Any chance on some context on this for someone who doesn’t follow tech closely enough? I know who Linus is, and what LTT is, and I’ve seen a lot of stuff these past few days about the community being angry at them for all sorts of stuff, but who is Madison? And what did they allege?
Mfers talking like they were out in Europe totally unaware of what the US branch had been doing all this time, like what! Also what’s with the third person, who else is there with you calling the shots?
It was you. You were there and you knew from day one. Lots of allegations were directed at you, specifically. What is happening.
And LMG would be stupid to say or release anything else on that topic! This is potential lawsuit country, they will walk very carefully and I would be surpised if they didn’t check every public communication with their lawyer first.
I really doubt this post is by Linus directly. It’s been about two days since the brand new CEO and the rest of the c-suite informed Linus that any communication he makes regarding stuff like this has to go through them now.
Of course he didn’t write it. He lacks the grace and it wreaks of corporate backsludge, which makes it worse that he didn’t take the time himself to a) think about the situation and b) address his base directly (he’s a YouTuber right?).
Instead we get this PR boilerplate. Literally you can buy these and just fill in the blanks with names and specifics. Moreover, much of it, if you have watched them over the years, are just blatantly false.
It’s orchestrated better, but still on the level of the reply GM got.
Yeah. I’ve unsubscribed and asked youtube to “not recommend this channel”. I told myself I’ll check in in about 3 months to see if they’ve become a better business, but I have low expectations. Their reputation might be eternally ruined.
From what Madison said it sounds like it goes far too deep for this to change much. I hope things get better (since it’s unlikely LTT just up and disappears immediately), but from what we’ve seen this culture of dismissal goes right to the top.
Sounds like they need to totally overhaul HR and give them real power to action to whatever complaints are coming in. A lot of management will have to go in order to change the culture. Unfortunately culture starts at the top and I’m not sure Linus himself can lead that change.
Linus is the founder, his name is on the buildings, he was CEO at the time of all this shit, he is the cheif on camera personality and he is the majority shareholder. Of course he would be in the video.
Hiring Terren was the smartest thing he could have done, he probably should have gotten someone who understands this shit onboard a long time ago. Even if they were subordinate to him.
Linus also wants LMG to be about more than him, and a huge part of the controversy is tied to his decision making power overruling everyone else who says they are working too fast.
He could have appeared, that’s fine, but that nobody was able to get him to drop the defensive attitude and just finally say “sorry” without any pity pleas would have been a very strong signal. That they either didn’t think to do that, couldn’t get Linus to agree or don’t have the power to force him also sends a strong signal in the other direction.
While I do agree, Id say the counterpoint would be that putting Terren out front when all this happened under Linus’s watch could have come across as disingenuous.
“Heres our new lightning rod, yell at him” sort of thing. I very much think they are in a no win scenario with most of this.
Linus is still in charge even if he is pretending to delegate some duties
It may be different in Canada, but AFAIK a CEO has full decision powers over everyday functioning of a company. They can get fired by the Board (owners) if they don’t do what the board wants, but it’s not like members of the board can waltz in and make random decisions with the CEO watching.
Yeah, I fully admit I have no idea at all, I’m just making a guess considering the recent CEO stuff and the fact that they’ve grown as large as they are. Not having proper HR at that size would be a terrible idea.
A good HR department protects the company by protecting the employees though. Not good business to get your business involved in expensive lawsuits because your HR department took the path of least resistance.
I honestly believe that Linus is a well intentioned dumbass. He likes his people and believes that everyone can just get along and that nobody would harass another employee seriously. He knows that the mistakes are just honest mistakes which is why he gets so defensive, take the whole “trust me bro” thing… I think it never occurred to him to fuck his customers over which is why he didnt handle it well.
He doesnt believe his employees need a union because I dont know about you but if I owned a company Id hope that my people felt looked after well enough that they didnt feel like they needed one either.
But that kind of attitude just doesnt work with so damn many people, he should have hired a full time HR manager YEARS ago, as well as the company lawyer on staff. He SHOULD NOT be doing the WAN show, or if he does it should be on a 5 minute tape delay with someone from legal and hr present.
The reason why so much bullshit corporate structure exists is to largely protect the company from itself.
You only have to watch him interacting with his staff in a few videos and you can see that the bullying comes right from the top. That’s not something that’s going to change easily.
A couple people have said this now, but can you link some examples? I’ve been watching the channel for a while and don’t recall things like that, but it could just be that I was watching with rose colored glasses.
The whole “Trust me bro” thing comes from when they released their backpacks. They had issues with some of the zippers and people wanted to know what the warranty was. Linus said they didnt explicitly have one but that he would look after anyone with issues. When people got a bit rightly pissed about this, he got a bit defensive. “Trust me bro” sprung up as a meme out of that whole saga.
What source are you looking for, exactly? You asked about a specific incident and got a fine summary. If you want more context, it’s very easy to find.
If you are looking for a “source” for a subjective opinion of someone’s personality… I don’t even know what that would accomplish or what form you think that would take.
If you’ve seen enough wan show you can get a pretty good idea of his personality. He spouts so many controversial takes without thinking through the consequences, so he’s doing a terrible job if he’s actually an evil mastermind. Most people are well intentioned and Linus is no different.
He’s also naïve, arrogant, and defensive, as we’ve seen lately.
