Evil Linus meme aside, it’s big time damage control at LMG right now: https://youtu.be/0cTpTMl8kFY

As usually happens with stuff like this, once started, many others will come out of the woodwork and it’s already started: https://lemm.ee/post/4433736. Of course we have to take some of these things with a grain of salt. However, if even a tiny bit of what Madison went through is true, this is unbelievably horrible.

I’m sure there will be plenty of LMG/LTT fans that will take this apology and happily move on. I for one will not.

  • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
    511·
    1 year ago

    It’s about time he had some humble pie, he was already aware he wasn’t really CEO material for a company of the size LMG has grown to. It’s very good there’s now someone above him whose job it is to tell him no. Until now, the no’s have only come from below his position. Clearly that’s not enough anymore.

    What happened to Madison shows they should have had professional HR on staff far, far sooner than they did. Her employment there having gone the way it did, means LMG has some serious cracks in its company culture, policy, and the views of its leading staff, including Linus.

    But looking at the way LMG operates, and the kinds of things Linus wants to do, and the way he says he wants things to go, shows hes not malicious. It shows he is not sufficiently competent.

    This is a fuckup. One that might kill the company. And if it does, they will have done it to themselves. But it’s a fuckup, not the evil masterplan of a villanous leader.

      • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
        16·
        1 year ago

        Basically everything that can go wrong between employee and employer, did. Managerial overreach, ignored complaints, sexual misconduct, deterioration of mental health to the point of self-harm. All of it gas-lit away by her direct superior/s at LMG. She hasn’t named names, but someone at the company made her job a living hell, and sabotaged all her attempts at improving her situation to cover their own ass. She had it rough.

        Her posts

        • Killing_Spark@feddit.de
          8·
          1 year ago

          What weirds me out the most is the onlyfans account. Why force a young woman to manage an onlyfans account, that expressed she didn’t want to do it from the start? It couldn’t have been important for the brand to have that account, it’s a tech channel FFS. This is one of the things that can’t be explained away by misunderstandings or misread situations or “just Bois being Bois”. This is a manager abusing power in one of the weirdest ways

          • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
            7·
            1 year ago

            Yep. That said, when she was there, she was the only employee who was hired specifically to handle the LMG social media accounts.

            OnlyFans could be considered to just about fall under that umbrella, to be shoved onto her plate along with all the rest of the way too many tasks she was expected to handle. It was an april fools thing that LMG did a few years back.

            She became the lead of a single-person team, given the workload and responsibilities of an entire department, with no-one to delegate to, with just her one voice to protest with. And then her concerns got muffled by someone atop all that.

            I can totally imagine how even just one person in a managerial position could do that to her, by simply pulling the right strings to pressure her, and to prevent anyone who’d care from realizing it’s happening.

      • Cubes@lemm.eeEnglish
        10·
        1 year ago

        TL;DR: She’s a former employee that recently came out to detail her abusive time working for LMG filled with sexism, harassment, and working her to the point that she injured herself just to be able to take a day off work

    • bob_wiley@lemmy.worldEnglish
      713·
      1 year ago

      I don’t think any competent leader has made it there without making mistakes and learning hard lessons along the way. In most cases outside of social media this happens without millions watching and analyzing.

      I’m sure Linus has made some mistakes, but it seems like when he realizes it he tries to fix it. Bringing in the CEO in the first place is evidence of that, and there have been other examples in the past as well.

      I think everyone needs to put down their torches and pitchforks and see how they respond. It’s not the mistakes that should define someone, but rather how they respond and learn from them.

      • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
        81·
        1 year ago

        Agreed. What I mean is, that someone better suited for management work, may have been able to avoid subjecting an employee to what Madison went through.

        Something along the way in how he built LMG to work, or in how she specifically was hired and treated, allowed it to happen.

        • bob_wiley@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          It sucks she had to go through that, and it’s impossible for anyone to know how they will respond to a management position without actually being in a management position. It then takes a lot of self awareness or some really honest people that you trust to know the results of that test.

          Almost every founder that isn’t well suited for management has held on for too long before giving up the control. When starting out, it’s just them doing it all, then you add a few people, then it keeps growing. Almost no one is going to take an objective step back to question if they can no longer run things unless there is some kind of issue that shows they can no longer run things once the business gets to a certain size.

          I used to be the person on my team who knew how things “should” be and it all sounded so easy. I ended up in change and while the team was happy (according to them), I was miserable and couldn’t handle the balancing the conflicting responsibilities of the job. Maintaining high standards, keeping people happy, and delivering. I felt like I had to lower my bar to keep people happy, but depending on the person they wanted the hard truth feedback that I would often hold back. I ended up stepping back into a tech role and have tried to stop worrying so much about how things “should” be. People are usually doing the best they can and when they fall short, it likely isn’t due to malice. It’s easy to sit back and judge in hindsight. It’s much more difficult when you’re in the thick of it and making it up as you go… which is pretty much what every company is doing.

    • Bipta@kbin.social
      27·
      1 year ago

      The father wrote,

      “I am alone now. I have nothing left. I hate you, Linus Sebastian. You built your empire destroying the lives of others. I do not know why people idolize you. You are a monster.”

