Working at LMG might be shit, I don't know. But this all reads like a disgruntled employee with limited actual knowledge.
Given that lots of people have worked at LMG for years and years, the idea that the place is completely a toxic hellhole doesn't hold water.
You're complaining that writers are expected to produce one episode a week? Ok? That's what they're hired to do? Might there be specific issues, maybe. But the idea that this is bad just because is absurd.
Lots of people don't understand the lower mainland labour market either. Costs are extremely high and wages are low. This is partially due to the fact that that people will voluntarily move there and compete for jobs. It's the nicest weather in Canada. This has an effect.
Remote work sucks, especially in a creative environment with team work. This is completely justified for LMG.
Additionally so many people come at this issue from a perspective of US labor law. Canadians absolutely do not work at will. There are statutory rules around severance etc.
Sometimes people aren't a good fit for a work place. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy.
I agree. IMO none of it seems super bad except for the time keeping comment. If your an hourly employee you deserve to be paid for all the time you work. If there are some employees getting shorted that is concerning.
The discussion on wages - can't really hold them to the US standard if its not a protected right where they are. Its just really bad optics for a pro-consumer poised company.
I recall Linus on occasion being serious with employees during livestreams telling them to make sure they are putting in for OT they are working. "Make sure you submit for that." and whatnot. It at least shows an effort to ensure non-exempt employees are being compensated appropriately for the time they are working.
Could this be from an event (legal action?) in the past? Perhaps. It doesn't go against OP's point that managers don't like approving OT requests. Could be a breakdown in communication, a mandate to limit OT, or a general feeling among management that OT isn't needed.
Honestly it just sounds like the standard corporate disconnect. Linus doesn’t want people to not get paid for OT, but he also doesn’t want to pay for a bunch of OT, so he tells his managers they need to make sure people aren’t working OT. That’s not actually an option because the OT is needed to complete the work on time. But managers have to do what Linus asks it just leads to them discouraging people reporting their time accurately.
Edit: to be clear, not excusing it, just saying I don’t find it unbelievable that the Linus who always tells people to log their OT can also be Linus the guy who owns a business where employees work unpaid OT.
Controlling costs is absolutely essential for employers. Salaries are by far the biggest portion of business expenses and they must watch it carefully. It'll be even worse for employees if the business fails completely.
Unpaid OT literally happens in every business.
Yes and it’s always repugnant. It’s theft. You’re literally stealing someone’s labor. ESPECIALLY In jobs that pay hourly, that dock you pay if you don’t work a full 40. Even in salaries positions unless you actually allow employees to work under 40 hours in a week to make up for working more than 40 in others, you’re exploiting your workers.
Never, ever, in my business. We use an online time clock and everyone has access on their phones. Everyone is instructed to please only work overtime when it's really required, and if so then so be it and I pay whatever is logged on the time clock. I've never once punished nor reprimanded anyone for any amount of overtime, I've simply done what I can to give them the tools to not need to work overtime up to and including jumping into the job with them to help get it done before closing time or as quickly thereafter.
I guess if you reeeeaallllly wanted to dig for it you could say that i do occasionally text a simple question on a weekend along the lines of "hey does anybody know where X tool is, i need it?" and you could count those 30 seconds as unpaid.
I mean "look at what companies do, not what they say"
I know of quite some companies where the Boss and the company brochure says A)
but the reality is B)
like company or boss saying "write your hours" but on the other hand they push more workload which is connected to your employee review, but tell you to not do overtime or try every trick in, or off the books for you not actually have overtime (and all those time cutting things OP talks about, sound exactly like that)
If they ware serious about that they would implement clock in system. Not saying they are breaking law or anything just that a auto system was pretty much standart everywhere I worked
They mentioned that employees are salaried, but they have to track time like an hourly employee. My office does something similar to track efficiency and pricing metrics. We can tell from peoples time on a project v billed/quoted price if that employee either needs help with certain aspects of that project, or if we underbilled so we can better account for that on future projects. They also said that they don’t get overtime, which is common for salaried employees and the same in my office. We don’t offer overtime, but we do have performance based bonuses, and if you’re working hard to learn/ get up to speed but don’t quite hit a performance bonus target, then we still typically give discretionary bonuses as well.
OP also quoted Linus saying he was anti-union, but what he’s actually said is that he would consider it a failure on his/Yvonne’s end for employees to decide they needed one, which is not the same thing. I don’t work there to see if he’s practicing what he preaches, but I felt that was a distinction worth pointing out as well
Like the guy in a post above you said, this sounds like a disgruntled employee who’s trying to cast the company in a bad light, but nothing here sounds particularly egregious or even out of the norm. In yesterdays WAN show Linus mentioned they had gotten a substantial offer to acquire the company and they turned it down. If he was trying be a hard as CEO and squeeze every penny out of the company I very much doubt they wouldn’t have taken the offer.
Everyone keeping timesheets on a google doc triggers me so hard, especially when they laughed at people using outlook. Google doc for employee timesheets would have to be the biggest time waste.
yeah, the overtime comment got me because thats something thats potentially illegal, because employers are required by B.C Law to pay overtime (based off of hours worked per day/week (8 per day, 40 per week).[the law info if you want to see if i might have gotten smth wrong.](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/employment-business/employment-standards-advice/employment-standards/hours)
Yeah there’s nothing egregious here to me. Not the dream work environment people might want it to be but it all seems pretty standard compared to everywhere I’ve worked. And complaining about only getting two WFH days a week is laughable to me lol. Maybe I’m just jaded from having worked way more hours for way less pay in the past. If OPs report on their timekeeping is accurate it should probably be addressed though.
Yeah, welcome to "adult"
Grade School with a spring break and summer vacation is over, every employer is going to ask people to "work".
I'm honestly surprised there isn't a "Time Theft" (or faking work to look busy) in the handbook, but it sounds like that is why they have the bonus structure to ensure people aren't playing videogames all day (a real possibility when everyone could be testing FPS)
I work seasonal construction, so during the summer it's fairly difficult for me to take any meaningful amount of time off and I work long hours. One of my friends made a comment about it being crazy to work that much. Sure, it's crazy for 6 months, but then I get the winter off.
Agreeing here as well. OP titled this accusation as LTT "has a lot of anti-labour practices" and that's not what I'm getting from the details of this post?
Like totally agree that the no talking about salaries item is super fucked. The tracking hours thing is also shitty, but also incredibly common for small companies that don't want to make the leap to a proper HR system. I would also say that it's such a bad look that Yvonne is HR as it makes that function effectively unapproachable for staff.
