I suspect he’ll see this as a challenge and try to right the ship, regardless of how seemingly impossible it may be. Quitting this early would not serve his career, but trying to fix the problems leads to two outcomes: 1) he fails, but has tried nonetheless, which looks better than quitting before even attempting, 2) he succeeds in becoming the savior of LMG and helps build his track record of success further.
He does have a good defense for if it doesn’t work out. “The company already sucked when I got it and I did the best I could, but some things just can’t be fixed.”
Why? This is the perfect opportunity to do what CEOs do. Little to none of all of this is his fault, but it’s now his responsibility to fix. Like Luke coming in as CTO during the hack. Some people love being the fixer.
I imagine yes. This isn’t the backpack warranty or any of this dumb takes on Floatplane. This is a long pattern of neglect of their product and business practices. This is Terren’s moment.
I don’t envy him. To properly fix this shit is going to require mass layoffs of management. Removal of Linus, including a buy out of his shares. Also company renaming and rebranding to scrub Linus
I’m not sure how I feel about the Linus part (still conflicted), but I definitely agree with selling away Linus’ shares. Having other shareholders will require the introduction of a board of directors (who the company will be accountable for) and force LMG to do things the right way (e.g. establishing the right policies that Linus didn’t want - or didn’t have the experience - to do).
However, a share buyout from Linus would more than likely mean a voluntary departure from Linus (as he no longer has a large stake in the company).
While that might be good from a company longevity standpoint to have Linus depart LMG, as a viewer, I’m not sure I would continue watching tech tips. I watch Linus purely for the entertainment factor. So would Linus’ removal really benefit the company in the long run in terms of value to me as a user (as I can only speak for myself)? I honestly don’t know and am conflicted.
The Linus personality is of course a big reason why people watch LMG videos. The problem is I don’t seeing Linus accepting the role of basically a corporate mascot. Linus getting the boot is the only way I see of getting Linus out of a leader ship role.
Linus = LMG. Company/brand is dead without him. Besides that, his wife is CFO, and his friends are the management team, basically.
Also, his title of Chief Vision Officer and bringing in a real CEO is what they needed to do a while ago. Had they, this probably could have been avoided. I think during the apology video, Linus said something like “As Chief [air quotes] Vision Officer we have to … in order to execute my vision.” I think it’s very clear the rationale is that everyone knew/knows Linus isn’t CEO material, doesn’t want to do boring CEO shit, but also doesn’t want to give up control, so they brought in an adult to do the boring business parts. But it’s clear that he still sees LMG and LTT as his thing, and he wanted to retain control.
Tbh, the GN stuff is exactly the type of thing that I found entirely unsurprising because LMG is not really being run by business people, it’s being run by people who lucked into having a business and are trying to fill business people roles, and if it stopped there with this apology video, I would have bet that in a couple of weeks it was largely forgotten. The Madison allegations though and the timing of them are going to stick around. People sharpened their pitchforks after GN, and the Madison stuff is not going to be sated by an announcement that they’re hiring investigators.
Even if it’s proven that everything Madison said is completely bullshit (which seems extremely unlikely) this will be extremely difficult to come back from.
it’s clear that he still sees LMG and LTT as his thing, and he wanted to retain control.
This is also the problem, I think. I get the feeling that Linus is somewhat of a narcissist, or at least someone who cannot ever be wrong. You see that side of him come up a lot in the WAN Show. When there’s a clear wrongdoing by another party/company that he has no direct stake with, he’ll take an ultra self-righteous stance and rant about it.
Now I’m not saying that he’s incorrect in what he says, but some of it comes across as chest beating as if to say “we would never do anything like that!” Which, come to think of it, I think they may have actually said something along those lines a few times.
I think that’s also demonstrated in the Billet Labs fiasco also. His forum post that he made was full of “I didn’t do anything wrong! I’m just being misrepresented!”
LMG is not really being run by business people, it’s being run by people who lucked into having a business and are trying to fill business people roles
It’s worse than that. It’s also being run by people who aren’t that technically experienced or skilled. Linus is a Windows power user. He was confused by GitHub and was completely out of his league in the Linux challenge. He tried to save face by declaring Linux unfit for gaming. That statement aged like fine milk as the SteamDeck, a 100% Linux handheld gaming system, came out not long after.
