Most people I see (in various forums) focus on the sexism part of this. It’s bad, but I think it’s worth highlighting the way Madison says they misled her and started controlling her digital side gigs outside of LTT, and just how bad working there was. Here are a few of the things she mentioned, but I recommend reading the full thread:

I had asked and been told during my interviews that I would be allowed to monetize my YouTube channel and be allowed to join Floatplane in exchange for shutting down my Patreon. ONCE I moved [from Arizona to to Vancouver] I was presented with an entirely new contract/handbook that I was not told existed.

Work from Home was a whole issue. If you took 3 minutes to answer a personal email, you could get in trouble. (happened to me) There is a system of micro-managing and a level of distrust because the amount of content they have to push out daily is so insane, no one gets a break.

I remember getting told off for taking my sick days, as in the days you’re entitled to. This no days off, “grindset” culminated in the real moment I realized I had to leave.

They also forced me to have them as my representation if I wanted to take any sponsors for my Twitch or YouTube channels. Originally I had been told, just make sure you okay things by us for non-compete issues. Then that changed when I moved to take the job.

I honestly think the only way Linus can redeem himself at this point (for me personally), is if he made the company into some sort of multi-stakeholder worker cooperative where the workers have an actual chunk of democratic say over the direction of the company. This is how it’s done across Europe already via works councils, e.g. in Norway 33% of the board (leadership) is represented by workers, while in other European countries it goes all the way up to 50%. It’s been made very clear that the current leadership are incompetent and need to actually listen to their workers.

The thread is here, for those like me, who have closed and blocked twitter

I don’t watch Linus’ videos that often, and I don’t know the names of the people working for him. But from what is stated on that series of tweets, seems to be straight up harassment / gender discrimination.

Anyway it’s good that it’s surfacing, but I hope that it doesn’t escalate any more as a drama, because it seems like they have a fairly toxic community, and the one that’s always being targeted are the ex-employees.

Update: LMG to hire external investigator on this matter.

Wow, I’ve been a fan of linus tech tips for more than 10 years now, i can’t believe I’m saying this but i hope he gets ousted from the company for this.

I hate when people put stories like this out in the form of 15,000 tweets. It’s a pain in the ass to read, just link to a paste bin or blog site or literally anything where I can read it in proper formatting and not broken out into a million tiny pieces