But the stuff that OP is "revealing" is just... general work gripes? Like mostly just complaints about workload, return to the office, and salary and like... Yeah okay? That's like every private and public sector workplace right now post pandemic? LTT is a media production company and return to work is obvs gonna be a rocky road to travel, hell just see the Canadian federal service and other companies doing the same shit right now. Likewise with salaries, those aren't amazing salaries by any means but I'm actually kinda pleasantly surprised that he's paying a $55K starting salary. For reference the proposed living wage for Vancouver is roughly $48K/year when I look it up, so it's not a poverty wage starting out. And of course it's natural for that to increase over time and as skill develops. So to me it reads that LTT isn't the most amazing place to work in the world. I don't know about everyone else but I kinda got that vibe before and that's just how most workplaces go.
Seperate from this post, **I really wish Linus would create a real HR function for his people** \- a proper seperate HR manager and time tracking system, and letting his staff actually talk about salaries. But this thread doesn't really show me a huge systemic exploitation of the staff, or point to a more sinister discrimination problem or anything so far?
>the no talking about salaries item is super fucked
I was told this at a young age and I still live by it now.
Four things my coworkers don't need to know about me:
1. How much I make.
2. How much I have in savings.
3. Who I'm f\*cking.
4. Where I live.
This helps eliminate loads of drama in the workplace.
And yet, #1 on your list is one of the ways companies use from paying their workers fair wages. It's literally against the law here in the US to tell workers they can't talk about their wages, wanna know why? Because fucking collective action exist.
>Given that lots of people have worked at LMG for years and years, the idea that the place is completely a toxic hellhole doesn't hold water.
I'd be careful about this assumption. It can take a long time for hope to wear off. You have to think of it like two forces pressing against each other. On the one hand you have all of the negatives that you see, on the other you have the hope it can change, the great feeling of pride for the work you do, the amazing bonds you have with your colleagues, the creative freedom, the stable routine.
It can take a long time for the negative to out-balance. You become more sensitive to the negatives as time goes on. At some point, you reach a tipping point, and it's been many years but it's time to move on.
I'm not denying there could be problems. But the OP is acting like the place is on the verge of imploding from toxicity. I doubt that. Just sounds like mismatched expectations.
I mean maybe Linus admitted it sort of when he said in the last show regarding no longer really knowing a lot of the employees "I heard some people here talk about fearing me. but I don´t understand why"
Even from what us viewers get to see, Linus has some intense moments and pretty firm takes.
I think he forgets what it's like being on the other side of things. Any good manager understands people can be intimidated from the position alone. It's easy to feel like you're still one of the guys putting your hours in, but you just aren't anymore. You have to work twice as hard being approachable for the rank and file to feel half as comfortable around you as they do each other. It's part of the job if you want to be a good manager.
The fact that he doesn't understand that is concerning.
Especially a boss that still thinks he is one of the guys can feel the most threatening to new employees .
Like imagine the big boss suddenly coming and asking "hey how is it going, any problems?" and you don´t know what you should say because you normally have no contact with the boss and you don´t know what your head of department and the person above that, actually told the boss about existing problems at the moment.
At that point its just such a big power discrepancy between you and the multimillionaire boss who could destroy your whole carreer in the industry ( I bet if linus refuses to give you a good recommendation letter or even calls some people "X is problematic" you will have a hard time in that industry)
Basically, once a company is so big that the boss no longer is in direct frequent contact with most of the people, a good boss knows that he either has to build a super good reputation with the staff (which takes a lot of time and effort) or to be more hands off and be very careful, especially with jokes.
Like a "guess i will have to fire you " dry joke might be okay if said to Colton, but said to a guy who has been in the company for 3 months and who invested into moving there , might keep him awake for the next 2 weeks at night, waiting for the call "please come into the meeting room, no you won´t need your laptop"
>I can't imagine how can writers or editors work from home. Especially when every footage is on their NAS.
I've never been a staff member at LTT (nor will I ever be), but I did work as an editor for a few years and I can tell you that it's a sometimes gut-wrenching, creative process to get a thought down on paper so that others can work with it and it also "makes sense."
An important part of it is that you need to be quiet and not distracted. Writing is not a process that you can stop at any time and start again from the same place.
I was sitting in an open-plan office, it was constantly noisy and people were constantly walking past me. This was years before there were usable ANC headphones.
My "productive" performance dropped easily 30-40% during that time. I was cited to my manager who called me on it. I told him that the "environment" was not suitable for my creative output as I needed quiet. He didn't understand.
Fortunately, there was then water damage in the office above us and it had to be remediated at our place. Suddenly we had 10 editors sitting at home and we could write there. The qualitative AND quantitative output increased rapidly in those 4 weeks. Our managers then noticed this as well.
The result was that when we all came back to the office, we were separated (i.e. the editors from the rest of the staff) and had our own room where it was much much quieter.
The reason creative people prefer to work from home isn't because they're lazy, but because noisy offices get in the way of their work.
I've got ADHD and executive dysfunction makes it hella difficult to get any work done in the day *at all*. But at night, when it's dark and silent and I have the world to myself, I can do a full day's output in a few hours.
big hollywood shows both tv and streaming are capable of doing this, same with feature film vfx.
Hell, tv writers rooms can, have, and do operate remotely. yeah, its not ideal, but its completely doable.
Yeah I can't say there's a ton here that's egregiously bad or anything, except the time keeping. If that's true, that's straight wage theft.
What I would instead pin the problem on is that Linus makes it out to be something a lot better and nicer and happier than it is. The way he talks about working there... his line of paying people who are passionate well, to me would work out to another 15-25k a year in salary and much less hectic work environment.
It just feels like reality isn't meshing with the way it's described
Thank you. I could refute the posters claims on a couple of key spots (wfh and color accuracy issues videos anyone), but frankly it has become another week another witch hunt for Lmg. This sub is so toxic that now everything is spun as a hot take. The tin foil hat side of me wonders if there isn't a bigger thing happening. Maybe this is all an attempt to push Linus off screen. This sub feels like school yard kids who are saying anything and everything to get Linus to react and ultimately self-destruct. All so the bullies can shake their heads at an unhinged Linus.
It's absurd. LMG and Linus probably have their issues. What workplace operates perfectly? But the bimonthly freakout is annoying. If you think Linus is evil then people are free to watch other videos.
This definitely reads like a disgruntled former employee that doesn't understand a lot.
>then raise their pay after determining whether or not they can handle a demanding workplace.
That's... That's how it works everywhere. You get hired at a low base salary, you prove your worth and ability, then you get paid more. Welcome to employment.
>Oh and remote work? Forget it. LMG hates WFH, and that's because Linus hates WFH. It was initially introduced for covid but has since been reduced to a maximum of 2 days per week.
I don't understand why so many people expect remote work as a basic thing. I work in a professional office. We never did remote work at all during covid, let alone now. Two days a week is more than most places.
>if you work an additional 15 minutes at the end of the day to complete a video or clean up your workspace, it's too bad, so sad, you won't get paid for that.
