This is worse than the Gamer’s Nexus video. The biggest red flag initially wasn’t even the bad testing data, it was how overworked the staff were. Clearly employee wellness is not a priority.
The Gamer’s Nexus video was necessary for others to speak out. Steve was clear that speaking up was a move that could backfire due to the power imbalance involved. Had he not spoken up there would be no opportunity for Madison to weigh in her experiences without being attacked.
without being attacked.
Not that she hasn’t been attacked constantly before and after the GN video, mind.
Imagine just how much worse it would have been if she just came out randomly. The fact she made a glassdoor review long before and it wasn’t picked up says a lot about LMG’s audence.
LMG has a massive frat boy culture to it. It was never hidden, in fact it seemed like it was welcomed and encouraged.
Wha what video?
She picked the right moment to come out with this. I mean, keeping this in for 2 whole years while being under the impression that you’re under some NDA, you can only imagine how stressful she must’ve felt.
I feel really sorry for her and I wish her the best. She’s a really cool person.
That’s usually how these things work. People see others speaking out against someone, and that gives them the courage that they’ll be heard.
It also helps that the current news only does to back up her claims and increase the perceived validity.
It’s sad people have to wait for these opportunities to come, if at all. Otherwise people would dismiss them as a liar or disgruntled employee. There are too many sycophants even now that will back Linus no matter what.
I think the LMG stans are super weird. People who pay for their premium floatplane stuff and pay just to be able to chat with others who pay
It’s all very weird to me.
I assume most of those people will stay behind and create an echo chamber of Linus simping for him to view.
Okay.
This is not your conventional toxic workplace. This is ADVANCED toxicity. She resorted to self harm for a day off. That’s a type of struggle that can make a company go terminal if the rank and file band together.
This needs to be spread.
This is, quite frankly, atrocious.
None of this is surprising to me at all. I’ve been seeing hints of a toxic ‘hustle’ mindset in their videos for quite some time and have commented as much on the videos. I’ve worked in environments just like this and once you’ve lived it it’s easy af to spot.
Linus probably says ‘I don’t ask anything of anyone that I don’t expect of myself’ and then goes on to expect someone making 50k to put in as much time and effort as he did when first starting LTT/LMG.
Yeah I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not. This kind of mindset is all too common in tech. I hate it.
I think one of her friends leaked the sexual harassment allegations a while back cause I distinctly remember hearing about it. I think it got quickly swept under the rug win some talk of an NDA. regardless I’m glad it’s in the light now.
It’s absolutely bonkers how basically every scandal in the tech industry has at least an element of sexual harassment. Really feels like a lot of guys in the industry have problematic feelings towards women (probably because of their experience as nerdy teens), and unleash those when they have power and when they don’t think there’ll be any consequences.
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Stopped watching years ago because something about the videos were starting to put me off. Now I know.
If the allegations about the sexual topics are true (like managing the OnlyFans account and having to see other people’s junk, being told to twerk for a coworker and getting asked about “how she liked to fuck”) LTT is in some serious trouble.
No sponsor in their right mind wants to be associated with a bunch of grown men sexually assaulting their female coworkers. If this isn’t cleared up totally and publically, LTT will lose a lot of sponsors and this can seriously hurt them.
When the employee handbook leaked a few months ago and this was mostly ignored by Linus except him making a rant about the company not needing unions because they’re so great, that was already very suspicious to me. It seemed like just another hustle culture company trying to sweep things under the rug. Well, looks like it was not just a feeling…
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| part of the law.
We’re not in a court of law here. Even then, the standard is “beyond a reasonable doubt”, and that only applies to criminal matters. With civil matters the standard is “the preponderance of evidence.”
Outside of court proceedings, the standard is completely arbitrary and has been since, well, forever.