There’s a huuuuge margin between ‘evil mastermind’ and ‘well intentioned’, containing ‘selfish misogynistic jackass’, ‘careless greedy capitalist’, ‘self-important egotistical manchild’, and many other aphorisms that we could ascribe to this tear-stained apologetic corporate head that would be far more accurate.
In other words, just because he’s not the smartest or most sinister bad actor doesn’t mean we should trust him or give him our money or time.
But any of those can also include well intentioned. Well intentioned, negligent, naïve, egotistical, arrogant, focused too much on business. All are fair adjectives.
Even huge assholes are usually well intentioned (Elon Musk springs to mind), but they have a warped view of the world and get distracted by other things, and without realizing it end up doing more harm than good.
He doesnt believe his employees need a union because I dont know about you but if I owned a company Id hope that my people felt looked after well enough that they didnt feel like they needed one either.
If I owned my own company I would DEMAND my employees unionize. You can never trust your boss to have your back. Especially when your boss is me. Because I know me, and I suck.
He doesnt believe his employees need a union because I dont know about you but if I owned a company Id hope that my people felt looked after well enough that they didnt feel like they needed one either.
I’m not gonna blame them for wanting to be protected. Even if I treat my hypothetical employees right, what happens when I’m gone? Will my successor treat them right? History says no. With a union, I can rest easy knowing that, come what may, my people will be taken care of.
So so so so tonedeaf. Video where Linus is stepping down? Sure, throw it in as a laugh, he’s the butt of the joke, it was funny. Where you’re being accused of serious wrongdoing in public? Not so funny. Read the room, folks
Hard to imagine how a company that thought it was the right time to drop that joke could be fostering an environment of harassment towards employees! 😬
I think I heard that (and the jokes about the CFO being the “sponsor”) had been trimmed out of the video (which I haven’t checked.) The first time I saw it (just about an hour after posting) it was still included and you could still see the value that Billet labs was giving for their prototype was still unblurred and there was a comment from the head of labs about how they were going to post some sort of transparency video behind a paywall (on Floatplane.) When I rewatched later that day (to show someone) they had blurred out the value, they still had the jokes about selling stuff. I’m not honestly sure if they still had the thing about the plan for the paywalled transparency video. Later I saw a short reaction video to the drama that claimed all of those elements had now been removed from the LTT video.
I suspect that all the not Linus people were already working towards publishing a response like this to the Gamer’s Nexus video when Linus ran off wildcarding again and they then decided to rush out a video so they could clearly state that Linus’s response only represented Linus’s knee-jerk response and was not supported by or representative of LTT/LMG’s take. So… It really really sucks that they responded to a situation created by them rushing and being sloppy by rushing and being sloppy but it may well be that if Linus had been kept under control they wouldn’t have and keeping Linus under control seems to be a big part of their strategy going forwards. I guess my point is it’s too early to judge whether the shift in internal power dynamics at LTT/LMG, refocusing their priorities and reducing their rate of output will actually solve the issues or not.
It is good they are taking public steps to change their corporate culture, but it is clear they had a top down culture of not taking harassment seriously. Hate to share a reddit link, but this video: https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15t1mzn/mandatory_meeting_the_after_madisons_departure/ purports to be from when Madison left. The language here is not the language of a corporate culture that takes harassment seriously. Especially since James didn’t get immediately corrected.
If they want to win back the viewers (and likely sponsors) they are losing or have lost because of all of this toxicity, they are going to have to continue to publicly show they are committed to improving not only their culture to move away from a harassment friendly, grindset focused content farm, to one worth our time (and sponsor dollars).
I guess I’m kinda naive. “You gonna dance on that table, or just stand on it?” doesn’t sound like a sex joke to me, but that’s what people are calling it.
I think its more the implication that Linus looked like stripper on the table. But I appreciate that could be a stretch. I’m more concerned by a) instructing people to go directly to the person harassing them with no managerial oversight first, b) implying harassment complaints are drama, c) suggesting that its not their job to resolve harassment complaints by down playing them as “interpersonal problems” and d) intentionally or unintentionally suggesting that if you have a problem you are going against the fun environment, which instantly puts a harassment victim in an us vs them environment.
I’m coming at this from a lawyer perspective, as I am a lawyer (albeit not an employment or harassment lawyer) and I’ve witnessed first hand how harassment and discriminated employees are not respected by management. I’ve seen how that impacts people’s mental health and how, especially for younger women, it creates a toxic cycle where it can be extremely difficult to leave because you’ve internalized the harassing and discriminatory experience to the point of thinking “well, who else will hire me? I can’t just get another job.”
I realize if you have not experienced that or witnessed that, its hard to understand how a toxic environment can lead to that mindset. So hearing someone joking around in an emergency all company meeting may not immediately seem problematic. But when the subject of the meeting is harassment, and a high ranking manager just jokes around like its not a big deal, and that joke is tacitly approved of by the executive level (where there isn’t immediate correction), it all strikes me as a corporate culture that doesn’t respect the seriousness of harassment.
I’m also biased as my office literally just had our annual harassment training yesterday.
Right?! Have you talked to them first? “Hey, harasser, you know you keep grabbing my ass and I don’t like that, could you not?” Literally every harasser will laugh in your face and say something like “You love it” to trivialize it. Any HR person knows that that’s now how that works.
Did you catch “Our 3rd party HR provider”? So they outsourced HR. How am I not even a tiny bit surprised?