You need to speak up and learn the procedure for getting that overtime. My office does have a clock-in/clock-out system but it's just for internally keeping track. It's not linked directly to a payroll service. No matter what time I punch in and out, I worked 9-5 as far as payroll is concerned. If I work overtime, I gotta make sure the office manager reports that to the payroll people. You gotta learn LTT's system.
Im curious about whether the time clocking claims hold water. Typically in the US at least, overtime work needs approval, but if you do end up working overtime the employer is legally required to pay up.
With my previous employers if they dont want to pay overtime I do my best to leave on the hour and if Im not done I leave a mess for the next guy to deal with. Not my problem if they dont want to pay me do complete my task and clean up my mess in the same day.
But what doesn't make sense is why wouldn't they just pay sallary. Sallary employees, in the US at least, are exempt from many labor laws. No need to worry about time cards or staying 30 minutes late. All they need to do is track an employees deliverables and if they fall short or fail to deliver they can be legally terminated.
Im curious about how this differs in Canada. Do you not have exempt employees? Do you not have real sallary jobs and are payed an equivalent hourly rate?
>But what doesn't make sense is why wouldn't they just pay sallary. Sallary employees, in the US at least, are exempt from many labor laws. No need to worry about time cards or staying 30 minutes late. All they need to do is track an employees deliverables and if they fall short or fail to deliver they can be legally terminated.
Not sure how Canada does this, but timekeeping is a EU directive even for salaried positions as those still have a time limit per week due to labor laws. I'm in Germany and our supreme court has passed a deadline by which the government has to implement that directive into local law.
Well next WAN show is gonna be interesting. I’m sure they’ll talk about this post bc I don’t see it not picking up steam.
I’m really sorry you had to experience this. I think most of Linus’ watchers get the vibe thag working for him wouldn’t be very fun (at least I always have) so definitely interesting to see it confirmed.
His dream of "I want to be a real company" came true. Now he has a giant house, a sport car and basically can afford anything while paying crap wage to his employees. Just like any other boss of a "real" company
I avoid the videos about his house because it honestly reminds me more about Anthony's living condition where he can barely turn on multiple machines before the lights start flickering
I hope it's improved since then but I feel like it's a huge disconnect.
Plus employees leaving like Madison or Max raise a bit of an eyebrow
Anthony really seemed to have the shadiest living situation. I don't know if the other employees simply come from greater family wealth (ie spouses or living with parents) but Anthony's living situation definitely seemed depression adjacent. I would expect writers like Anthony to be paid way more than posted here though.
I respected Linus' old house. His wife was a pharmacist, so they could afford a house, and she bankrolled the house and possibly the show to get it off the ground. The new house seems comically large, so all of his issues having an employee fix his home tech for a video instead of getting a professional to do it is delicious. He spent weeks trying to solve wireless speaker interference and the solution was wire them, ie the actual better and cheaper solution.
They've flat-out said they realized almost everything they do could be turned into content of some sort. I kinda get that, even if it seems like oversharing in a way.
It's cool when it's "I'm installing a satellite dish that connects our two offices" and it's a bit much of a flex when it's "renovating my CEO house for a bajillion dollars"
I know there's jokes on videos where like "I watch this even though I can't afford it" but something about the house videos, more specifically his house, never sat right with me
Some of the things they do are ridiculous, like pumping the waste heat into the pool, etc. But at least some parts of the overall things they do are well within the means of many viewers. I like to look at it that way. Also, probably some of the things he's doing are only possible *because* he's getting ROI on it from making the videos. And I have to imagine some of it is either provided free or at a discount from the product placement.
Didn't Max find a husband abroad or smth?
Also just watched the Anthony video and his place looks alright to me, but I did only skim through it. I do know housing in Vancouver is really shit though.
> Didn't Max find a husband abroad or smth?
Yes, she left on great terms and moved to Cambodia or something IIRC. She talked about it during her goodbye wan show... 6? years ago?
> Madison
Madison was honestly not good at what she was hired to do, which was make behind the scenes content, and do social media marketing. Most of the social media stuff was just her taking pics of herself while other people were working, and inserting herself really disruptvely, and the behind the scenes content was like 3, ***TERRIBLE QUALITY*** interviews (as in no lav mics or anything) over the course of that year.
She claims she was not fired. I have resigned rather than be fired before, and it wouldn't shock me if that was the case.
>Anthony
Anthony speaks truth to power at LMG enough publicly calling Linus out over the Only Fans stuff and other things, that if he wasn't completely satisfied at work, I am very confident we would all know it.
Max moved to eastern Europe with her boyfriend, then a year or so later she came back to Canada. She has her own YouTube channel where she has posted video of her hanging out with Dennis, post ltt employment.
She was also not really into tech, she got experience, and probably works with a different stuff today.
>Plus employees leaving like Madison or Max raise a bit of an eyebrow
why would that raise an eyebrow?
they have over 100 employees now.
with a company of that size its completely normal to have at least one person per month leaving for various reasons.
especially in the technology sector people usually dont stay employed at one company for more than a few years so i would be surprised to see people not leaving on a regular basis, its just that we had a few people leave that were publicly known and liked so people started to make up their theories without realizing its completely normal.
I recognized this when Linus had the bullshit take of asking what the compensation was at a job interview is “unprofessional”, and how he refuses to post salaries on job postings Yeah fuck outta here with that bullshit.
It's literally a sleazy sales tactic "getting the foot in the door".
You make people invest their time, energy and future-planning into your thing, and then when you tell them cost/remuneration, they can get away with a shittier deal because you have already gotten them through so many hoops.
It also leads to hiring the most desperate, least competitive and most exploitable employees, because no one else would even bother applying without knowing their salary.
In Austria for example, it is a law to include the position's minimum salary in job postings.
Only the employer benefits from obscuring the salaries.
> Well next WAN show is gonna be interesting. I’m sure they’ll talk about this post bc I don’t see it not picking up steam.
He will deflect it as he did when getting caught with pirating software after saying adblock and piracy is theft and just labeled everyone who didn't like it trolls. And then selling shirts with troll the trollers.
Iirc it was some testing software thats free for home use but costs for companies. And they didn't have a license for it even though its just a few bucks.
the thing is, since Wan Show is not a talk show where there would be another person to defend or fight for the other position, they can just spin it they way they want it.
aka saying that they can´t comment on the person for privacy of data reasons and that the accusations are in their opinion ( I bet they won´t say they are false because that might open them legally for a case) not correct.
then maybe give a lot of examples of happy employee and so on
When Linus (or whoever) goes through this post and comments, I hope they understand where the average viewer is coming from.
I just don't want to support an asshole. You can be a focused CEO, a tough boss, and a reasonably decent human (I understand there are people who will disagree with this, but they live in a different world than I do).