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Yes but the same is true in all of it, innocent until proven guilty is a legal thing not a social thing because it rests on the fact that the case is being tried - if I called you a smelly snail then you went to your mom and said I called you a smelly snail you wouldn’t expect her to say ‘well we have to act like he didn’t until it’s been tried in a court of law…’
Thanks for making me laugh :) (I didn’t laugh at you, the snail example was pretty funny).
Yes, the innocent until proven guilty is a matter of legal affairs.
Yes, the public opinion isn’t bound to such limitations. But that is only because the public opinion isn’t supposed to have executive power.
Arguably, the Internet changed that. The public opinion now does have at least some executive power: before the internet, it was practically impossible for anyone to organize a coherent retaliation towards any entity; and that responsibility was entirely left to the official, governmental executive power.
Since social media enabled emergent social organization, coherent retaliation is absolutely possible, and is something the American “left” has been doing for a decade with the concept of “cancelling” people.
Now, as I posted elsewhere, the algorithms in place online are shaping the discourse, and aren’t shaping it in a way that aims at social improvement, but at engagement maximization. Which, you know, anger and hate are the easiest and fastest route to.
The consequence of this is that the American “right” has duly noted what the “left” has been doing, learned from their concept, learned the tools, and is now apparently preparing their own version of “cancelling” people, which presumably involves the second amendment.
It is probably too late to remind everyone that “innocent until proven guilty” shall apply to any and all parties with executive power, however emergent; but I still think it’s an important fact to highlight.
In case we can salvage anything from what our ancestors gave their blood and sweat for, and learn how to resolve conflict instead of giving in, having a major crisis; only after which we will begin pondering what need(ed) to be done.
I do think the Naomi Wu thing was mostly a misunderstanding taken to extremes due to fanbases toxicity (doubt she would’ve outright said Linus wanted her to suck his dick if the stans hadn’t started harassing her, she basically jumped to all out offensiveness out of spite). This, however? Even if she was also being toxic in the workplace, it just means management had been so horrible that toxic behaviors developed with ease and would just spin out of control. This all sounds like they could just not adapt to becoming more corporate oriented fast enough, and the fact that Linus just recently stepped down as CEO is clear proof of this. He should’ve done that years ago.
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I totally agree. Where can I find the leaked handbook?
Edit: Found it
Pretty terrible deal compared to even the mandatory UK stuff. Our glorious hereditary not-dictator 🤴 will be greatly disappointed!
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10 days is the legal minimum in Canada and most companies don’t offer more than that unless you have lots of experience. My company caps at 15 days. So I say this is more of a Canada work culture problem than an LMG problem
Really? I’ve had friends in Canada who I used to vacation with, and none of them only had 2 weeks or 3 weeks as seniors.
I had heard Linus’ anti-union remarks on WAN Show and was slightly weirded out, because I don’t believe for a second that a company owner AND manager of a company much smaller than theirs has enough time and resources to really be in touch with what their workers need, even if they have the best intentions.
There once was a WAN Show segment about quiet quitting and his fear that people might do that and it came across as if he was more scared that his employees might do it and thereby “hurt the company” than him being interested in why people feel compelled to only work the minimum amount required. As if he was expecting people to always give him 110%.
Even 90% is enough, that’s just reality. If you have people working for you full time, you can’t just pay them for their most productive and focused time. There’s also socializing with coworkers, taking short breaks and being creative without direct output. It’s all part of being a team. A good and healthy team that feels appreciated can take up extra work and make short extra bursts as they become necessary, but that can never be the expected normal.
There was also some WAN Show segment about compensation, free time and the likes that was weird. Maybe it was part of one of the upper two, I don’t quite remember. It’s a bit fuzzy but I remember that I was a little surprised that they operated on the same scheme of low amount of days off + limited sick days system that many US/North-American companies seem to run on. I get that it’s normal in that part of the world, but I still had this idea in my head that they were somehow different. It all felt so quirky, close-knit and best-buddy-like in the videos. That made me think that they were somehow more progressive and worker focused than it turns out after all.