That’s the thing that irritates me the most about LTT. Linus is not an authority on tech. His claim to fame is having worked at NCIX and has memorized a lot of product numbers.
People sharpened their pitchforks after GN
As they should. LTT has had a rabid fanbase that has jumped down the throat of anyone criticizing them in the past. They’ve gotten worse than complacent, IMO. They got to the point where they genuinely thought they were better than everyone else. That’s evidenced in the statement they made that their labs are better than GN and others.
I used to enjoy their content, but after the Linux challenge I saw how truly incompetent and petty Linus is, and after the storage server video they lost all credibility in tech to me.
I don’t know if firing anyone is going to happen or if it should, but typical corporate training across the board is inevitable. Packing up the old boys club startup mentality too. Consideration of other people’s feelings is extremely lacking. Remember the creator hotel room incident? Stopping for just a minute and realizing how that could be misunderstood would have avoided the issue all together.
Linus was on location for some trade show or event a few years ago, and was in contact with a female creator to possibly do a collab. Linus had a very tight schedule and didn’t have time to travel anywhere, so someone at LMG asked if she would meet him at his hotel. No one thought about the implication of asking a woman to come to their hotel, and she indeed took it that way and was upset.
No, this person was asked to meet Linus specifically at the hotel lobby. Meeting someone at a hotel lobby is normal and doesn’t imply anything. A hotel room would be very different. But the hotel lobby is a normal place for people to meet and chat.
People love a good pitchforkin and villain hunting regardless that everything was literally just posted in a thread by someone who seems like they need mental help. Literally admitting to cutting herself open in the leg to go to the ER to explain a sick day rather than discuss legal repercussions of being told she cannot take PTO that the company provides but y’know, believe everything you read on the Internet.
I don’t think you realize how much of an issue this is. Going forward every single review of theirs is going to be scrutinized to the nth degree. Their brand is literally damaged.
Any time something else comes up, people will (rightfully) bring up these controversies. There are a number of media outlets covering these topics. The news coverage is still growing, and there are a number of extremely serious employee mistreatment and sexual harassment incidences coming to light. Those are also going to need to be addressed in some way.
Then there’s the “apology” video from LMG, which was incredibly tone deaf (with various jokes), and astonishingly it is monetized.
Their whole brand is built on being a tech authority and super honest. Both of those aspects have been shattered in the public view.
They are a damaged brand. There’s no clean transition from now to continuing as usual. If they just keep releasing regular content as if nothing happened people are going to get turned off and not take anything they say seriously. Who’s going to trust the things Linus says right now? He’s been caught out in multiple lies surrounding this whole thing.
I don’t see an easy path forward for them without serious changes to their structure. Even if they don’t fire people I can see a number of them leaving on their own.
Weren’t they criticising Apple for choosing biased “independent analysts” a few wan shows ago? How will they prove theirs is fair?
No matter the results, they have lost a lot of credibility. If the investigation concludes no wrongdoing, people won’t believe it. If concludes some, people will assume it’s a scapegoat and reality it’s much bigger.
I think the best course for them is having Linus out of the spotlight. He’s a PR nightmare at this point.
In my experience there are a few types of executives. Executives that grow into their roles in a company, and executives that are parachuted in to solve organizational problems, whose entire career is built around solving someone else’s legacy.
This new CEO seems to be the latter (afterall he was hired to fix the admin and operations woes), so I really doubt he’ll quit (only time will tell). What is probably unexpected for him (and he alluded in his vid) that it was originally going to be internalized. Now he has to fix the company under the scrutinizing microscope of viewers.
Given he wasn’t around during the Madison era, I wouldn’t be surprised if he just quit
I suspect he’ll see this as a challenge and try to right the ship, regardless of how seemingly impossible it may be. Quitting this early would not serve his career, but trying to fix the problems leads to two outcomes: 1) he fails, but has tried nonetheless, which looks better than quitting before even attempting, 2) he succeeds in becoming the savior of LMG and helps build his track record of success further.
