There were kinda three separate things that rolled together, mind you, I’m not especially in the know about any of them, so hopefully others can expand
the auctioned something that was supposed to be a small company’s prototype water block or something, it wasn’t theirs to sell
they started making too many errors in their rush to do large scale testing and when people make decisions based on the incorrect info you’re putting out thats not great
there was an employee who used to work at LTT after being a fan who they built a PC for (maddison, I think?). When the other two items above were brought up by gamer’s nexus and it turned into a whole situation where people were being critical of LTT, she shared that she had an absolutely horrible experience working there, crazy crunch time, I think there was sexual harassment or something, I don’t recall all the details. She explained she didn’t share it sooner because she expected people would just turn on her for criticizing LTT and it makes sense she would feel more able to share if people seem like they might be more receptive to criticism of a huge channel like that
The first two that were brought up in an bombshell gamer’s nexus video were, imo, handled very poorly, though again, I don’t remember details
The last item I’m honestly not sure how it panned out but my impression is that nothing really happened with it. LTT was gonna transfer CEO to being a new guy with Linus being more of a face and direction guy, and the new CEO guy I think was the one who had an outside investigation of some kind conducted. I don’t think there was ever an update about that investigation? I dunno. I didn’t watch much before the whole situation and just kinda stopped watching when the initial criticism from gamer’s nexus was poorly handled
IIRC for the third item, the ex-employee who threw those accusations around turned out to be exaggerating things - but there was a whole ass investigation and Linus did step down as CEO, handing the reins over to a new guy who was literally brought in to fix these things (although to be fair I had the feeling that Linus has been wanting to step back for a while and this gave him an out).
Mind you I’m not saying that there weren’t problems (any company that scales as much as LMG did in the past few years will have issues), but that the issues presented to the public by the disgruntled employee were heavily exaggerated.
This is true, but the CEO change had nothing to do with it. It was already happening before any of the drama, due to Linus wanting to have more time for making videos instead of having to manage the company.
They did acknowledge #1 and #2 as mistakes, miscommunication and growing pains and vowed to do better. I think it was a bit overblown and handled in bad faith by GN‘s reporting. Not that that’s an excuse but imo they did their best to rectify that situation. The reporting has been more accurate and bo other scandal of this type has happened, so far.
The investigation about the working conditions and sexual harassment concluded those allegations were „unfounded and unfair“, to use LMG’s words. They did not get into details and it is a he-said/she-said situation. It’s anyone’s guess what/whom to believe.
I think, all in all, Linus stepping back from the CEO position (which, to be clear, he did a little while before those problems came to light) improved upon most, if not all of the problems, as far as I can tell. I do still watch LTT on occasion but less so. Primarily though, because both, my interests changed as did their content.
He treated his “investigation” as if he was going after a big hardware company instead of a direct competitor in his space. It left a very bad taste in my mouth. Not to mention when LTT did implement changes and begin improving did he acknowledge after his insane takedown?
Most of those are 2 to 3 years ago now though. A lot of that was during and immediately post covid. I’m not up on anything major in the last year. Though they did just recently have a bunch of their regulars break away. It seems amicable however. And a result of the new CEO and CEO decisions rubbing against the grain of the previous very bro centered culture of the crew. Not as professional as they could have been etc.
Heck all that happened before even Emily left. And she put out that video explaining her departure in January.
I don’t really watch LTT, but I think they we’re pretty bad when explaining why they didn’t make more fuzz about Honey stealing commissions when LTT found out.
The explanation made sense to me. They found Honey was stealing from creators, but still saving money for users, so it would be very self-serving to make a fuss about it, instead they only let other creators know. From the users point of view it was still a great product (from what was known at the time).
toxic working conditions and sexual harassment (this article also mentions them doing sloppy reviewing that led to misleading videos, which is bad but imo nowhere near as bad as the rest, i kinda wish the article didn’t focus so much on it)
i also remember linus saying he’d refuse to let his workers unionize, saying it would “make him feel like a bad boss”
and he’s also said that floatplane (their video streaming app) would let anyone join no matter their politics, up to and including nazis, because “free speech”
LMG claims that an investigation by a third party found the allegations of toxic work conditions and sexual misconduct as „unfounded and unfair“.
It’s of course anyone’s guess what the reality looks like.
They definitely have improved their reviews and seem much less error prone these days.
That union thing is bullshit tho. Linus never claimed he would refuse to let his workers unionise (in fact, iirc, he couldn’t even legally do so in Canada), he just (repeatedly) stated, that he’d see it as a failure on his and his company’s side, if his employees felt the need to unionise in the first place. That’s a big difference.
