companies do very little to ensure their ads are safe as long as the money rolls in. Skype straight up served malware in their ads for years and never gave 1 fuck. (source: https://www.onmsft.com/news/skypes-traditional-desktop-program-is-spreading-malware-through-ads/)

Going on the internet without an adblocker (I suggest multiple layers, DNS level [Pihole/adguard] as well as device level [Extensions/browsers]) is like having unprotected sex with random strangers. Yes, you may end up fine, but you also could get some very nasty viruses (with long term damage, such as your SSN being leaked) all because you dont see the value in protection

Source that ads continue to be unsafe:

-https://www.itpro.com/security/malware/369892/google-ads-malvertising-campaign-prompts-questions-around-search-security

-https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/threat-intelligence/2022/07/google-ads-lead-to-major-malvertising-campaign

-https://www.komando.com/security-privacy/google-ad-scam-warning/847823/

And these are sponsored search results so that they appear first. You might think google should give a fuck about vetting those.....but nope

edit: Spelling/grammar

WHOA WHOA WHOA WHAT

The Billet Labs thing was unfortunate but I think they are capable of apologizing, learning lessons, and turning things around.

But that's not just a toxic work environment that Madison is describing. That's CRIMINAL. That's actually unforgivable. Just given how many people knew about it, I don't think it can be fixed by firing some people. And don't even think about a sorry video.

Additionally, here's a video from an all-hands meeting the day after she quit. (Reddit, sorry.)

The following is a transcript if you'd rather avoid Reddit:

(speaker 1, Linus) So we called this meeting because it's come to our attention that we need to have a quick chat about the best way to handle HR related feedback and rumors. We won't be giving any names for what I hope are extraordinarily obvious reasons, but what we can do is give you the following guidelines for problem solving and conflict resolution.

Sorry that this is all boring and corporate, but here we are. Number one, always stand up for what's right. We're only a team as long as we're all working together and working for each other. That's the most important one. Number two, always reflect on your own personal experiences and use your common sense. Few things in life are truly black and white. Number three, always wait to hear both sides of a story before passing your own judgment. Be cautious when you know that one side is bound by legal and ethical disclosure guidelines, when the other is not. Carefully consider what it says about the character of someone who would engage in that type of gossip against someone who has no power to defend themselves.

Number four, always encourage openness and transparency. If you have a problem, you need to speak up. We want to fix it. If you receive feedback about somebody else at this company, the first response is, have you spoken with this person? Followed closely by, you need to speak with this person. We don't solve interpersonal issues here, or really anywhere in your life, if you wish to live in a drama free zone, by engaging in water cooler politicking. So, if for any reason that individual is not comfortable approaching the person they're having a conflict with, we have a chain that they're supposed to follow.

So first, you advise them to take the problem to their manager. Followed by me or Yvonne, followed by our third party HR firm. I hope that you all trust that we're here to make this a safe, fun, and productive workplace, and we won't tolerate mistreatment of any of our team members.

If you have any reason to believe otherwise, then I refer you again to point number four, which is to address the issue with the individual directly, or bring it to me or Yvonne, or bring it to our third party HR firm. Since I'm not at liberty to share any details about what occurred, uh, all I can do is ask that you trust me and Yvonne.

Um, some of you know us very well, I've been here a very long time, um, some of you have not been here for as long, but I like to think that whether you've been here for nine years or nine days, you're here for a reason and you believe that we are utmost to run this company with integrity and compassion.

Um, We can't solve problems we don't know about though, so on that note, I'd like to invite anyone who has concerns about a fellow team member or about a manager to submit their feedback either by speaking with their manager, me or Yvonne directly, or if you would prefer to provide your feedback anonymously, we have an option for that as well.

It's the manager and co-worker feedback form. Uh, Yvonne, if you're not aware of it - show of hands who is not aware of it? Hey, a lot of people aren't aware of it. Good, so now we all know. There's an anonymous form, if for whatever reason you're not comfortable either talking to me me or Yvonne directly about it - and that's okay, that's fine, we understand, that's why we have these options - Yvonne's gonna post it in the general chat.

It's a safe space to provide us ideas for improvement, or if you're consumed by the holiday spirit and you want to say nice things, you can do that too. Does anybody else have any questions?

Not a single question? Wow, that must have been a really good speech.

(speaker 2, James) You gonna dance on that table, or just stand on it?

(speaker 1, Linus) That's it! So, um, Yvonne, did you have anything you wanted to add?

(speaker 3, Yvonne) (inaudible) Somebody said (inaudible) if you guys want to sanitize your hands, help yourself with free (inaudible)?

(speaker 1, Linus) Yeah, that was actually just totally random timing. It came up the stairs a moment ago. Dennis is on it. Alright. Thank you everyone. Have a wonderful and, uh, productive rest of your day. And weekend.

Didn't she leave about two years ago?

And former employee Madison's experience working there: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1691693740254228741