Hearing these allegations is like finding that missing puzzle piece and suddenly it fits into a much bigger picture. I had a lot of respect for Linus and his company and really believed that they were “better”. I really like their content, it is super entertaining and of very consistent quality. They are experts at making things accessible and interesting for a broader audience. But they are also running in a giant hamster wheel that is the youtube algorithm and several daily uploads.
Very sad to see how all this could happen. Even worse is how all of this is being handled. They need a proper restructuring because these problems seem to be structural and deep-rooted. I wish Madison all the best!
Edit: Typos
Anti-union sentiments (hell, or even just lack of support for unions) from a boss who claims to “care” about their workers is a dead giveaway that they’re lying about how much they care.
Think about it, what they’re basically saying is “I swear I care about you and will always prioritize my workers’ wellbeing and happiess, but don’t you dare actually hold me to that by forming an independent organization to oversee my commitment to what I just promised. Just trust that I won’t put my own profit over your interests okay? I care about you so much that I absolutely need to retain all the power in our working relationship.”
“We’re like a close-knit family here. Except I pay you and I have a contract that says I can tell you what to do for eight hours a day.”
Exactly! I totally care about you, but let’s keep this power dynamic onesided. You know, just in case.
i work in a successful biotech/itcompany and everybody works at like 30% effort. lots of money and the product works. those are the companies you want to be in.
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Linus said he wanted to make the company so that the employees didn’t feel like they need to unionize. I guess he failed.
didn’t feel like they need to unionize
That’s just bonkers on itself. Every labor producing worker should unionize, no company should be on “trust me bro” levels of trust. The one millionaire guy that reduced his salary and raised the minimum wage of every employee is on the right track, but that’s not enough, every laborer should be the owner of his own labor and therefore be a direct recipient of the gains of such labor; without a union we’re counting on individuals to do the right thing and funnel the profits and revenue accordingly.
However 100 and such years of capitalism have shown us that we can never trust those in power.
without a union we’re counting on individuals to do the right thing and funnel the profits and revenue accordingly.
I think that’s what he was saying, he hoped to do the right thing and funnel profits and revenue to where they should go, while providing a good working environment.
She has also confirmed that this Glassdoor review was written by her, with continuing updates on her twitter
Quote from the twitter thread:
I was asked about my sexual history, my boyfriends sexual history, “how I liked to fuck”.
I was told that certain issues were “sexual tension” and I should just “take the co-worker out on a coffee date to ease it out”
I was asked to twerk for a co-worker at one point.
I was told I was chunky, fat, ugly, stupid. I was called “retarded” I was called a “faggot”
Holy shit wtf
I figured it was stressful there, and I always kind of dismissed the dickheads in the community as “the internet being the internet” but it seems it’s WAY worse.
Holy cow I thought the screenshots currently on this post were the whole thing and I was horrified??
No, the screenshots are like, half?? THE TAME HALF???
Man what the fuck kind of attitude is that??
They sound like a bunch of immature misogynistic little pricks.
Honestly? Considering how some members of the team act on camera I’m willing to believe they are immature misogynistic little pricks
Someone share the glassdoor post here pretty please? They’ve got a login wall
1.0 Jul 27, 2022
Disappointed with treatment would not recommend
Social Media Coordinator
Former Employee, more than 1 year
X Recommend
O CEO Approval
X Business Outlook
Pros
a lot of talented people
employee bonding activities
Cons
No proper/or explained HR system.
Sexist remarks, coded language, and harassment were common place.
Inappropriate actions, comments, and discussions frequently occurred.
Including discussion about employees bodies, appearance, clothes, and wealth.
Upper/middle management frequently misuse power.
No way to report most incidents without issue, since the HR team was ALSO upper management.
Feedback was consistently harsh and not constructive.
Inappropriate language was commonly used while giving feedback.
Meetings with unbalanced power dynamics were common place.
Gaslighting situations frequently occurred.
Unbiased 3rd parties were never present, or easily able to be requested in these meetings.