Did you catch “Our 3rd party HR provider”? So they outsourced HR. How am I not even a tiny bit surprised?
Why is that an issue? Would you rather they investigate themselves and find no wrongdoing?
It’s not uncommon for HR to be an outside entity, to maintain a semblance of neutrality. Otherwise, it’s much much easier for internal HR teams to sweep things under the rug.
Oh I’m all for 3rd party oversight, but what it sounds like is this is one of those outsourced HR teams from overseas that are more or less paperwork pushers. They’re commonly used to avoid having to pay for actual HR that, you know, actually does human relations. These are separate from 3rd party oversights, which usually are separate from a full HR team.
They usually provide super super duper helpful 1-800 numbers where you, as an employee, can call and complain about something, feel better, gets logged in a report, and nothing then is done. I did work for consulting companies that used these and shockingly, they are terrible.
Because this was a meeting about generalized HR policies. If you have an issue with somebody usually the most corrective action is to talk to them. It can be a work issue, it can be a hygiene issue it can be just an annoyance issue, not everything has to be out and out battle in sexual harassment. Now if it is sexual harassment and you don’t feel comfortable escalating they did outline other pathways. But since this is generalized guidance they’re providing multiple avenues from the most effective and least laborious, to the most laborious and least effective.
They did say, if you aren’t comfortable talking to the person then go to management or fill in the anonymous form. Seems fine. Most inteepersonal stuff can be resolved by people just talking to each other, but if it is known the other party is an ass, just go to management. And HR is often outsourced at smaller corps, sames as payroll or IT can be.
“but the first question will be did you talk to them”. Definitely pushing that we’re going to encourage you to solve your own problems with your harasser
Sure, but often harassment starts out with a bully testing the waters and you can shut that down immediatly, and state your boundary. Then report if they break it. Not only is taking care of shit empowering, but if you have ever worked at a place with lots of catty people management can spend their whole day on petty bullshit instead of actual work.
Also you can do both at once. I had that situation with this monster of a guy being verbal abusive to everyone. one day I lost it and told him ti eff right off and cut the stupid bullshit, then I walked right to my supervisor and said I just told the plant guy to eff off so you might get an earfull. He actually did come to talk to my boss, boss was like I think you heard him right.
That guy was super amicable from that day on, he just needed to be put in his place.
I’m glad that worked for you, but that doesn’t mean it works for everyone, and it shouldn’t have to. Anyone should feel safe going and asking for help to stop someone they feel uncomfortable around.
I got a talk with HR once because someone thought at some meeting I kept staring at her boobs. My literal answer was “er… what?”, because I didn’t even realize they were at that meeting, much less sitting right opposite me. I do however have a tendency of getting lost in thought and letting my eyes wander or fixate on some random thing, might be a plant, a chair, a random fixture, whatever… guess it could’ve been some boobs. 🙈🤷
If they had confronted me right after the meeting, I’d just apologize… but no, HR it was, and…
Any HR person knows that that’s now how that works.
Since then, I make a point of carrying a pen and looking at that… just to avoid someone who I might not even notice is there, accusing me of sexually harassing them 🙄
If I Google “table dancing” (in a fresh new browser I just installed on incognito mode with a VPN and everything + I never watch porn or search this stuff or anything, so it’s not just customizing it to be sexual for me - I encourage you to try this yourself) the first result in the Wikipedia article about it, which reads:
A table dance, or bartop dance, is a dance performed at (or on) a table or bar, as opposed to on a stage. It may be an erotic dance performed by a sex worker or it may be done as a leisure activity.
As you keep scrolling down, the next thing it shows is images of erotic dancers table dancing, the next thing is a list of nearby strip clubs, the next result is the dictionary.com entry for table dancing which reads:
a form of entertainment in which naked or scantily dressed women dance erotically at the tables of individual members of the audience, who must remain seated
The next result is videos of erotic dancers table dancing. And so on, and so on.
So, yeah, there’s definitely, without a doubt, a strong sexual/erotic connotation/connection to the term and the joke they made.
I think the problem is in referencing a specific phrase, “table dancing” and not just the idea of “dancing on a table” which is more common and wouldn’t be in the dictionary as a term.
If someone says anything about dancing on a table or bar, the first thing I think of is PeeWee Herman dancing to Tequila by the Champs, perhaps betraying my age a bit, followed by the music video for Hypnodance by Little Big. Other than that, it’s just a random smattering of movies and TV shows (and a drunk wedding attendee or two) hopping on a table, shouting something to the effect of, “Let’s party!” and then dancing very poorly.
Sure, erotic/sexual versions exist (like everything, as dictated by rule 34, of course), but that’s not likely the norm that most people encounter.
It’s perfectly reasonable to make a dancing joke when on a table that has nothing to do with being sexual or erotic.
Maybe it’s being in corporate america for a while, but holy shit that made my head literally swivel back to the video after kinda paying attention. That is definitely not something you say in corporate america, let alone literally listening to a speech about harassment.
You never even get close to anything sexual in corporate america. Just steer clear. I don’t care if it’s funny, or you think it’s funny, or if you think everyone else will think it’s funny, you don’t. You avoid the topic completely. Make the joke later at home or with your friends but not in the workplace.