Can’t say anything to that part as I do not remember it. But I personally believe it to be a non-issue until there’s precedent. Politically, Linus generally seems to be fairly sane. He’s openly a huge fan of Lina Khan, for example and has openly critcised the current US-administration a number of times.
What was the drama?
There were kinda three separate things that rolled together, mind you, I’m not especially in the know about any of them, so hopefully others can expand
The first two that were brought up in an bombshell gamer’s nexus video were, imo, handled very poorly, though again, I don’t remember details
The last item I’m honestly not sure how it panned out but my impression is that nothing really happened with it. LTT was gonna transfer CEO to being a new guy with Linus being more of a face and direction guy, and the new CEO guy I think was the one who had an outside investigation of some kind conducted. I don’t think there was ever an update about that investigation? I dunno. I didn’t watch much before the whole situation and just kinda stopped watching when the initial criticism from gamer’s nexus was poorly handled
IIRC for the third item, the ex-employee who threw those accusations around turned out to be exaggerating things - but there was a whole ass investigation and Linus did step down as CEO, handing the reins over to a new guy who was literally brought in to fix these things (although to be fair I had the feeling that Linus has been wanting to step back for a while and this gave him an out).
Mind you I’m not saying that there weren’t problems (any company that scales as much as LMG did in the past few years will have issues), but that the issues presented to the public by the disgruntled employee were heavily exaggerated.
This is true, but the CEO change had nothing to do with it. It was already happening before any of the drama, due to Linus wanting to have more time for making videos instead of having to manage the company.
They did acknowledge #1 and #2 as mistakes, miscommunication and growing pains and vowed to do better. I think it was a bit overblown and handled in bad faith by GN‘s reporting. Not that that’s an excuse but imo they did their best to rectify that situation. The reporting has been more accurate and bo other scandal of this type has happened, so far. The investigation about the working conditions and sexual harassment concluded those allegations were „unfounded and unfair“, to use LMG’s words. They did not get into details and it is a he-said/she-said situation. It’s anyone’s guess what/whom to believe.
I think, all in all, Linus stepping back from the CEO position (which, to be clear, he did a little while before those problems came to light) improved upon most, if not all of the problems, as far as I can tell. I do still watch LTT on occasion but less so. Primarily though, because both, my interests changed as did their content.
I stopped watching Tech Jesus videos because of their handling of the LTT drama
He treated his “investigation” as if he was going after a big hardware company instead of a direct competitor in his space. It left a very bad taste in my mouth. Not to mention when LTT did implement changes and begin improving did he acknowledge after his insane takedown?
Most of those are 2 to 3 years ago now though. A lot of that was during and immediately post covid. I’m not up on anything major in the last year. Though they did just recently have a bunch of their regulars break away. It seems amicable however. And a result of the new CEO and CEO decisions rubbing against the grain of the previous very bro centered culture of the crew. Not as professional as they could have been etc.
Heck all that happened before even Emily left. And she put out that video explaining her departure in January.
I don’t really watch LTT, but I think they we’re pretty bad when explaining why they didn’t make more fuzz about Honey stealing commissions when LTT found out.
The explanation made sense to me. They found Honey was stealing from creators, but still saving money for users, so it would be very self-serving to make a fuss about it, instead they only let other creators know. From the users point of view it was still a great product (from what was known at the time).
toxic working conditions and sexual harassment (this article also mentions them doing sloppy reviewing that led to misleading videos, which is bad but imo nowhere near as bad as the rest, i kinda wish the article didn’t focus so much on it)
i also remember linus saying he’d refuse to let his workers unionize, saying it would “make him feel like a bad boss”
and he’s also said that floatplane (their video streaming app) would let anyone join no matter their politics, up to and including nazis, because “free speech”
LMG claims that an investigation by a third party found the allegations of toxic work conditions and sexual misconduct as „unfounded and unfair“. It’s of course anyone’s guess what the reality looks like.
They definitely have improved their reviews and seem much less error prone these days.
That union thing is bullshit tho. Linus never claimed he would refuse to let his workers unionise (in fact, iirc, he couldn’t even legally do so in Canada), he just (repeatedly) stated, that he’d see it as a failure on his and his company’s side, if his employees felt the need to unionise in the first place. That’s a big difference.
Can’t say anything to that part as I do not remember it. But I personally believe it to be a non-issue until there’s precedent. Politically, Linus generally seems to be fairly sane. He’s openly a huge fan of Lina Khan, for example and has openly critcised the current US-administration a number of times.
full story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGW3TPytTjc
response to linus’ response (first 10 mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3byz3txpso