Lack of proper communication between management and employees.
Outside ventures frequently frowned upon, or limited by the company.
Advice to Management
Stop dismissing complaints because “everyone is friends here” it’s a workplace, not a group hangout session.
Get a proper HR team and take reports of harassment and inappropriate conduct seriously.
Don’t dismiss employees complaints.
Much thanks for this!
Thank youu!
Just an fyi, you can get past the wall using reader mode in Firefox and
glassdoor.com^*/gd-hardsellin ublock origin’s filters. Reader mode is necessary if you want to see full reviews, the ublock rule is to stop the “please login” popup
Holy fucking shit
Alright, time to unsubscribe from their channels. Already started to dislike Linus when he went all Anti-Union and stuff, but this is truly disgusting.
Jesus fucking Christ. Messing up a review, selling a prototype then repaying the company is just unprofessional, this is a whole other fucking level ! It’s going to be hard to keep watching their videos after that, especially considering the two of them building a PC was my favourite one.
Agree, ltt is usually left running on the TV on lazy days and assumed they’re just guys hanging out bantering, but her admission and myself with daughters why would I want to support the show at all…
It’s hard to see our heroes fall from grace and their true colors revealed but be proud of yourself for having high standards for those in positions of power and being able to change your opinion based on new evidence and testimony.
It’s been a tough week but I’m proud to no longer support such an organisation and it’s freed my time to spend on other creator’s content who deserve my attention.
Well summarized thanks. Anyone you can recommend to stream?
A friend recommended I pick up a subscription to Dropout TV (the College Humour people) and I have been really really enjoying Game Changer, Make Some Noise, and Dimension 20. Really funny, diverse cast, and plenty of wholesomeness. Also the YouTube channel Drawfee has been great (ex College Humour people).
I’m still on the lookout for a great, wholesome tech channel but Dropout is full of new-to-me content that it’s certainly filling the void. The talent on the service are in loads of their different shows so it’s really nice getting to know the cast across different show formats.
If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
my lemmy client’s running at 1 fps help
Lol yeh Sync is not behaving well with the amount of images in this post.
In Jerboa it works fine.
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Whataboutism in its purest form. The issue at hand is not existent in Jerboa, which was the totality off my statement. You instead flying in, pointing to other issues perceived by you not discussed here in a quest to defend an app not even sold by you is quite transparently nothing else than cheap self-serving discussion-toxic whataboutism crapping on everything which is not your messiah app shat by god himself into proprietary lines of code. Perhaps you should simply go sync yourself.
Yeah, expecting the app not to be randomly crashing, or lack essential features, etc, is just “whataboutism”. Sure.
In the context of this thread lagging in sync it surely is.
Posting because I can’t figure out how to save on this client yet and I want to read this thread. feel free to ignore or download as you wish.
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Thanks, I’ve downloaded your comment for safekeeping. Let me know if you need it later.
Doing the same
Honestly, that’s a much larger issue to me than the beef with GN. Forcing the image of a super cool liberal easy company while being as shitty as every other bigger greedy firm. So sad.
Forcing someone to run an onlyfans is fucking insane and should 100% be a lawsuit, that’s disgusting.
There are people that I know that would run an onlyfans for a decent paycheck and not be bothered by it at all. It’s actually pretty easy to find someone who would do that just go into any sex store and offer the cashier above minimum wage and there’s a good chance they would take the job.
I’ve been watching LTT since I was 13, this past few weeks has completely changed my perspective on them in a very negative way and I’m extremely disappointed.
Yeah that’s a super weird one, why did they even have an only fans?
Edgelord points.
Linus is completely one of the most ruthless capitalists. The pace he makes his staff follow shows that he doesn’t really care about them but the money they generate.
I don’t think he cares about money, he cares about having fun and public recognition. So he works his people really hard towards that end even if they can’t handle it.