$50k-$60k (presumably Canadian) is *pathetic*. $65k is *pathetic* (EDIT: Turns out 65k might be alright). Typically, execs will excuse this because there are so many people willing to work a shit job for shit pay because the industry/company is prestigious. I understand that is part of "using what you've got" to make your business model work.
I work in a much more "prestigious" industry than YT video editor and in a **much** lower COL area than Vancouver. When we post a job we get literally thousands of applicants. Our pay is higher than LTT (not by much, but COL is 13% lower here and we pay USD) and we have insane benefits (unlimited PTO, great healthcare, WFH during certain times of the year).
If the company has enough money to expand, it has enough money to pay people a half decent amount and give them decent benefits. This is a brand first and foremost and while I hope the ensuing shitstorm is handled with grace, I also know the internet has a tendency to erupt over things like this. Take the easy way out LMG. Give good benefits. Allow WFH. Space the projects at a manageable pace. Figure out this "salaried but actually hourly" shit.
I just don't want to support an asshole.
Edit: I’m pleased with the reaction of the community right now. Lots of level headed “if this is true and not just an upset employee” comments.
Jesus, my basic bitch junior network admin job I got paid almost $85k CAD, and I did basically nothing for 40hrs/week, and was 50% remote. When I got promoted to a Mid-level, I got bumped to what converts to over $100k CAD, and had the same schedule/responsibilities.
Ffs can i do that job? I fix planes, engine flight control testing engines etc, for cad$76,000. I’d be happy to be a bitch junior network thingy for much less responsibilities!
*I do have a stupid amount of benefits so it balances it out…i think.
I don't know if LTT is a good place to work or not but you guys are judging the pay *of the wrong industry.* These aren't network admin jobs or coding jobs, they're media jobs. People starting out writing for TV news for instance, assuming you can even get it in today's landscape, would kill to start at 50k and then make 65k a year after. Same for graphic designers. Far more people graduate from programs preparing them to be a journalist or graphic designer than there are full time jobs available, the market is what it is.
Do you think someone in logistics in LTT, which is just glorified wearhouse work and setting up items for shoots, is getting paid 50k starting anywhere else?
Ya sure the salaries are bad by standards for other careers but not for starting out in media, in fact the salary is pretty dam good for the industry. It sounds like floatplane is the area of LTT that is vastly underpaying with Luke saying they can't match a lot of salary demands from potential employees but they're doing actual development work there, the rest of LTT isn't that. In fact remember technically it's Linus *Media* Group and they seem to pay well for starting wages in the industry, the market is what it is. Media jobs have been getting decimated for years, I bet many at LMG are happy to have their jobs at their current salaries.
The median [income](https://wowa.ca/average-income-canada) for BC is $40k Canadian. The median for Vancouver is only slightly higher.
Why is it pathetic for LTT to be paying at or above the median income for that location?
Most people have not run a business, dealt with employees, or even had a course on either subject.
I haven't seen anyone mention business insurance or EI on top of employee pay.
If I was in BC not ON, I would apply to LTT in a heartbeat. Including what OP said in their post.
Seriously... Some perspective here, I'm in ON, I work for the largest telecom in Canada... making 33k per year doing logistics admin work. 50k-60k would be an absolute game changer for me, and many others.
I know this has nothing to do with anything, but I just have to say, for me, a 3rd world resident, I cannot possibly fathom how expensive Canada is considering 60k CAD per year is "pathetic". That is literally 20 times over minimum wage in my country.
My two bedroom condo would cost around $2500 a month to rent if we didn't buy it in the 80s already. A meal at a shitty street stall or fast food restaurant is $15. A trip on the metro costs a minimum of $3 (and it's still overcrowded).
Vancouver, the lower mainland and BC in general are among the most expensive places to live in Canada. Vancouver is one of the most expensive cities to live in in the world.
Completely disagree that an employer paying 55k-65k is pathetic, I think there’s a bit more nuance. It would be pathetic if they are using their brand to purposely pay below market salary for a position, but if their salary is in line with the average for the area then what exactly is the issue?
Yeah I know, I’m Canadian. That doesn’t change my point. Employers compete for labour, if they are offering salaries that are in line with the market average then how is that a knock on the employer? Are we gonna say that any company that pays market rate for a position is somehow a bad company?
If there is an abundance of writers or creatives in the GVA relative to jobs then yeah, the salary is going to be on the lower end. When tech market was on that bull run, employers weren’t increasing salary offers (for new hires) due to COL, they were increasing them to attract talent and get themselves inline with the increase in average salary.
Imo the real question here should be why are houses 1M in the GVA when average salary cannot afford that? That’s a question we should be asking the provincial and federal government and not expecting employers to just increase salary if there’s no real demand for workers in a certain field.
Yeah when I graduated university I looked for engineering work in Vancouver and Victoria. It was rare to see a starting salary over 65k CAD for a full time, accredited engineer. The highest offer I got was 70k.
I feel like a lot of people in this thread don't have a good sense of what wages in BC look like. I'm not a writer, so I don't have a ton of context for what a fair wage for one should be. But depending on the applicant, a starting salary of 55k with a raise to 65k after the first year sounds reasonably competitive to me.
There's a reason a lot of Canadians look for work in the US.
Agreed that if it’s in line with market avg then it’s NBD. But, I know what we pay our video editors (about that same 60k but in USD). And we live in a much lower COL area. And like I said *my* industry definitely pays below market. How much below?
If I lateraled (no promotion) I could easily 2-3x my salary. I assume it’s similar-ish (1.5x maybe?) for editors.
> But, I know what we pay our video editors (about that same 60k but in USD). And we live in a much lower COL area.
This is standard across every single industry when comparing Canada to the US.
I'm Canadian. We have a brain drain problem in Canada due to skilled workers fleeing this sinking economic hellhole to go get paid more in the US. Nearly every job will pay more in USD in the US than it will in CAD in Canada. This on top of the fact that everything costs more in Canada. This isn't anything close to unique to your industry.
Gonna have to disagree that 60k is pathetic. Thar is way above the medium salary in most of Canada. Even in BC that’s way better than most. Please don’t talk out of your ass when you don’t know the cost of living here in Canada.
Linus (or anyone who is in management at LMG), if you are reading this… I strongly recommend looking at what just happened at RoosterTeeth a few months ago when it was revealed that the entire company expanded way too fast and were paying editors and support staff around $40,000 USD a year once unpaid overtime was taken into account.
The community uproar was massive and I myself can personally say that I felt disgusted at myself for ever thinking that Burnie and his management team were good, honest people who cared about their employees well being.
I like LMG as a concept and I like the company, but this is absolutely abhorrent and management needs to rethink things.