Even if the joke is only partially offensive, it’s offensive. (If you aren’t sure if it is or not - you don’t make the joke. You’re instincts are trying to tell you it’s not the right place) You don’t do that in the office, and to do that seconds after the meeting it shows how fucking terrible it is there. I’ll be honest, I was taking Madison’s allegations with a grain of salt, but that just solidified to me what the culture is like. If they don’t have HR nipping that shit in the bud, what else are they letting fly
I agree. I was caught off guard because it didn’t show up on my radar at all. It’s not like I thought “eh, it’s only a little bit racy”. I just missed the sex implications completely.
for sure, and yeah you probably wouldn’t make that joke then, but the person who did clearly knew what they were saying and still decided to. Freaking read the room man. (them, not you)
I just can’t help but think that if I had made that sort of comment in that sort of meeting, every boss or office I’ve worked for would have immediately taken corrective action, either publicly calling me into a separate meeting or by advising how such comments aren’t acceptable and noting how it violates policy.
The fact that it was just ignored is so much more indicative of the culture than I think just about anything else in the video.
Exactly, he should have called it out, right there. Yeah embarrassing for the person, but they should be embarrassed.
That, right there actually is what we’re stopping. That sort of joke was okay in the past, even up to this meeting, but no longer going forward. That’s the last one, and this is this entire group’s one and only warning
Yeah, I think the connection between being on a raised platform and dancing is stripping. Making this a horribly tone deaf, if not intentionally undermining, joke.
… I took a second to consult ChatGPT…
Other connections seem to be all related to a performance of some type. I very much doubt this joke was not about stripping.
That’s actually kind of fucking disgusting behavior. Like I’ve said elsewhere, they make stupid throwaway sexual jokes in so many videos, it’s easy to imagine it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Yeah, we tested our PA system at an exhibition in Atlanta with some songs and a colleague put in a song about anal sex. We were nearly kicked out of the whole thing, although pretty much no one of the workers was there anymore and it wasn’t even open to the public yet.
So yeah, cooperate America really seems to be more than just prude
If I Google “table dancing” (in a fresh new browser I just installed on incognito mode with a VPN and everything + I never watch porn or search this stuff or anything, so it’s not just customizing it to be sexual for me - I encourage you to try this yourself) the first result in the Wikipedia article about it, which reads:
A table dance, or bartop dance, is a dance performed at (or on) a table or bar, as opposed to on a stage. It may be an erotic dance performed by a sex worker or it may be done as a leisure activity.
As you keep scrolling down, the next thing it shows is images of erotic dancers table dancing, the next thing is a list of nearby strip clubs, the next result is the dictionary.com entry for table dancing which reads:
a form of entertainment in which naked or scantily dressed women dance erotically at the tables of individual members of the audience, who must remain seated
The next result is videos of erotic dancers table dancing. And so on, and so on.
So, yeah, there’s definitely, without a doubt, a strong sexual/erotic connotation/connection to the term and the joke they made.
“After this brutal belittling, gaslighting, and sexual harassment, you’re gonna have a lot of baggage. And the best way to carry it? The LTT backpack!”
It feels like this year is the beginning of a reckoning for a lot of bullshit. Why give our time and money to bloated corporations when they pull the same shit again and again?
If they had made a statement like this proactively years ago, I maybe would believe it. But now after the years of rumored toxic workplace conditions this just seems like an attempt to calm their fans lol
I hope they can begin some strong course corrections or else LMG will be the Laying-off Media Group. A lot of people say they want to see LMG burn and I don’t think they realize over 100 people work there. The organization should be offered a chance at redemption regardless of whether Linus should or shouldn’t.
Do we need an extra bloated tech channel that can’t be run without creating a massive corporation with an internal culture built around bullying, harassment, and deception?
Why give people who behave that way the opportunity to continue to do so? Why make them rich?
Linus doesn’t have the market cornered on anything, not even sad boy self-protective ‘apologies’. So what do we need him for? Personally, I’m done. I don’t need anything from him or his company.
People have a hard time changing, but sure, it is possible.
Companies however, are multi-people structures built upon a starting ideology, and with each additional layer, as the company grows, the same ideology gets exponentially fixed in place.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@beehaw.org
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Any chance on some context on this for someone who doesn’t follow tech closely enough? I know who Linus is, and what LTT is, and I’ve seen a lot of stuff these past few days about the community being angry at them for all sorts of stuff, but who is Madison? And what did they allege?
Edit: Never mind, only had to scroll two posts in my feed to find the answer. For others out of the loop: ex LTT employee Madison Reeve alleges toxic work environment and sexual harassment.
Mfers talking like they were out in Europe totally unaware of what the US branch had been doing all this time, like what! Also what’s with the third person, who else is there with you calling the shots?
It was you. You were there and you knew from day one. Lots of allegations were directed at you, specifically. What is happening.
🤦♂️
People wanted PR responses, people get PR responses
And LMG would be stupid to say or release anything else on that topic! This is potential lawsuit country, they will walk very carefully and I would be surpised if they didn’t check every public communication with their lawyer first.
This CEO just started like yesterday, they’re still in their probationary period.
I really doubt this post is by Linus directly. It’s been about two days since the brand new CEO and the rest of the c-suite informed Linus that any communication he makes regarding stuff like this has to go through them now.
Of course he didn’t write it. He lacks the grace and it wreaks of corporate backsludge, which makes it worse that he didn’t take the time himself to a) think about the situation and b) address his base directly (he’s a YouTuber right?).