He does have a good defense for if it doesn’t work out. “The company already sucked when I got it and I did the best I could, but some things just can’t be fixed.”
Why? This is the perfect opportunity to do what CEOs do. Little to none of all of this is his fault, but it’s now his responsibility to fix. Like Luke coming in as CTO during the hack. Some people love being the fixer.
Question is, will linus allow him to be the fixer?
Fix 1: Fire
ColtonLinusFix 2: Fire Colton, for good measure
I imagine yes. This isn’t the backpack warranty or any of this dumb takes on Floatplane. This is a long pattern of neglect of their product and business practices. This is Terren’s moment.
I don’t envy him. To properly fix this shit is going to require mass layoffs of management. Removal of Linus, including a buy out of his shares. Also company renaming and rebranding to scrub Linus
I’m not sure how I feel about the Linus part (still conflicted), but I definitely agree with selling away Linus’ shares. Having other shareholders will require the introduction of a board of directors (who the company will be accountable for) and force LMG to do things the right way (e.g. establishing the right policies that Linus didn’t want - or didn’t have the experience - to do).
However, a share buyout from Linus would more than likely mean a voluntary departure from Linus (as he no longer has a large stake in the company).
While that might be good from a company longevity standpoint to have Linus depart LMG, as a viewer, I’m not sure I would continue watching tech tips. I watch Linus purely for the entertainment factor. So would Linus’ removal really benefit the company in the long run in terms of value to me as a user (as I can only speak for myself)? I honestly don’t know and am conflicted.
The Linus personality is of course a big reason why people watch LMG videos. The problem is I don’t seeing Linus accepting the role of basically a corporate mascot. Linus getting the boot is the only way I see of getting Linus out of a leader ship role.
Linus = LMG. Company/brand is dead without him. Besides that, his wife is CFO, and his friends are the management team, basically.
Also, his title of Chief Vision Officer and bringing in a real CEO is what they needed to do a while ago. Had they, this probably could have been avoided. I think during the apology video, Linus said something like “As Chief [air quotes] Vision Officer we have to … in order to execute my vision.” I think it’s very clear the rationale is that everyone knew/knows Linus isn’t CEO material, doesn’t want to do boring CEO shit, but also doesn’t want to give up control, so they brought in an adult to do the boring business parts. But it’s clear that he still sees LMG and LTT as his thing, and he wanted to retain control.
Tbh, the GN stuff is exactly the type of thing that I found entirely unsurprising because LMG is not really being run by business people, it’s being run by people who lucked into having a business and are trying to fill business people roles, and if it stopped there with this apology video, I would have bet that in a couple of weeks it was largely forgotten. The Madison allegations though and the timing of them are going to stick around. People sharpened their pitchforks after GN, and the Madison stuff is not going to be sated by an announcement that they’re hiring investigators.
Even if it’s proven that everything Madison said is completely bullshit (which seems extremely unlikely) this will be extremely difficult to come back from.
I largely agree with what you’ve said.
This is also the problem, I think. I get the feeling that Linus is somewhat of a narcissist, or at least someone who cannot ever be wrong. You see that side of him come up a lot in the WAN Show. When there’s a clear wrongdoing by another party/company that he has no direct stake with, he’ll take an ultra self-righteous stance and rant about it.
Now I’m not saying that he’s incorrect in what he says, but some of it comes across as chest beating as if to say “we would never do anything like that!” Which, come to think of it, I think they may have actually said something along those lines a few times.
I think that’s also demonstrated in the Billet Labs fiasco also. His forum post that he made was full of “I didn’t do anything wrong! I’m just being misrepresented!”
It’s worse than that. It’s also being run by people who aren’t that technically experienced or skilled. Linus is a Windows power user. He was confused by GitHub and was completely out of his league in the Linux challenge. He tried to save face by declaring Linux unfit for gaming. That statement aged like fine milk as the SteamDeck, a 100% Linux handheld gaming system, came out not long after.
That’s the thing that irritates me the most about LTT. Linus is not an authority on tech. His claim to fame is having worked at NCIX and has memorized a lot of product numbers.
