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.
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.
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.
Stopped watching years ago because something about the videos were starting to put me off. Now I know.
That is seriously my biggest gripe about employers… They think our pittance motivates us as much as their fortune.
Yea, I’ll get it done by the end of the week! Let’s trade paychecks and I’ll f*cking get it done real fast…
This is, quite frankly, atrocious.
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.
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
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???
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.
Thank youu!
Much thanks for this!
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
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
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Pretty terrible deal compared to even the mandatory UK stuff. Our glorious hereditary not-dictator 🤴 will be greatly disappointed!
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.
Im sorry, but that is conventional toxic workplace. Or ive just heard a lot of horror stories from people.
Definitely unsubscribing from all their channels. All of that shit is absolutely disgusting.
I had wondered what happened to her and why she seemed to rarely be in any content despite having a good camera presence. It sucks that she had to put up with all that. Linus should have put in his big boy pants and fired the shit heads that helped create such a toxic work environment. He clearly does not know how to manage a company.
From the thread, Linus is part of the problem.
He should fire himself too, from the sound of it.
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.
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
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 😂
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
Hot damn. That’s not just toxic but straight up abusive and the more you hear about Linus as a person the worse it gets too.
Linus has admitted to bullying others when he was younger, guess that side of him never went away. Just good at hiding it or editing out of public view. I’m looking back now wondering if he even properly compensated his employees for doing what should have been CONTRACT work on his house or just what they would have made from the videos so he could profit off free labor.
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
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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.
Linus said he wanted to make the company so that the employees didn’t feel like they need to unionize. I guess he failed.
So the situation is getting even crazier now. Someone pointed out this particular part in Madison’s thread:
After I came forward about being assaulted, Someone accused Linus of inappropriate conduct on twitter.
He came over to my corner and started BERATING HER. Calling her insane, mentally ill, an attention seeker, and just digging into this poor woman who had felt wronged by him.
Apparently this correlates with the Naomi Wu a.k.a “Sexy Cyborg” case. When visiting China in 2018, Linus was supposed to work on a project with her. He wanted to discuss her joining Floatplane as a content creator and offered meeting in a hotel one of them was staying at. A misunderstanding came upon, where he intended to meet her to talk in the lobby, and she thought he was talking about a hotel room, that is her sleeping with him to get the contract. She told her how uncomfortable he made her feel and the misunderstanding was immediately cleared.
In 2021 she yet again accused him of “back then just wanting a blowjob for the contract” and also of removing Yvonne from the cc thread to hide infidelity. Linus was furious and this is what Madison is referring to. Linus then proved his version of the story by releasing the correspondence that the misunderstanding was temporary and not only that, but also that Yvonne was on the e-mail chain all along and this was a lie as well.
Again, the hotel misunderstanding took place in 2018, was immediately resolved, but was falsely brought up again in 2021 and now, another 2 years later Madison seems to be ignoring the facts she must have been aware of, even if not at the moment the “berating” she refers to took place, but definitely learned Naomi’s accusations were false at some point between 2021 and her releasing the Twitter statement last week. I would argue this does shine a new light on her accusations and perhaps we shouldn’t have taken these at face value until the investigation (“”““investigation””“”) concludes and perhaps authorities get involved.
In other news, a four months-old Billet Labs’ in-house benchmark surfaced, which confirmed Linus’ original conclusion of the review. Again, this does not prove they did nothing wrong in the process, but perhaps his decision to not re-test the monoblock thing was not a mood after all, and actually an informed guess from someone who knows what they are doing.
I feel like an old lady following celebrity gossip but I now understand why they love the drama. Or bumfights rather
Reading the full thread was stressful enough, I don’t even want to image what it was like to live it.
Now I understand why the company is so against unionizing, all this stuff would pretty quickly explode in their face. It’s straight up abuse that should be met by the full force of the legal system.
What the fuck is wrong with people that makes them think that if you have the smallest modicum of power over someone else it’s your god given right to be an asshole, a sexual predator or just generally toxic.
I don’t get it.
His Union comments are just tone deaf. He’s not wrong that it would be a failure on the company if people felt they needed to unionize. It doesn’t need to be said. Clearly he didn’t think he treated his employees badly, but here we are.
No; what, he’s exactly wrong in saying that! Regardless on your thoughts on unions, that’s never something that a CEO/Founder should say about their company, first because it’s just incredibly stupid like you noted, but also because it’s the biggest red flag that you DO need to unionize ASAP!
At the end of the day, Linus was trying to sell ‘we don’t need a union because we’re the cool workplace’, but it’s always been because unions, by definition, dilute the power of people in his position, which I’m sure he feels very threatened by, especially the longer he built this Jenga tower.
And if you think that companies that are unionized are a sign of failure… well, I don’t know how to address that without pulling out my own hair.
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.