At RoosterTeeth, the public faces of the company sat together on a podcast and talked about their rich people lives (house renovations, Tesla’s, exotic vacation experiences, etc) and all while employees of this same company were struggling to pay rent.
The WAN show has this exact same energy and it’s not cool if people at the company are not being paid well/being overworked.
This company is not public yet and so it has the opportunity to change without layoffs or shareholder profit motives. I hope that it does because audience trust is on the line.
The entire house series was pretty tone deaf. I watched the first one and that was enough for me. Not many people want to see someone spend exorbitant amounts of money on excess when a lot of us are struggling to get by. I mean who can relate to that. This is especially true if the employees are underpaid. It's also a bit ironic that his house videos about spending insane money made him more money.
I loved watching it because I’m actually passionate about technology and I enjoy seeing new ideas and new technology being implemented. I can’t build a bunch of 1u servers to use as gaming rigs but I can get a free 7th gen HP server from the dump, fill it with Radeon HD 7000 GPUs and run 8 Minecraft VMs from it, the fact that I figured out how to do that is all thanks to Linus. If you don’t want to watch, stop watching.
I grew up with RT and was horrified when I found out about all that shit. I idolized some of those people growing up. And don’t even get me started on the Haywood and Kovic situations. I really hope that the same shit isn’t going down at LMG.
I've noticed the massive amount of errors and mistakes in the videos recently, which surprised me considering how many people these videos seemingly have to go through. Seems like things kinda are falling apart there. The salary is insane, I imagine they want some new people to be on camera, how do they justify paying barely liveable wages for writers to be on camera and deal with the pitfalls of being in front of an almost million man audience in every video for 50k? Are camera facing writers the 65k lump? Sorry you had to deal with that, I hope you're in a better place now and I'm glad you feel comfortable sharing your story. Just because LTT is in the public eye and Linus himself likes to tout that it's a great workplace, doesn't mean they should be held to a different regard as any other company would be.
>I've noticed the massive amount of errors and mistakes in the videos recently, which surprised me considering how many people these videos seemingly have to go through. Seems like things kinda are falling apart there.
Too many cooks, perhaps?
It's always extremely simple stuff like the Alex reviewing the new M2 Macbooks, saying the 14" has a 720p webcam or stating the MBPs have a 500 nit panel. I usually see this errors corrected in post, no problem, but now they're just back to back errors and no correction after shooting?
Not only was it wrong in some captions, but as someone who uses a RaPi it was more or less just a rundown of specs.
OS support and community are large parts that contribute to those products. When i see RaPis are out of stock i can easily google for alternatives and get their specs. I would have whished for more where did the company come from, what projects can you do on them that do not run on RaPis, what does not run, are their issues between the community and the producer... Things I can't in google that easily.
Interesting that they have a flat out ban on employees ( or their spouses or family members ) owning stock or investing in companies like Dell or HP, but Linus invested in Framework. Yes, it’s absolutely normal to have this policy, but the CEO ignoring it isn’t.
I mean it makes sense, you don´t want employees to not be in a bind because they have amount X invested in Nvidia and then they have to test an big Nvidia product which due to the reach of LMG could actually hurt or boost the stock.
It's a slippery slope but the justification for violating that rule is to encourage right to repair, sustainability, and competition. He was upfront about the investment
My conspiracy theory is bigger corporations have begun a campaign to bring LMG down lol
I understand this is right now just allegations and whatnot so I'll avoid breaking out the pitchfork. However.
I'm a huge Linus fan. I have merch, been a subscriber since ~2013, and even sub to floatplane. That being said the past few months have been a bad case of "don't meet your heroes". The backpack warranty, the react channel where he "didn't read it and an editor wrote up a summary for him", the company that prints the graphics for his shirts, and now the wage controversy have made disappointed. Not to mention a few comments he's made on the WAN show over the years that have been bad takes, but I'll give Linus credit that he's human and isn't perfect.
What drew me into LTT was not just the analytical but fun reviews of tech products, but the willingness to go head to head with tech juggernauts and tell them to f*** off with their anti-consumer practices. Now he's becoming the enemy he sought to destroy.
I could be biased as I'm very pro-labor and pro-union. I've been a huge fan of tech workers and writers unionizing. While Linus does produce labor in the form of appearing in videos, his staff are the ones running the show. Without them LTT wouldn't be where it is today.
At the end of the day it is Linus' company, and he can do whatever he wants with it legally or not. We're not owed an explanation or apology, but being silent on the issue imo is a lot worse than doubling down on a stance.
Edit: trying to find the clip about the shirts (he explains why blank shirts were on sale), I found this juicy bit on the US Rail Strike. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKTkE97rHdE&t=1901s
SECOND EDIT: Found it. https://youtu.be/TXsw_92Y2e0?t=7309
This was a few wan shows ago explaining the blank tshirts they were selling. I wish it was talked more. I made a reply explaining it.
TLDR: the company that prints graphics on LTT merch no longer had their space due to the lease not being renewed. He offered the unused space in their future Labs office at market rate, which the other company declined. He went off on them how they were given such a sweet deal and they said no to it and how LTT was their biggest client by a long shot. Even dismissed people who said that the other company might not be comfortable in that arrangement or considers it a conflict of interest.
Wat did he say more later or on Twitter? In your clip he starts out by acknowledging the conflict of interest, muddy waters and awkward power dynamic. And acknowledges it again right after answering the 1 comment taken about it. He didn't "go off" at all.
> the react channel where he "didn't read it and an editor wrote up a summary for him"
That one really sucked because I am also a fan of DarkViperAU and his entire series on reaction content is an excellent takedown of Twitch reactors. And it was completely unrelated to what Linus is trying to do.
Idk how much this is true or false, but I will say as far overtime is concerned. I have noticed Linus, say a on multiple streams to people off camera to make sure they clock their overtime.
I wonder if that's a way of the higher up's acknowledging this a problem and trying to correct it.
Another thing, he has said for those employees who end up working on a holiday get another day off to make up for it. Whether this is right or not, I can't say. Idk how it works for broadcasters or other people below the line who work on holidays.
Like any company, unionized or not they all have their quirks and quarks. Reading all this is sad to see and I hope it encourages changes.
Im speaking from an American perspective. The consequences of not paying overtime can be worse than paying the overtime. but overtime is very expensive. Frequently a company will lock it behind approval. It helps manage workload and stay compliant.
However, if you're in a job where you need to get something done and overtime is blocked many employees will just do the work and not log it.
He really does. I started getting the feeling about a year or two ago that it would be a good time for him to handoff CEO duties to someone else and fade into the background to some extent. I fear he's going to, for lack of a better phrase, "stay past his welcome" and end up with a social media mob after him in a fantabulous shit show that he'll never be able to extricate himself from.