As they should. LTT has had a rabid fanbase that has jumped down the throat of anyone criticizing them in the past. They’ve gotten worse than complacent, IMO. They got to the point where they genuinely thought they were better than everyone else. That’s evidenced in the statement they made that their labs are better than GN and others.
I used to enjoy their content, but after the Linux challenge I saw how truly incompetent and petty Linus is, and after the storage server video they lost all credibility in tech to me.
I don’t know if firing anyone is going to happen or if it should, but typical corporate training across the board is inevitable. Packing up the old boys club startup mentality too. Consideration of other people’s feelings is extremely lacking. Remember the creator hotel room incident? Stopping for just a minute and realizing how that could be misunderstood would have avoided the issue all together.
What was the creator hotel room incident?
Linus was on location for some trade show or event a few years ago, and was in contact with a female creator to possibly do a collab. Linus had a very tight schedule and didn’t have time to travel anywhere, so someone at LMG asked if she would meet him at his hotel. No one thought about the implication of asking a woman to come to their hotel, and she indeed took it that way and was upset.
No, this person was asked to meet Linus specifically at the hotel lobby. Meeting someone at a hotel lobby is normal and doesn’t imply anything. A hotel room would be very different. But the hotel lobby is a normal place for people to meet and chat.
Lmaoooooo that’s just looking to be angry 😂
You people just love drama.
Good luck with any of that. Bit of a drastic solution to unproven allegations. Perhaps that should be investigated first
The response here to this situation has been overwhelmingly stupid.
People love a good pitchforkin and villain hunting regardless that everything was literally just posted in a thread by someone who seems like they need mental help. Literally admitting to cutting herself open in the leg to go to the ER to explain a sick day rather than discuss legal repercussions of being told she cannot take PTO that the company provides but y’know, believe everything you read on the Internet.
Slow down on drastic suggestions. There is three sides to every story.
To properly fix this shit you just wait for people like you to move on. Also Linus is still the owner. He cannot be bought out lol
Sorry to burst your hate filled bubble.
I don’t think you realize how much of an issue this is. Going forward every single review of theirs is going to be scrutinized to the nth degree. Their brand is literally damaged.
Any time something else comes up, people will (rightfully) bring up these controversies. There are a number of media outlets covering these topics. The news coverage is still growing, and there are a number of extremely serious employee mistreatment and sexual harassment incidences coming to light. Those are also going to need to be addressed in some way.
Then there’s the “apology” video from LMG, which was incredibly tone deaf (with various jokes), and astonishingly it is monetized.
Their whole brand is built on being a tech authority and super honest. Both of those aspects have been shattered in the public view.
They are a damaged brand. There’s no clean transition from now to continuing as usual. If they just keep releasing regular content as if nothing happened people are going to get turned off and not take anything they say seriously. Who’s going to trust the things Linus says right now? He’s been caught out in multiple lies surrounding this whole thing.
I don’t see an easy path forward for them without serious changes to their structure. Even if they don’t fire people I can see a number of them leaving on their own.
Time will tell.
People will move on. Only people like you will stay around to remind them and try to bring them down.
We will see if Madison is lying or not from the investigation that LMG started.
Cool your jets.
“We have investigated ourselves and found no evidence of wrongdoing”
Well that’s settled then.
They hired an outside investigator. It’s like you guys are purposely being ignorant as fuck.
Weren’t they criticising Apple for choosing biased “independent analysts” a few wan shows ago? How will they prove theirs is fair?
No matter the results, they have lost a lot of credibility. If the investigation concludes no wrongdoing, people won’t believe it. If concludes some, people will assume it’s a scapegoat and reality it’s much bigger.
I think the best course for them is having Linus out of the spotlight. He’s a PR nightmare at this point.
Yeah, given he’s been the CEO for just a while and he’s already dealing with someone else’s leagcy
In my experience there are a few types of executives. Executives that grow into their roles in a company, and executives that are parachuted in to solve organizational problems, whose entire career is built around solving someone else’s legacy.
This new CEO seems to be the latter (afterall he was hired to fix the admin and operations woes), so I really doubt he’ll quit (only time will tell). What is probably unexpected for him (and he alluded in his vid) that it was originally going to be internalized. Now he has to fix the company under the scrutinizing microscope of viewers.