Instead we get this PR boilerplate. Literally you can buy these and just fill in the blanks with names and specifics. Moreover, much of it, if you have watched them over the years, are just blatantly false.
It’s orchestrated better, but still on the level of the reply GM got.
Huh?
LTT has shown their true colors before this statement came out. They can say whatever they like, i won’t believe them.
Yeah. I’ve unsubscribed and asked youtube to “not recommend this channel”. I told myself I’ll check in in about 3 months to see if they’ve become a better business, but I have low expectations. Their reputation might be eternally ruined.
At least it’s not a poop emoji this time.
From what Madison said it sounds like it goes far too deep for this to change much. I hope things get better (since it’s unlikely LTT just up and disappears immediately), but from what we’ve seen this culture of dismissal goes right to the top.
Sounds like they need to totally overhaul HR and give them real power to action to whatever complaints are coming in. A lot of management will have to go in order to change the culture. Unfortunately culture starts at the top and I’m not sure Linus himself can lead that change.
He stepped down as CEO six weeks ago. Hopefully the new one can bring some process maturity to LTT.
He and his wife are still the majority (perhaps only?) owners, so Linus is still in charge even if he is pretending to delegate some duties.
I think the fact he appeared in the latest video and was still so defensive is enough evidence to prove that point.
Linus is the founder, his name is on the buildings, he was CEO at the time of all this shit, he is the cheif on camera personality and he is the majority shareholder. Of course he would be in the video.
Hiring Terren was the smartest thing he could have done, he probably should have gotten someone who understands this shit onboard a long time ago. Even if they were subordinate to him.
Linus also wants LMG to be about more than him, and a huge part of the controversy is tied to his decision making power overruling everyone else who says they are working too fast.
He could have appeared, that’s fine, but that nobody was able to get him to drop the defensive attitude and just finally say “sorry” without any pity pleas would have been a very strong signal. That they either didn’t think to do that, couldn’t get Linus to agree or don’t have the power to force him also sends a strong signal in the other direction.
While I do agree, Id say the counterpoint would be that putting Terren out front when all this happened under Linus’s watch could have come across as disingenuous.
“Heres our new lightning rod, yell at him” sort of thing. I very much think they are in a no win scenario with most of this.
It may be different in Canada, but AFAIK a CEO has full decision powers over everyday functioning of a company. They can get fired by the Board (owners) if they don’t do what the board wants, but it’s not like members of the board can waltz in and make random decisions with the CEO watching.
If I’m not mistaken, the allegation was on events from two years ago? It’s possible HR has already been overhauled and such.
I think the didn’t have a full time HR until recently.
Yeah, I fully admit I have no idea at all, I’m just making a guess considering the recent CEO stuff and the fact that they’ve grown as large as they are. Not having proper HR at that size would be a terrible idea.
Sadly HR exists to protect the company from the employees, not the other way around. This is always the case in the USA. Not sure about other places.
A good HR department protects the company by protecting the employees though. Not good business to get your business involved in expensive lawsuits because your HR department took the path of least resistance.
I honestly believe that Linus is a well intentioned dumbass. He likes his people and believes that everyone can just get along and that nobody would harass another employee seriously. He knows that the mistakes are just honest mistakes which is why he gets so defensive, take the whole “trust me bro” thing… I think it never occurred to him to fuck his customers over which is why he didnt handle it well.
He doesnt believe his employees need a union because I dont know about you but if I owned a company Id hope that my people felt looked after well enough that they didnt feel like they needed one either.
But that kind of attitude just doesnt work with so damn many people, he should have hired a full time HR manager YEARS ago, as well as the company lawyer on staff. He SHOULD NOT be doing the WAN show, or if he does it should be on a 5 minute tape delay with someone from legal and hr present.
The reason why so much bullshit corporate structure exists is to largely protect the company from itself.
You only have to watch him interacting with his staff in a few videos and you can see that the bullying comes right from the top. That’s not something that’s going to change easily.
A couple people have said this now, but can you link some examples? I’ve been watching the channel for a while and don’t recall things like that, but it could just be that I was watching with rose colored glasses.
Basically open any video with him and some employee, it’s not hard to find.
From what I’ve seen his staff also “bully” him as well, to me it looks like casual ribbing each other that friends do, I could be wrong
Source: trust me bro?
The whole “Trust me bro” thing comes from when they released their backpacks. They had issues with some of the zippers and people wanted to know what the warranty was. Linus said they didnt explicitly have one but that he would look after anyone with issues. When people got a bit rightly pissed about this, he got a bit defensive. “Trust me bro” sprung up as a meme out of that whole saga.
So… No source then? You just kinda think Linus is nice from watching videos?
What source are you looking for, exactly? You asked about a specific incident and got a fine summary. If you want more context, it’s very easy to find.
If you are looking for a “source” for a subjective opinion of someone’s personality… I don’t even know what that would accomplish or what form you think that would take.
Exactly, which is why I think it’s weird to act like you know a stranger is a good person without much to go on.
If you’ve seen enough wan show you can get a pretty good idea of his personality. He spouts so many controversial takes without thinking through the consequences, so he’s doing a terrible job if he’s actually an evil mastermind. Most people are well intentioned and Linus is no different.
He’s also naïve, arrogant, and defensive, as we’ve seen lately.