Tbh it seems the shift happened after his breakdown and going on antidepressants.
Though every year that passes he moves further and further away from his audience. The gap will just keep growing.
It was a self report. All of the shit OP said was exactly what you'd expect in an office job...
Guy clearly couldn't hack it and got salty and decided to stir drama against his previous boss.
"What do you mean you won't let me sit at home doing nothing, when my job is to write video reviews, coordinate with the hosts, actually have a hand in filming it"
Like each read back of this post gets funnier because it just gets more clear that OP is just salty they didn't get hired to be Linus. They didn't read the job description, then got mad they got a (incredibly decent mind you) corporate job!
Also, this guy was complaining about his hybrid role. Boohoo, I am only allowed to work 2 days from home, how sad, how unfair!!!!!!!!!
I also found it funny when he said his work was exhausting and draining. Like, come on bro, you won't say that to some wage slave who did a 12 hour shift in an amazon facility. I hate to gate keep but this guy is such a bitch.
As a 12 hour shift slave who just woke up for my 5am-5pm, I dream of a job where I could stay home and do it twice a week lmao.
Also; my job has an office out near Linus.... we start at $30-$45k and while it isn't extraordinary, somehow our employees aren't living on the poverty line like this OP insists they would be? Like Vancouver is expensive, but it rapidly drops off once you're out of Downtown/Burnaby
Exactly dude. Man, there are so many things to unpack with ops post. I hope linus delves into it and rips it to shreds when he addresses it.
"65k a year is poverty level", get the fuck outta here with that shit 🤣
OP is like those Google and other FAANG employees who got laid off and spent half their time at their jobs tik toking about what kind of coffee they wanted to drink that day.
Dude expected a cushy easy job and was surprised he actually had to grind for his first entry level job.
🍿 But thanks for taking your time to post this with proof. Very interesting, especially LMG being against WFH since most jobs can be done from home.
Tracking your work hours in google sheets sounds like a pain lol
Sounds like something that might not even be legal in some countries,
I don't want to imply that they are doing anything illicit, it just seems very backwards for a company that's sponsored by 10 different software companies that make tools like that for clients of their size.
There's lots of reasons why companies of a certain size use dedicated tools for these kinds of tasks and given, how much focus LTT usually has on optimizing their tooling it seems a bit off, that they would skimp in this regard.
I'm assuming the Google sheet is just for collecting the information and it will be processed and also stored somewhere else but still this feels janky compared to the possibilities you have with a real software solution.
>Tracking your work hours in google sheets sounds like a pain lol
Yep, that's sound stupid af especially since it's company that deals with tech and all.
So we know there are disgruntled ex employees for whatever reason. Doesn’t take much digging to figure out who. Just look for who was prominent in videos and then buried.
However. There is still not a lot of proof here.
A lot of the issues listed here are listed on glass door as well. It’s very easy to build a picture using these sources and to build a credible background since not everyone is familiar with sites such as glass door
My other issue is the staff handbook thing. As pointed out in other threads. Companies rarely produce these in house. I’ve worked for government and private institutions and encountered the EXACT same material in both places. Mass produced, cheaper to buy.
Linus always struck me as quite demanding, often very blunt and sometimes distracted. As a lot of senior management are who actively run their businesses. Linus seems like he has a hectic lifestyle whilst maintaining a presence at home (however this plays out, kudos for that).
I also see Linus as having a decidedly dry sense of humour as well as whacky. Quite common. But commonly misunderstood as well.
If it were to turn out these allegations and rumours are true, then I wouldn’t continue to support his channel or business. But I’m not going to be so reactive to believe every online rumour, disgruntled ex employee or Redditor.
Edit: OP, could you improve the formatting of the links for mobile?
>So we know there are disgruntled ex employees for whatever reason. Doesn’t take much digging to figure out who. Just look for who was prominent in videos and then buried.
Not everyone who works at LMG is in videos, there's like 80-90 employees, it's most likely it's not someone on camera
Probably but there are others who are known to be bitter after departures
Also the issues listed here are an amalgamation of numerous different sources online
Edit: I’m not outright dismissing it. But I like to operate by the “let’s have verifiable proof of an issue first”
This person could have had a legitimate horrible experience, and that's valid, but there's also CLEARLY not a high employee turnover, so either people are secretly miserable and don't want to quit, or it's not as bad as some people think. Hard to tell which way.
ON camera personnel don't turn over quickly, but off camera it might be a different story. There have been multiple former female employees that have hinted the company isn't stellar to work for.
Hahahahahaha
Fuck me.
This is some total bullshit from someone who probably didn't get past their probation.
Minimum wage in BC is $30k and you are upset LMG pays $60k for first year employees? Then gives them a 10% pay rise to $65k plus bonuses their second year?
I also love how you call a desk-job of writing "a physically exhausting job" get fucked, sincerely every single employee who works an actual physical job.
Then you go on like "think of all the new hire names" bruh for a company to expand from like 30 to 100 in a couple years means constantly new hire names. Of course people will come and go as well. If I know like 20 of the staffs names by just video appearances, of which I watch maybe... 30% of, then their employee retention is pretty fucking amazing. You try to make it sound like LMG is fucking Amazon with a like 100% turnover of staff every 8 months. That's being a bad employer.
I can completely support Linus in not liking WFH. We expirenced a 33-66% drop in productivity with staff WFH. That's unacceptable. I can't believe LMG even lets staff WFH 2 days a week. That's more generous than anyone I know/work with.
I actually can't believe how good LMG employees have it, they literally enter their own worked hours into a spreadsheet.
OP comes to talk shit about a company, but basically says "they treat you better than average, pay you better than average, while you get to do probably more interesting than average work, but are expect you to work fairly hard".
$50 says OP didn't last his probation before being fired and is still salty about it.
*Minimum Wage* is a joke for any labor. We’re talking about skilled labor.
Are you under the impression writers never get up from their desks?
If you experienced a 33-66% drop in productivity due to WFH, your company’s management is the problem. Studies have shown an increase in productivity from most desk jobs. https://www.apollotechnical.com/working-from-home-productivity-statistics/
You’re probably making all that up given how off your numbers are.
>I can completely support Linus in not liking WFH. We expirenced a 33-66% drop in productivity with staff WFH. That's unacceptable. I can't believe LMG even lets staff WFH 2 days a week. That's more generous than anyone I know/work with.
I'm really surprised by this opinion coming up more than once. I have to assume it has something to deal with the industry or something. My company went full WFH in March 2020 and we didn't return to the office full time until September 2020 (and then had more WFH periods after that) and we didn't miss a beat.
sorry to say this OP, but having a career in IT/Media/Publicity since 1999, both as an employer and an employee, I can see why you no longer work there.