His reasoning for not testing the bilit labs waterblock further was $500
He is stingy yes, but I feel like that was also an excuse for not wanting to redo stuff.
I think it might be more the fact that he is a workaholic and expects everyone else to be. But yeah, I don’t think he is quite as progressive as he thinks he is.
It’s easy to work a lot when you get rewarded for it. Employees are almost never actually rewarded for working harder or more. It’s honestly the most privileged capitalist lie to tell others how their actions help “us” when all they will receive is another paycheck but the capitalist can use the gains to expand their investment or give themselves massive bonuses or wages.
Also easy to work a lot when you decide what your job is, I’ve worked tirelessly this week doing important market research, networking and product development… I sat on YouTube, chatted to friends and day dreamed about things I could do in the future.
If Linus feels like playing with a gaming rig then that’s what he does, good staff don’t have that luxury so it’s a totally different ball game
The sad/tragic thing is he probably doesn’t realize that and he is surrounded by people who reinforce that. He never had any business running a company this size.
I don’t think he cares about the money all that much, he just wants to be the nr.1 tech YouTube guy. If he was in it for the money, he’d be doing something else. He wants to be validated above all, and he has little regard for other people’s needs. That’s a dangerous cocktail.
I feel so much better now, using uBlock and SponsorBlock watching their videos. I knew something was off when Linus started with the Anti-Union talks. Fuck this little bastard.
That fucking douchebag tried equating adblocking to piracy in one of his videos. If I recall correctly, he also defended that position on a WAN show too, because of course, like he’d ever admit he’s wrong. I’ll never watch another LTT video… ever. I’ve unsubscribed from other channels for far less. I left reddit for what I feel is far less egregious then this situation when you factor everything. Because GN did an excellent job in showing how poorly accurate his benchmark videos are, but he could have gone even further. Anytime Linus talks about linux or the server platform, he is equally full of bad conclusions and misinformation. That wasn’t even touched on. Take Linus’s poor response and some of what we’ve learned with just how fucking toxic the work environment is there, and how rabid his fans have been. I’ll never give them another view. No one should recommend his videos or channel, and those recommendations should be discouraged in all tech communities.
His bad linux/server stuff knowledge comes from jake. This stupid fuck was so damn badly informed about truenas that they actually lost data because of him. And Linus still relies on Jake, even though he is clearly in waaaaaay over his head. Just overconfident, like Linus. This whole Team of higher-ups is so out of touch.
The linux stuff is directly from Linus, just watch the Linux gaming rig challenge he did with Luke, the guy is a fucking moron. And on the server stuff I recollect from Linus when Jake was trying to get Linus to use TrueNAS instead of UnRaid and Linus kept making fun of the way TrueNAS did things because he didn’t understand it. Literally, only because it’s not like he is used to doing it in UnRaid… which honestly is par for the course because that’s the reason he doesn’t like Linux too. Simply because some things are not done the way he is used to doing them. It’s pathetic. Linus always bangs for the most pleb software like UnRaid or WIndows… which is fine, but then disparages anything else because he simply hasn’t taken the extra step or the extra time to understand it. He only wants to understand tech on a very basic and surface level because he’s nothing more than a hardware enthusiast gamerbro douchebag. He doesn’t actually understand any of the tech he talks about.
Jake might not know how to use the tooling, and he absolutely bumblefucks around with it, but at least he’s trying to use the right tooling most of the time.
I really should have said “His bad linux/server stuff knowledge comes, amongst other factors, from jake”… Ofc, the man himself is an idiot, too.
The fact alone, that he lets a writer, who is a hobbyist server/linux enthusiast with no professional experience in the field whatsoever, maintain that kind of infrastructure, should tell us a lot.
Also, you are correct in saying that Jake is trying to do the right thing.
Yeah, I agree that Jake is just in over his head, and he should have someone with more experience taking care of those things. It’s one thing to be setting up Linus’s home with some selfhosted shit, but it’s completely another story to be setting up the company’s systems. One of the podcasts I listen to had Wendall from LevelOneTechs on… he talked a little bit about going over to LMG to help them. And he didn’t say it directly, but you could tell that it was an amateur hour clownshow over there.