Also I’ve seen his ba faith take on Linux and so I’m not convinced being honest is a huge priority for him
There’s a huuuuge margin between ‘evil mastermind’ and ‘well intentioned’, containing ‘selfish misogynistic jackass’, ‘careless greedy capitalist’, ‘self-important egotistical manchild’, and many other aphorisms that we could ascribe to this tear-stained apologetic corporate head that would be far more accurate.
In other words, just because he’s not the smartest or most sinister bad actor doesn’t mean we should trust him or give him our money or time.
But any of those can also include well intentioned. Well intentioned, negligent, naïve, egotistical, arrogant, focused too much on business. All are fair adjectives.
Even huge assholes are usually well intentioned (Elon Musk springs to mind), but they have a warped view of the world and get distracted by other things, and without realizing it end up doing more harm than good.
I think you’re stretching things a bit if you’re seeing Elon Musk as well-intentioned.
Being negligent isn’t being an “evil mastermind”
Linus is negligent and well intentioned
I think that takes far too rosy a view of Linus’s involvement.
This says it all.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F3ogQ7sakAAhnCB?format=png&name=large
If I owned my own company I would DEMAND my employees unionize. You can never trust your boss to have your back. Especially when your boss is me. Because I know me, and I suck.
Yeah, I’m just smaht enough to know I’m too dumb for that much responsibility.
Also, having a union makes contract negotiations simple, because the contract has already been negotiated with the union.
But here’s the thing: the union ensures the contract is fair, and a lot of businesses don’t like dealing fairly with their employees.
I’m not gonna blame them for wanting to be protected. Even if I treat my hypothetical employees right, what happens when I’m gone? Will my successor treat them right? History says no. With a union, I can rest easy knowing that, come what may, my people will be taken care of.
There’s always ring 0, the initial crew who set the tone and culture of the company.
Plot twist: the “quick, decisive action” will be to tell them to shut the fuck up or get fired.
that fucking comment lmao
Use code “complicit30” for a free consultation and 30% off (up to $10) your first bill with our retained attorneys!
its really funny to me how they unironically did that during the apology video today with the screwdriver
So so so so tonedeaf. Video where Linus is stepping down? Sure, throw it in as a laugh, he’s the butt of the joke, it was funny. Where you’re being accused of serious wrongdoing in public? Not so funny. Read the room, folks
Hard to imagine how a company that thought it was the right time to drop that joke could be fostering an environment of harassment towards employees! 😬
I think I heard that (and the jokes about the CFO being the “sponsor”) had been trimmed out of the video (which I haven’t checked.) The first time I saw it (just about an hour after posting) it was still included and you could still see the value that Billet labs was giving for their prototype was still unblurred and there was a comment from the head of labs about how they were going to post some sort of transparency video behind a paywall (on Floatplane.) When I rewatched later that day (to show someone) they had blurred out the value, they still had the jokes about selling stuff. I’m not honestly sure if they still had the thing about the plan for the paywalled transparency video. Later I saw a short reaction video to the drama that claimed all of those elements had now been removed from the LTT video.
shits wild, they really fucked it up every step of the way
I suspect that all the not Linus people were already working towards publishing a response like this to the Gamer’s Nexus video when Linus ran off wildcarding again and they then decided to rush out a video so they could clearly state that Linus’s response only represented Linus’s knee-jerk response and was not supported by or representative of LTT/LMG’s take. So… It really really sucks that they responded to a situation created by them rushing and being sloppy by rushing and being sloppy but it may well be that if Linus had been kept under control they wouldn’t have and keeping Linus under control seems to be a big part of their strategy going forwards. I guess my point is it’s too early to judge whether the shift in internal power dynamics at LTT/LMG, refocusing their priorities and reducing their rate of output will actually solve the issues or not.
You know, it’s wild that poorly reviewing a GPU cooler can lead to stuff like this coming out.
It is good they are taking public steps to change their corporate culture, but it is clear they had a top down culture of not taking harassment seriously. Hate to share a reddit link, but this video: https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15t1mzn/mandatory_meeting_the_after_madisons_departure/ purports to be from when Madison left. The language here is not the language of a corporate culture that takes harassment seriously. Especially since James didn’t get immediately corrected.
If they want to win back the viewers (and likely sponsors) they are losing or have lost because of all of this toxicity, they are going to have to continue to publicly show they are committed to improving not only their culture to move away from a harassment friendly, grindset focused content farm, to one worth our time (and sponsor dollars).
I guess I’m kinda naive. “You gonna dance on that table, or just stand on it?” doesn’t sound like a sex joke to me, but that’s what people are calling it.
Sounds like an American Psycho reference. Don’t just stare at it, eat it!
I think its more the implication that Linus looked like stripper on the table. But I appreciate that could be a stretch. I’m more concerned by a) instructing people to go directly to the person harassing them with no managerial oversight first, b) implying harassment complaints are drama, c) suggesting that its not their job to resolve harassment complaints by down playing them as “interpersonal problems” and d) intentionally or unintentionally suggesting that if you have a problem you are going against the fun environment, which instantly puts a harassment victim in an us vs them environment.
I’m coming at this from a lawyer perspective, as I am a lawyer (albeit not an employment or harassment lawyer) and I’ve witnessed first hand how harassment and discriminated employees are not respected by management. I’ve seen how that impacts people’s mental health and how, especially for younger women, it creates a toxic cycle where it can be extremely difficult to leave because you’ve internalized the harassing and discriminatory experience to the point of thinking “well, who else will hire me? I can’t just get another job.”