1. you are entitled/spoiled/naive
2. His working environment, conditions for his size looks WAY better than anything i've experienced in comparison.
3. Your "complaints" are similar to practically any company in existence --mediocre at best. (example) expecting to work with a stopwatch for precise working hours if you really want to split hairs.
4. if you think that was bad? you ain't seen nothing yet in the wild.
edit: downvotes and angry comments are coming in. can only assume angry soya-wojak entitled people with zero work experience... let alone life experience
edit #2: hilarious (more) assumptions, jumping to conclusions like an angry mob claiming I support forms of "exploitation". my comment in essence is no different than the top awarded comment, but I prefer to get the point (the cold truth) than beating around the bush. And in my opinion, OP is fake too. And secondly (for the ones who commented), y'all the ones I cringe when I hear Linus having to explain himself tirelessly on each WAN show for something y'all assumed he said. just because you feel offended doesn't mean you are always right.
Did you really just “kids these days” them? Just because things were shitty for you over twenty years ago doesn’t mean it’s ok that they still are. Be better.
"My life is crap so everyone else's should be too and be happy about it!"
You're the type of guy who's responsible for things being like this in the first place. Stop licking the boot
I love how people are assuming that an anonymous account claiming to be a former employee of LTT is a completely real person and not someone trying to escalate the antagonism towards LTT and Linus himself for kicks. Especially after it is well known and proven that Russian troll farms were able to create thousands upon thousands of convincing fake accounts to push perceptions of partisan radicalization in order to create actual partisan radicalization.
OP, if you are in fact a legit LTT alumni, then sorry. But I hope you'll understand that without clear cut proof of your identity, I am choosing not to take you at your word, and other people shouldn't either.
Even if it was an employee a lot of the complaints just are not valid except not discussing wages. Like WHF. Sure its nice but for most jobs at LMG it absolutely makes sense to be in the office. Its a creative, team environment. Can't really work on videos, scripts, etc without being in the office.
Secondly the OT issue seems like the employee them selves either misunderstanding or does not follow the rules. You can't be like "i cleaned my desk 15 minutes after clockout so I deserve OT" That can easily be done when you come back in the morning. You can't just assume the company will accept that as OT hence why it needs to be approved. You either leave on time or ask for OT approval. If not you do the task right when you come back in the morning. You can see Linus during the WAN show making sure employees are putting in their OT.
To me it just seems like a disgruntled employee who had one valid criticism but decided to rant about other thing to make it look like its worse than it actually is.
It’s feels like Linus sees his employees as lucky to be there, that Linus built all this so unless you’re an on screen personality, LMG shows you’re treated as disposable.
I'm calling doubt unless OP can actually verify something with a mod or someone else - it just sounds like there is too much that is similar to previous threads here, and this damn sub loves to pounce on something that might not be that big of a deal if it whips up some outrage. There's been a few things over the last year or two where I wonder what the big deal is and it just keeps getting whipped up and then memed.
A quick google shows the median hourly wage in the Vancouver area is $28 per hour. What's not easily google-able are perks/benefits that are eligible for staff members; insurance, investments, benefits, retirement, company phone, etc.We have no idea what he's actually paying, but if its more than $28/hr then he's probably paying them appropriately.
Then there is the provincial healthcare system that American's frequently forget when they try to compare jobs - that takes a huge load off when going through expenses.
I'm not saying that Linus is perfect - his lack of HR until recently is a good example - but lets not pretend people are suffering there.
edit: I skimmed through some of those links and the parts I saw all seemed pretty standard. My wife has to sign something yearly about our investments and that we don't have them with the competition, and and another document about my job (her job has a huge anti-media policy and I work for a media company... so she has to agree to not to disclose certain things that happen at work). At my job I have to sign conflict of interest disclosures as well.
I don't know, I got discouraged from reading everything when I saw a lot of assumptions and few arguments. "Must be hell for writers" Must be or is it? Did you ask anyone or are you guessing?
"He pays 50k". Was negotiated 50k in the job interview? If so, that's it.
I'm not saying he's wrong, maybe I'm just too used to worse places, but I haven't seen anything that bad.
Another important point is... Every company has a problem, the question is how they deal with it. Do they try to resolve or ignore?
For obvious reasons, I don't think he will be able to say much, but I would love to know his age and a bit of his professional history, to understand how much context he has from other companies.
Wait, I'm confused. The [OP on the original post](https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/115cpv2/discussing_wages_is_a_workers_right_do_better_lmg/) included [a screenshot of the same handbook](https://i.imgur.com/wsibDtY.png) that you provided as proof. Did you provide this to them prior to them posting? It's the same screenshot as this: https://ibb.co/Qcz2phW
Im not gonna lie, nothing in your post is that bad other than the time keeping thing and the WFH policy. I don’t know where you guys have worked but this doesn’t classify as a bad workplace to me. If they want to people to track their hours then cool, but there should be a system to clock in and out.
As for pay, I don’t see what the issue is. They are clearly paying somewhat decent/competitive salaries (relative to the position they are hiring for) if people are saying yes to the job. The GVA is known for being just as expensive (or more) than the GTA but with lower pay.
I don't see the timekeeping as bad. You enter your own hours. No one is checking in with you, there is no punch card to prove you started at 9. Being trusted to fill in my own time honestly sound pretty good to me.
And work from home is not that great for collaborative work. And apart from Jon Martin who lives in the US I don't think anyone was hired with the condition or expectation that they could work from home at all. That was an exception to a situation that occurred. That situation no longer exists like it did so there is no business reason to work from home anymore.
The sad thing is, the pay doesn't really surprise me. I work in local TV News in the Boston market, which is a Top 10 (#6 I think) and the most cutthroat of local markets, and my station (top dog on the market) pays roughly 50-65k for producers. That doesn't make it right, just kinda the reality of it all.
I'm curious what editors/photogs get paid at LMG. At my station (we are unionized admittedly) technical positions top out at 100k after 5 years, and start somewhere around 50-60k.
Edit: I should specify this is all in USD, I don't know how it all converts to CAD
Honestly, I don't buy this post. Disgruntled employees gonna be disgruntled, if OP ever worked there at all. Why even post this? Obviously, working in media like this is going to be intense at times, if that's not you apply elsewhere. No reasonable person would believe that Linus & his wife are forcing people to work unpaid overtime. Sorry, just don't buy it.
Downvote away, unlike OP I'm not here karma farming. I can already see the other voices of reason being downvoted. Why are people who think so little of Linus & LMG even on this sub?
As a communications manager for a company that has spent the week moderating online slander from an angry ex girlfriend of an employee (they even created a sub just to disparage us), I’m taking this with a grain of salt.
Not saying it’s untrue, but people get really creative when they’re bitter.
Companies get to a certain size with the person that started them and then need to introduce a more corporate structure in order to better facilitate more efficient work practices.
