1y ago

Ex-Linus Tech Tips employee alleges mistreatment and poor conditions: “no one gets a break” - Dexerto

www.dexerto.com Ex-Linus Tech Tips employee alleges mistreatment and poor conditions: “No one gets a break” - Dexerto

Ex-Linus Media Group employee Madison Reeve has posted a thread on social media on the alleged working culture of Linus Media Group, which is currently under fire for accuracy and ethical concerns.

Ex-Linus Tech Tips employee alleges mistreatment and poor conditions: “no one gets a break” - Dexerto::undefined

102 comments

I don't see how this surprises anyone. As soon as the handbook was leaked I just knew it was a shit place. Why? Cause I work at a shit place and they do the same shit. Shitty people rip shitty policies and implement them shittily. Linus doesn't care, he wants profit.
- So much truth. Look at the guy. How is front facing persona is. You know it’s some egomaniac that’s just like fuck you I need more.
  It’s funny because publicly, he’s been disapproving of her in photos, chat. Like the look he’s giving her here, urgh.
  It honestly sounds like my last job. Unprofessionalism in all its finest with nothing but favouritism, big egos and zero agency or responsibility given. All with endless work in tow. Yup. Good times 🙂🔫
  
  I'm there right now, lemmer, and let me tell 'ya; Fucken shoot me. I am a hamster on a wheel.
- What handbook?
  
  https://pdfhost.io/v/YuYw8GOm0_LMG_Policy_Handbook

Linus is absolute tech cancer, this just adds on.
- When I read her post I immediately thought that the working conditions she described were driven by social media/influence based/algorithm dependent careers’ shitty work-for-incentives model.
  It’s YouTuber burnout, but spread around inside a small company to more people.
  
  I'm just gonna say that, after around 25 people or so, you're no longer a small company. You've entered a solid intermediate realm. At 100+ employees. LMG is not a small company. Just average, most large companies have around 200 give or take 50 people. Very few international conglomerates surpass the thousands and several thousands of employees, and they're typically broken up hierarchically into 100 to 200 people units. So calling LMG a small company diminishes the extend of the potential harm they could incur. This is not a four people startup suffering from the woes of the YT algorithm. This is systematic and management enabled abuse.
- He kind of sounds like societal cancer too.
- He is the redneck engineer in the room

None of what this employee posted as a requirement, of their weekly job requirements seems like much of an ask to be quite frank

I replied this in another thread. Which was downvoted…
It really feels like the pitchforks are out. People want blood and don’t care if the allegations are true or not.
Probably mistakes were made, hopefully just innocent mistakes or bad communication. But it really feels like people don’t care. They see LTT doing well and want to tear them down, even if bringing LTT down will be bad for everyone.
I’ve had a disgruntled employee before. Their version of events was very different to how the rest of the team saw it. If something innocent could have been taken badly it was. I’m not saying that happened here. But let’s investigate and presume innocence.
- When was the last time you accidentally told someone at work to calm their tits and twerk for you, and in what psychotic universe is that innocent
  
  Okay, I wanna say that you're right. It's never an okay and cool thing to say to an employee that is working for you. However, let me give you some of my perspective, because I can easily see how stuff like this can happen by accident or "innocently".
  I'm socially removed, I might even have a tad bit of autism. Social ques for me are just hard and sometimes takes a while for me to figure out. It's like a science at times.
  So I think "Calm your tits" is an expression used for basically "Calm down", "Don't get too excited" or "Take it easy". And I can easily see two close friends taking this expression a step further and adding "Calm your tits and twerk for me!" as a fun way to say "Don't get too exited but get exited"
  Now I could easily see a younger me stumbling upon two dudes having this social interaction and hearing this new fun expression and wanting to try it out myself without thinking of how or to who I'm saying it to. So yeah, I could see shit like this happen by accident and without malicious intent.
  I'm a grown up. I realize that the things I say and how I say it have consequences. The things I say to my friends might not always translate well into a work environment social setting.
  So could this happen? Yes (at least I think so)
  Should this happen? No.
  If you're a businessowner you have (for lack of a better word) "power" over your employees and you can't go around using expressions like these in a professional setting.
  Sorry for the long reply, I agree with you, just wanted to add some perspective! Have a good day! <3
- Bro that woman is getting death threats I kinda doubt she'd be lying just to be vindictive
  
  Knowing what women go through silently and how much more they go though when they try to speak up... Yeah... Nobody would volunteer to be harassed by women-hating techbros unless they had a very compelling reason.
- I can assure you, this is not about people wanting to take down the 15M subscriber titan. (though undoubtedly some haters are just jumping on the opportunity, I don't think that's the majority) For many of us fans, we have been seeing this coming for a while, or those who are blindsided feel utterly betrayed after such a long time watching LTT religiously. It's always been possible to ignore the awkward moments in videos or write off the bad behavior as just an "on-screen persona" thing. There's a clear problem with company culture at LTT, and these things usually come out in this way, with victims waiting for the right moment. Presuming innocence on his part means presuming lies on the part of the victims, and that doesn't sit right with me. I wouldn't necessarily take it 100% at face value truth but there's no doubt something majorly wrong going on in that office.
  As a fan, I want to see transparency and a healthy working environment behind the videos. Linus' response wasn't just underwhelming, it was a complete betrayal. Even before I knew about the nasty working conditions, the simple back and forth between GN and Linus was enough to put a massive crack in the LTT facade. I didn't need someone to confirm the working conditions were bad, to make an educated guess at how the guy totally unwilling to spend "up to" $500 man-hours more on a video to ensure it's done right probably isn't running a fair system of work.
  