I realize if you have not experienced that or witnessed that, its hard to understand how a toxic environment can lead to that mindset. So hearing someone joking around in an emergency all company meeting may not immediately seem problematic. But when the subject of the meeting is harassment, and a high ranking manager just jokes around like its not a big deal, and that joke is tacitly approved of by the executive level (where there isn’t immediate correction), it all strikes me as a corporate culture that doesn’t respect the seriousness of harassment.
I’m also biased as my office literally just had our annual harassment training yesterday.
Right?! Have you talked to them first? “Hey, harasser, you know you keep grabbing my ass and I don’t like that, could you not?” Literally every harasser will laugh in your face and say something like “You love it” to trivialize it. Any HR person knows that that’s now how that works.
Did you catch “Our 3rd party HR provider”? So they outsourced HR. How am I not even a tiny bit surprised?
Why is that an issue? Would you rather they investigate themselves and find no wrongdoing?
It’s not uncommon for HR to be an outside entity, to maintain a semblance of neutrality. Otherwise, it’s much much easier for internal HR teams to sweep things under the rug.
Oh I’m all for 3rd party oversight, but what it sounds like is this is one of those outsourced HR teams from overseas that are more or less paperwork pushers. They’re commonly used to avoid having to pay for actual HR that, you know, actually does human relations. These are separate from 3rd party oversights, which usually are separate from a full HR team.
They usually provide super super duper helpful 1-800 numbers where you, as an employee, can call and complain about something, feel better, gets logged in a report, and nothing then is done. I did work for consulting companies that used these and shockingly, they are terrible.
HR is not short for human relations. It’s short for human resources. Humans are resources.
Because this was a meeting about generalized HR policies. If you have an issue with somebody usually the most corrective action is to talk to them. It can be a work issue, it can be a hygiene issue it can be just an annoyance issue, not everything has to be out and out battle in sexual harassment. Now if it is sexual harassment and you don’t feel comfortable escalating they did outline other pathways. But since this is generalized guidance they’re providing multiple avenues from the most effective and least laborious, to the most laborious and least effective.
They did say, if you aren’t comfortable talking to the person then go to management or fill in the anonymous form. Seems fine. Most inteepersonal stuff can be resolved by people just talking to each other, but if it is known the other party is an ass, just go to management. And HR is often outsourced at smaller corps, sames as payroll or IT can be.
“but the first question will be did you talk to them”. Definitely pushing that we’re going to encourage you to solve your own problems with your harasser
Sure, but often harassment starts out with a bully testing the waters and you can shut that down immediatly, and state your boundary. Then report if they break it. Not only is taking care of shit empowering, but if you have ever worked at a place with lots of catty people management can spend their whole day on petty bullshit instead of actual work. Also you can do both at once. I had that situation with this monster of a guy being verbal abusive to everyone. one day I lost it and told him ti eff right off and cut the stupid bullshit, then I walked right to my supervisor and said I just told the plant guy to eff off so you might get an earfull. He actually did come to talk to my boss, boss was like I think you heard him right. That guy was super amicable from that day on, he just needed to be put in his place.
I’m glad that worked for you, but that doesn’t mean it works for everyone, and it shouldn’t have to. Anyone should feel safe going and asking for help to stop someone they feel uncomfortable around.
I got a talk with HR once because someone thought at some meeting I kept staring at her boobs. My literal answer was “er… what?”, because I didn’t even realize they were at that meeting, much less sitting right opposite me. I do however have a tendency of getting lost in thought and letting my eyes wander or fixate on some random thing, might be a plant, a chair, a random fixture, whatever… guess it could’ve been some boobs. 🙈🤷
If they had confronted me right after the meeting, I’d just apologize… but no, HR it was, and…
Since then, I make a point of carrying a pen and looking at that… just to avoid someone who I might not even notice is there, accusing me of sexually harassing them 🙄
I don’t see it as bias. It’s a good explanation, and I appreciate you taking the time!
Unless you count a few temp jobs, I’ve never worked in a corporate office.
If I Google “table dancing” (in a fresh new browser I just installed on incognito mode with a VPN and everything + I never watch porn or search this stuff or anything, so it’s not just customizing it to be sexual for me - I encourage you to try this yourself) the first result in the Wikipedia article about it, which reads:
As you keep scrolling down, the next thing it shows is images of erotic dancers table dancing, the next thing is a list of nearby strip clubs, the next result is the dictionary.com entry for table dancing which reads:
The next result is videos of erotic dancers table dancing. And so on, and so on.
So, yeah, there’s definitely, without a doubt, a strong sexual/erotic connotation/connection to the term and the joke they made.
I think the problem is in referencing a specific phrase, “table dancing” and not just the idea of “dancing on a table” which is more common and wouldn’t be in the dictionary as a term.
If someone says anything about dancing on a table or bar, the first thing I think of is PeeWee Herman dancing to Tequila by the Champs, perhaps betraying my age a bit, followed by the music video for Hypnodance by Little Big. Other than that, it’s just a random smattering of movies and TV shows (and a drunk wedding attendee or two) hopping on a table, shouting something to the effect of, “Let’s party!” and then dancing very poorly.
Sure, erotic/sexual versions exist (like everything, as dictated by rule 34, of course), but that’s not likely the norm that most people encounter.
It’s perfectly reasonable to make a dancing joke when on a table that has nothing to do with being sexual or erotic.