      Despite offering condolences for his passing, Linus Tech has made no move towards discouraging their fans from engaging in harassment.

    • Calavera@lemm.ee
      181·
      1 year ago

      I’m completely out of this loop, but why a tech channel would have a fanbase? I mean, I go there, watch the video about something I’m interested, then move on…

      It’s just a channel which talks about tech stuff for god sake

      • edric@lemm.eeEnglish
        12·
        1 year ago

        When a channel focused on specific topics (i.e. tech) becomes more about the personalities on them rather than the topics themselves, the toxic fanbase follows.

      • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        I’m not an LTT-forum goer… (I don’t really believe that you can talk about anyone on their own platform freely and much rather neutral grounds for discussions… YAY lemmy.)

        Can you link one such thread though? It’s one thing to say it’s happening (and I do believe you)… but it’s another to view it for yourself. I’d like to confirm that it’s on their forum, because then it’s legit a Linus problem [and not just the fanbase] and I will need to revise my thoughts on other posts.

        Edit: []'ed part.

  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
    16·
    1 year ago

    I’m fairly up to date with the current state of this and I’m actually really glad he’s only had a small part in damage control since guys outburst on the forum, it shows that he’s actually trusting his CEO to do their job, and with any luck at all, the new CEO will clean the shit out of LMG; that may, or may not include firing Linus. I honestly don’t know if that will happen, and bluntly, given what happened to Madison, and Linus being dismissive of her concerns, it would serve him right.

    Such a proposal is problematic since Linus has been the face of LMG since it was created (and of LTT before LMG), but it’s not the first time a brand’s face (aka the face of the company) has been removed, and I’m certain it won’t be the last.

    The fact is, he’s not more involved because his new CEO isn’t that stupid. Letting Linus run his mouth about this would likely lead to more problems, he’s been silenced by his own people for good fucking reason. He can’t be trusted. What he says is usually the story he wants people to believe, not necessarily the truth, and it’s become blatantly obvious that he continues to behave in an unprofessional way towards everyone, feeding them the information he wants to be true, rather than the truth. The new CEO has an opportunity to come down firmly on it and stem the flow of shit from his mouth that’s either the narrative he wants us to believe, or straight up lies, and instead present information in a pointed (though vague) way. A good CEO shouldn’t count chickens before they hatch. An announcement of a resolution shouldn’t happen until the ink is dry on it, and it’s blatantly clear to me that Linus, as CEO, would tell his team to start working on something, then announce to everyone that it is already a done deal, as if everything has already been finished, when reality shows that the process is just starting.

    Vague language is your ally in positions of authority, when the process starts (like when they committed to reimbursing the cost of the cooler), you inform people that the process is ongoing with rectifying the problem, not “we have reached an agreement with the company”, because you haven’t. You’ve reached an agreement internally which will hopefully result in reaching an agreement… So either say that, or be vague, but lying will only destroy the trust people have in your company, and bluntly, LMG survives on trust.

    To put it as simply as I can: for a company that makes money because people trust the opinions, testing, information, and methodologies of the content that they make, Linus has single handedly, on multiple occasions, demonstrated a direct and substantial misrepresentation of facts which will have a significant negative impact on the business. This is a termination worthy infraction. He’ll always be the owner, but owning something doesn’t mean that you will have any say in the day to day operations of the company, or that you’ll be employed there, or collect a salary. Dividends are another matter.

    It would not suprise me if we don’t see much of Linus from LMG for a long time, and I would be even less surprised if they renamed the company altogether.

    • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
      9·
      1 year ago

      With you here. It’s about time he had some humble pie, he was already aware he wasn’t really CEO material for a company of the size LMG has grown to. It’s very good there’s now someone above him whose job it is to tell him no. Until now, the no’s have only come from below his position. Clearly that’s not enough anymore.

      What happened to Madison shows they should have had professional HR on staff far, far sooner than they did. Her employment there having gone the way it did, means LMG has some serious cracks in its company culture, policy, and the views of its leading staff, including Linus.

      But looking at the way LMG operates, and the kinds of things Linus wants to do, and the way he says he wants things to go, shows hes not malicious. It shows he is not sufficiently competent.

      This is a fuckup. One that might kill the company. And if it does, they will have done it to themselves. But it’s a fuckup, not the evil masterplan of a villanous leader.

    • Heisme@lemmy.worldEnglish
      42·
      1 year ago

      What a honest and terrible take on things. This statement screams of hero worship, if someone does something deserving of retribution then they deserve punishment be it public, civil, or criminal.

          • Darkassassin07@lemmy.caEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Oh! Ok. On Jerboa, This appears to be replies to a comment asking about other tech channels. Was so confused.

          • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
            11·
            1 year ago

            When you send a comment or post it’s federated across. When you delete a message or edit it, it takes another federated broadcast. It’s possible in the flurry of actions being taken that some federation messages just go missing. So sometimes you’ll be missing comments on your instance, or miss updates… or miss upvote/downvote actions. So everything should just be considered best effort here.