Can you link or name the podcast?
His bad linux/server stuff knowledge comes from jake. This stupid fuck was so damn badly informed about truenas that they actually lost data because of him. And Linus still relies on Jake, even though he is clearly in waaaaaay over his head. Just overconfident, like Linus. This whole Team of higher-ups is so out of touch.
oh wow you are salty about that? adblocking is piracy. either care or dont. i have been a pirate since the age of 6 and i dont
Adblocking is not piracy you dumb fucking nonce. I control what touches my network and my devices, if I block ad servers, that’s not pirating, that’s protecting myself from tracking.
i have been a pirate since the age of 6 and i dont
And I’ve done it for 20 years. I’ve had commercial free TV from torrent clients scraping RSS feeds since 2007, streamed over to TV running XBMC back then. Running CDs before that, 2003 and later in an OG Xbox with XBMC on it. And today I’m a member of 5 very sought after private trackers, and almost all of my piracy is automated to use those trackers and usenet with services that I selfhost like jackett and sonarr and lidarr. My knowledge of piracy sources and methods absolutely dwarfs yours.
Lmao first you are younger than me. Second I didn’t ask.
As if you worried about tracking, using YouTube or other google services is beyond stupid and don’t tell me you are not.
Also
today I’m a member of 5 very sought after private trackers
Hahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
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lmao
Pleb King
Linus was anti union? I thought he was pro union… At least I remember seeing a tweet to that effect.
It was in wan show, i think, he stated that he would be offended if there was a union because he is such a great boss and ltt is such a great company, something to that effect. *edit: here it is, go to 26:30 https://yewtu.be/watch?v=0IhmkF50VgE
gotta play devil’s advocate and say that I at least see where he’s coming from. he wants his company to be a group of friends working together on stuff they are excited about. having said that, it’s not possible at that scale and with so apparent hierarchy. whatever he says, it is a boss-employee relationship moreso than friend-friend relationship (though I’m not saying it’s not both to some degree) and they could really use some unionizing
he is neither he said that he would personally feel like a failed business owner if his employees felt the need to unionize
Hopefully you never bought anything / floatplane membership cause Linus has boasted many times (and correctly) that literally any purchase from him would give him more revenue than watching all his youtube videos with ads on.
never did. he did not make a single cent from me 😂
She was sexually assaulted in the workplace? So LTT is just running an old boys club tech business? No wonder getting women in tech is such a problem. This is absolutely vile and vomit inducing.
I wish I could say I’m surprised, but given my interactions with these kinds of people in the tech industry, sadly I’m not surprised. Reading the twitter thread, I had that sinking feeling and knew that it was going to appear.
As someone who has worked in tech and IT, it should not be surprising at all. While internal sexual harassment has not been much of an issue in the places I have worked, women constantly being belittled and treated as secretaries makes it no surprise to me that more women do not seek out the positions.
Just to be clear, women being constantly being belittled and treated as secretaries is discrimination based on sex, and it is extremely likely that they being sexually harassed in ways that you don’t see. There are tons of ways for bosses and coworkers to pull people aside, force people to stay late, or even pressure meetups outside of the workplace framed as business/mentoring lunches, to set up situations where they can say and do things that no one else will see or hear. Belittling people is often a practice that abusers use to wear down victims psychologically, to set the stage for ongoing and escalating abuse. Many abusers are very socially clever these days, and will go to great lengths to groom their victims into not realizing they are being abused, target people who need the job/reference/experience etc. and keep as much of the abuse as possible outside of official records like email, and even manufacture documentation in retaliation of the people they abuse, for example, creating false poor performance reviews, so they can dispose of victims when they are done and have a evidence in their own favor if there is a court case.
This is the same in the metal industry.