Maybe it’s being in corporate america for a while, but holy shit that made my head literally swivel back to the video after kinda paying attention. That is definitely not something you say in corporate america, let alone literally listening to a speech about harassment.
You never even get close to anything sexual in corporate america. Just steer clear. I don’t care if it’s funny, or you think it’s funny, or if you think everyone else will think it’s funny, you don’t. You avoid the topic completely. Make the joke later at home or with your friends but not in the workplace.
Even if the joke is only partially offensive, it’s offensive. (If you aren’t sure if it is or not - you don’t make the joke. You’re instincts are trying to tell you it’s not the right place) You don’t do that in the office, and to do that seconds after the meeting it shows how fucking terrible it is there. I’ll be honest, I was taking Madison’s allegations with a grain of salt, but that just solidified to me what the culture is like. If they don’t have HR nipping that shit in the bud, what else are they letting fly
I agree. I was caught off guard because it didn’t show up on my radar at all. It’s not like I thought “eh, it’s only a little bit racy”. I just missed the sex implications completely.
for sure, and yeah you probably wouldn’t make that joke then, but the person who did clearly knew what they were saying and still decided to. Freaking read the room man. (them, not you)
I just can’t help but think that if I had made that sort of comment in that sort of meeting, every boss or office I’ve worked for would have immediately taken corrective action, either publicly calling me into a separate meeting or by advising how such comments aren’t acceptable and noting how it violates policy.
The fact that it was just ignored is so much more indicative of the culture than I think just about anything else in the video.
Exactly, he should have called it out, right there. Yeah embarrassing for the person, but they should be embarrassed.
Yeah, I think the connection between being on a raised platform and dancing is stripping. Making this a horribly tone deaf, if not intentionally undermining, joke.
… I took a second to consult ChatGPT…
Other connections seem to be all related to a performance of some type. I very much doubt this joke was not about stripping.
That’s actually kind of fucking disgusting behavior. Like I’ve said elsewhere, they make stupid throwaway sexual jokes in so many videos, it’s easy to imagine it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Yeah, we tested our PA system at an exhibition in Atlanta with some songs and a colleague put in a song about anal sex. We were nearly kicked out of the whole thing, although pretty much no one of the workers was there anymore and it wasn’t even open to the public yet.
So yeah, cooperate America really seems to be more than just prude
I wouldn’t say prude by any means, people aren’t afraid of sex. More they don’t want even the hint of a possibility of getting sued.
Me too I guess. I can see it if I really try, but it seems a stretch.
I’m gonna copy and paste a comment here that I made in reply to the person you replied to:
If I Google “table dancing” (in a fresh new browser I just installed on incognito mode with a VPN and everything + I never watch porn or search this stuff or anything, so it’s not just customizing it to be sexual for me - I encourage you to try this yourself) the first result in the Wikipedia article about it, which reads:
As you keep scrolling down, the next thing it shows is images of erotic dancers table dancing, the next thing is a list of nearby strip clubs, the next result is the dictionary.com entry for table dancing which reads:
The next result is videos of erotic dancers table dancing. And so on, and so on.
So, yeah, there’s definitely, without a doubt, a strong sexual/erotic connotation/connection to the term and the joke they made.
deleted by creator
Ya I’m sure the sponsors are more like… angry
On one hand the corpo speak annoys me bit on the other would we really want another Linus statment?
“After this brutal belittling, gaslighting, and sexual harassment, you’re gonna have a lot of baggage. And the best way to carry it? The LTT backpack!”
Comes with trust me bro warranty (aka no warranty)
And a trust me bro guarantee that no employees were harassed in the designing or making of this product
We have a great warranty posted in our website, but the warranty you get in the package is nothing like it.
Omg this is spot on
I disagree with what you said, but it was pretty funny. Have my up vote
Sounds pretty empty to me! We already know how he really feels. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F3ogQ7sakAAhnCB?format=png&name=large
It feels like this year is the beginning of a reckoning for a lot of bullshit. Why give our time and money to bloated corporations when they pull the same shit again and again?
This is the CEO not linus
Linus was the CEO at that time. Those are his words.
Again, what relevance is that to the CEO of LTT?.. OP posted a quote from the current CEO.
But now he isn’t. This post is the new CEO in control. The old one was Linus.
If they had made a statement like this proactively years ago, I maybe would believe it. But now after the years of rumored toxic workplace conditions this just seems like an attempt to calm their fans lol
Tbf the current CEO has been there less than two months not two years.
I hope they can begin some strong course corrections or else LMG will be the Laying-off Media Group. A lot of people say they want to see LMG burn and I don’t think they realize over 100 people work there. The organization should be offered a chance at redemption regardless of whether Linus should or shouldn’t.
deleted by creator
Okay, but do we want them to?
Do we need an extra bloated tech channel that can’t be run without creating a massive corporation with an internal culture built around bullying, harassment, and deception?
Why give people who behave that way the opportunity to continue to do so? Why make them rich?
Linus doesn’t have the market cornered on anything, not even sad boy self-protective ‘apologies’. So what do we need him for? Personally, I’m done. I don’t need anything from him or his company.
People have a hard time changing, but sure, it is possible.
Companies however, are multi-people structures built upon a starting ideology, and with each additional layer, as the company grows, the same ideology gets exponentially fixed in place.
Companies change by closing.