  $500 to do a video right or $250k investment in Framework Laptops? Clearly you do the investment. Plebs are just plebs and Linus ain't no pleb now.
- You lost me when you claimed that a low quality youtube channel going down would be somehow bad for me.
- I think they made the correct call to hire a third-party to investigate this. A lot of things that are happening is LMG not treating themselves like a real company, rather a group of friends with a YouTube channel.
  There's been a lot of incompetence and mistakes that happened because of the company's grindset, but they're not evil. They made some serious fuck-ups, and need to take major action to remedy them. I feel like a lot of people don't want to see these issues fixed, they just want to pull out the pitchforks.
  
  Tech news is a saturated field. It's no great loss if this sack of dicks gets thrown in the river.
- I think when a company like this egregiously breaches our trust, damages other entities, and then stubbornly doubles down on the same, it is not only understandable but entirely rational to be far less willing to give them the benefit of the doubt when new allegations arise.
  But as always I, and hopefully everyone here, will update their point of view as new evidence arises.
- "I got downvoted for my shitty opinion before, but I'm incapable of introspection, so I'm just going to keep saying my shitty opinions over and over again until someone tells me I'm right"
  
  This is not really constructive information. You are being childish here. If you have something meaningful to add to the conversation just say it instead of being mocking.
- Doesn't matter about the downvotes. These are the type of people who were frothing at the mouth back when Reddit detectives "found" the Boston bomber (they didn't actually and them jumping to conclusions made the situation worse)
  The allegations are appalling, but that's all they are, allegations.
  LMG definitely needs to come out with a statement about her claims but until then it might be worth reminding yourself that you don't know the full story.
- I do think a healthy amount of scepticism is healthy here. Her accusations are worded very carefully to not directly target anyone in particular and there is no proof of her accusations nor any way for LMG to dispute her claims because of how they are worded. Regardless of the timing. It's all a little too convenient.
  That said, scepticism doesn't mean blind faith in LMG, and it doesn't mean tearing down the accuser. The new CEO getting an independent investigation is the best thing possible and we should hold our judgement until the result of that investigation.
  Edit: made my point regarding the timing more clear.
  I'm glad to see lemmy so active, even if it is negatively against my comment
  
  Not to even mention the timing. It's all a little too convenient.
  The "timing" is "while everybody is discussing the issues within LTT". That's a completely reasonable time for an ex-employee to contribute their views.
  If you're presenting "how conversations work" as suspicious, I don't think that skepticism is healthy at all.
  
  In that case, what would you consider to be a suitable “timing” then?
  Is it just after a victim (children/teenagers/men/women/anyone) was verbally/physically assaulted? Within an hour? Within 24/48/72 hours? A week? A month? A year?
  When is the appropriate inconvenient (in contrast to your “too convenient”) time for you?
  Whether the victim feels safe or not, ready or not, supported or not, free of any retaliation or not, when is it too late for a victim to speak out or tell their story? Is 2 years already too much? How about 5 years, 10 years or 20 years?

How do we know the employee wasn't toxic?
Has any other employees come forward. I hate exploitive work places but I'm skeptical about these public mud flinging things now. Its like there's a script they all use when let go.
- Nobody knows anything but the people directly involved.
  However the allegations sound too much like what other women deal with in shitty, toxic techbro spaces, and it sounds too much like the kind of corporate culture that would put out bullshit "test" numbers, wave off conflicts of interest, and callously torpedo a startup to chase dollars and ego.
- Other employees have, the employee handbook was leaked, and before GN did his video that started all this he also did a video where he interviewed LMG employees.
  
  GN did not interview LMG employees.
- Her experiences are similar to other workplaces I've been at. Even if she's toxic as you are suggesting, it sounds like there is an extremely rotten company culture.
- Can't ask that stuff on here mate, this thread is for shitting on Linus and taking Madisons words at face value. I'm not about to lick LMG's asshole, but you'd think if this were an endemic culture issue that there would be several reports from previous employees (especially if the behavior is as abhorrent as she alleges)
  
  but you'd think if this were an endemic culture issue that there would be several reports from previous employees
  Someone has to be the first person to report something.
  
  I'm looking at the OP getting 100 downvotes for asking a question, lol. :)
  If it's one topic you can't say anything about here on Lemmy it's this one, appearently.

That article was a pain to read with the they/them pronouns I'm all for equality for all but damn, grandmas has rules for a reason
- Mate, its an indirect usage. Thats how it was used back before the pronoun nonsense began. Ease up.
- Never too late to learn how to read 🤷‍♀️
- It bothered me but only because they used it interchangeably with her. I don't think they were using it indirectly like another commenter suggested since they were talking about a specific person who was identified in other parts of the article as her. It's lazy writing and sounds bad to just randomly switch back and forth like that, and idk if this person actually goes by they or her but it's disrespectful to keep saying her if they actually go by they. Anyhow that's my 2 cents, it bothered me too but because they were being really lazy about the writing and/or rude depending on the actual circumstances.

102 comments