Dont even need to watch the whole video. This is all you gotta see.
I cringed so hard, I got muscle cramps 😬
Damn they tried to plug LTT store too. GN made a long serious video with stats, data, no jokes, no sponsors or plugs.
Yeah no they’re not salvageable. Linus is a clown. My friends even told me, but I didn’t see it. That’s the consequence of growing up surrounded by toxicity: you think it’s normal and don’t see it.
I watched LTT videos for entertainment, not product suggestions / benchmarks / as an information source. Clown it is!
Granted I already unsubscribed from the channels I followed and won’t use him for even that anymore.
I find it a little bit hard to enjoy the content, now that I know how to interpret it.
It’s kinda like when you find a great restaurant around the corner, go there a lot, enjoy the food, and then you realize they abuse their personal, lie to everyone about what is in the dishes (allergens etc), and so on. Can’t really enjoy the food anymore. The taste hasn’t changed, but it hits different.
Linus is a clown. Literally. That is his brand of entertainment, clowning around with tech.
That’s where he fucked up with Billet labs - he argued that he was defending consumers because nobody should buy that thing - but that’s not the job of a clown, a clown is meant to entertain people.
I’m not saying Linus is a clown as an insult, I mean that’s genuinely his brand and how he entertains people - memes, jokes, laughs, that’s great stuff most of the time but when you arbitrarily switch lanes it better be for a good reason.
Otherwise, stay in the clown car and make people laugh.
GN did have their merch on display in the video. They didn’t ANNOUNCE it or make any direction to it. But they still had merch ON DISPLAY. Not trying to dampen the shit that is going on with LMG, but I feel it’s an important thing to make clear.
There’s a pretty big difference in having something on display as part of a set in a video about issues at another outlet, and calling out a link to a product to be purchased in what is supposed to be an apology video by said outlet. LMG also originally had this video monetised and had links to their store and products in the description before finally removing those. GN did none of this because they understood the seriousness of what they were doing - they even called out that the video wouldn’t be monetised at the start of it.
I get the point you’re trying to make, but it’s a bad one.
GN did have their merch on display in the video
That’s because it’s part of the set.
And saying “lttstore.com” is a part of every video.
YouTube drama is crazy
Good Lord bro. Imagine having self-awareness. With the Madison stuff also coming to light, they would have already been in the pit regardless, but this ‘apology’ video is kind of insulting.
Yes I also watched the whole thing and still found it equally as insulting as the highlights.
My wife and I watched the whole thing, and I’ve frequently watched LTT in the past. We both agreed that the humor wasn’t really well placed, given the situation and came off a bit cringey in my opinion. I know some folks are saying damned if you do, damned if you don’t, which is fair. However I think that if they kept the humor out and it was a “generic apology video” there would be less criticism about it. But again, that’s just my opinion.
That’s just it for me. At this stage there really isn’t much more to do than to give a generic apology and the promise to investigate, improve and make up for things. Nobody (should) expect to see any instant consequences.
The bar is so low and yet they can’t even do that. And GN even showed them how it is done in their video. Specifically calling out that this is a matter that should not be monetized.
Linus should have employed a professional CEO, Managers, PR and HR years ago, right at the start of the labs expansion.
Their problems in the last couple of years could have been avoided or greatly reduced with better management, and employees not afraid to be open when things go wrong, this will set them back years.
Supposedly Linus didn’t think he could trust anyone else to essentially act as his proxy. And he’s just been bugging Terren for years to come to LTT. And it only now worked out. If you can call all this “working out”
It’s not just about trust, professional experienced ceos, who have been educated in business management know how to run businesses, it’s what they do, it doesn’t matter what the product or service is, that can be learned. Linus was too proud to hand control of his baby over, that’s very, very common with businesses that start to grow faster than they can handle and it’s a reason why start ups fail despite their successes and promise. Lmg is extremely lucky to have gotten as far and as large as it did without the necessary restructure to go to the next step.
Once you get into the 50+ full time employee range you need pro’s on the team because shit will happen, mistakes will be made, people will fuck up, that’s unavoidable. Good strong businesses handle it well, it’s rough cause sometimes you have to fire an OG team member and close friend and ruin a friendship. It sucks and people will hate you, but that’s part of running a large company.
Lmg had been incredibly successful and that’s great, kudos the them for that, but you have to have the humility to stand up at some point and day “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I need” any business adviser or analyst will tell you that.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I need” any business adviser or analyst will tell you that.
Much easier to do when you’re not dealing with a narcissist who, if he cant be right no matter how much he doubles down, then he’ll atleast make himself look like a victim to get that sweet sympathy feed for his narcissism.
Probably not many to be honest. This will be a minor blip in 12 months time, they way every drama seems to be, but as the business gets bigger and bigger, without having a proper management team the knife edge gets sharper and the risks increase.
And on the issue of harrassment allegations (since all the rumours point to the main problem being a long serving crew member, not a faceless new hire in a back office), you can do everything you can to discourage it but inevitably people will do stupid shit, say stupid shit, they will fuck up, they make mistakes, they are even malicious at times, but if you cant reprimand them or fire them for it because they’re your mate, a member of the OG crew or they’re popular with the audience then you are going to have a major problem on your hands as problems silently snowball in the background.
Their paid service saw a significant loss in users. Something like 12% before they shut down the counter.
You can still see the count on their Floatplane page here: https://www.floatplane.com/channel/linustechtips/home
As of time of this comment it’s at 36396 and still slowly trending down. It started at over 42000 when the GN video came out.
I’ll come back to Techlinked when they post again. I also listen to David (camera operator/writer) and Jon’s (ex-marketing) podcast that they have outside of LMG. I still like the personalities. LMG is great at recruiting interesting on-camera people after all
Problematically for LMG, the people who subscribe on floatplane and buy their merch make them the most money, and they are not “just watching the videos”.
You are completely right, but I wonder how self aware Linus is. I haven’t been watching his channel closely, but I’ve binged on episodes in the past. I was not aware of his anti-labor views or how he had his employees working on his house - these are things that a non-self aware person does; someone who doesn’t understand the optics are bad to the “commoner” who feels they are being taken advantage by business owners. I’ll reserve judgement for now but I’ve found this entire thing very disappointing.
Pretty un-self-aware indeed. He got so distracted/butthurt over internet reactions accusing him of maliciously stealing the prototype… Like obviously not, people are just pissed about the injustice. His ego benefits from the size and influence of his business qua business. But his ego leads him to see himself still as that scrappy YouTuber whose just tryna do what he does, forgetting that he’s got greater power now and greater responsibility.