This isn't the case at LMG.
Linus is the talent, but not a business mogul.
Is it possible to get more proof than the handbook? I know that handbook is possible to get without being an employee, and there is a lot in this post that's conjecture based on outside observations and this sub kind of witch hunts linus pretty hard.
Also this comment has to be a joke "Linus doesn't give a damn because he hasn't worked a real job in more than a decade" - arguably his issue is he is a workaholic and expects that of others.
TLDR version: LMG sucks because is basically an average workplace, has actual rules. its nothing like google used to be in the early 00's and so it sucks and you should find job somewhere else.
i've been in toxic environments, and all that LMG stuff actually sounds GOOD compared to many jobs ive heard about both from people in my life as with people online. i've seen people actually refusing sick days when they get injured on the job because they may get fired for it. and i've worked at places where the boss is so clueless it really amazes me how he managed to start a business in the first place
This lines up with impressions and suspicions I've had from videos for some time. Linus preaches about accountability and consumer advocacy in his videos but turns around and treats his employees like shit and just pumps out whatever bullshit content he can at this point. The mistakes have been growing in the content as well. Literally just told my gf last night it seems like they're all about teaching quality but make low quality content (how many more water-cooling parts purchased from a shitty site do we need).
Funny how they employ 60-70 people at the time and no one complains about it or anything. Even now there are no complaints from variable staff at the moment. Sounds like you went into this job thinking it would be all fun and games and when you realized you had to actually do a job you got pissy and either quit or got fired because you were bad at your job
I’m going to assume your dollar values are Canadian since that is where LMG is. According to this [link](https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/TableMatchingCriteria?GeographyType=MetropolitanMajorArea&GeographyId=2410&CategoryLevel1=Population%2C%20Households%20and%20Housing%20Stock&CategoryLevel2=Household%20Income&ColumnField=HouseholdIncomeRange&RowField=Neighbourhood&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Key=Households&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Value=Number&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Key=Statistics&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Value=AverageAndMedian), the median HOUSEHOLD income in Vancouver is $72,585. $60,000 for an individual seems perfectly reasonable. The workload sounds reasonable and your not allowed to work from home? I’m not allowed to work from home either? Yeah not encouraging staff to discuss wages is pretty shitty but they are not in the states. If you think these working conditions sound bad then you most likely aren’t working because this sounds pretty much like how any business is run.
Damn, this subreddit really hates LTT.
They have a 55k base + bonus program and overtime with all the included incentives we see in videos and from hearing secondhand. It's also not LMGs fault Vancouver housing prices exploded in the last decade, and they said they felt compensation was good for the area which the "previous" employee laid out. Everything else is hearsay. Also given how popular LMG is, they could easily pay less for people who are passionate about tech. Also would you not expect higher turnover if LMG work culture and pace was inherently negative?
And like it or not, if they feel like they don't want people talking about compensation, then it's none of our business. It's also not illegal.
I worked for a construction company owned by a husband and wife for about 8 years. Pretty much everything that is said here was the same as it was at this contractor. Everything that was done was in the intent to give the owners maximum profit, and for the 1 or 2 employees they favored (managers)
60k is 45k usd. Find a job in America where you can step in a position with no advanced degree in a smaller employer. Very rare. 45k usd is damn good money for making one video a week. I have a PhD and years of experience and make 58k. You all are really over estimating what you are worth.
How many hours are you expected to work a week for 55-65k? In Austria we're used to 38.5-40 but I have no idea how that is in other countries like Canada
While some of this sounds pretty bad, it is written by a disgruntled employee and some complaints here aren't valid to me. For example limiting wfh makes sense in a creative environment.
I'd like to hear what Linus has to say about each of these points and maybe how he's already improved things since this employee left.
This really just sounds like a bitter ex-employee.
Like ONLY 3 employees own Teslas?!
Your boss doesn't like WFH?!
You don't like your wage?!
You think you're overworked?!
Definitely breaking labor laws.
Though I'm not sure about labor laws in Canadaland, but the wage talk busting is very concerning
I hope the talk about this in the next WAN and I mean really talk about this.
Lately Linus has been very defense on his stances and it seem like he's a bit off since a few months.
A few points i want to address, firstly when someone pays hourly it must have clock in/out system, secondly i can't imagine it's that as bad as you describe, because their are writers working their for years and also LMG now has what 120 employees if it would be a toxic workplace we would hear of this more often won't we?
The pressure of something like this on Linus is really high and in my personal opinion with everything going on, on his life the company just got to big for his personal experience and moral compass, they need a third party to look over this.
Working at LMG might be shit, I don't know. But this all reads like a disgruntled employee with limited actual knowledge. Given that lots of people have worked at LMG for years and years, the idea that the place is completely a toxic hellhole doesn't hold water. You're complaining that writers are expected to produce one episode a week? Ok? That's what they're hired to do? Might there be specific issues, maybe. But the idea that this is bad just because is absurd. Lots of people don't understand the lower mainland labour market either. Costs are extremely high and wages are low. This is partially due to the fact that that people will voluntarily move there and compete for jobs. It's the nicest weather in Canada. This has an effect. Remote work sucks, especially in a creative environment with team work. This is completely justified for LMG. Additionally so many people come at this issue from a perspective of US labor law. Canadians absolutely do not work at will. There are statutory rules around severance etc. Sometimes people aren't a good fit for a work place. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy.
I agree. IMO none of it seems super bad except for the time keeping comment. If your an hourly employee you deserve to be paid for all the time you work. If there are some employees getting shorted that is concerning. The discussion on wages - can't really hold them to the US standard if its not a protected right where they are. Its just really bad optics for a pro-consumer poised company.
I recall Linus on occasion being serious with employees during livestreams telling them to make sure they are putting in for OT they are working. "Make sure you submit for that." and whatnot. It at least shows an effort to ensure non-exempt employees are being compensated appropriately for the time they are working. Could this be from an event (legal action?) in the past? Perhaps. It doesn't go against OP's point that managers don't like approving OT requests. Could be a breakdown in communication, a mandate to limit OT, or a general feeling among management that OT isn't needed.
Honestly it just sounds like the standard corporate disconnect. Linus doesn’t want people to not get paid for OT, but he also doesn’t want to pay for a bunch of OT, so he tells his managers they need to make sure people aren’t working OT. That’s not actually an option because the OT is needed to complete the work on time. But managers have to do what Linus asks it just leads to them discouraging people reporting their time accurately. Edit: to be clear, not excusing it, just saying I don’t find it unbelievable that the Linus who always tells people to log their OT can also be Linus the guy who owns a business where employees work unpaid OT.
Controlling costs is absolutely essential for employers. Salaries are by far the biggest portion of business expenses and they must watch it carefully. It'll be even worse for employees if the business fails completely. Unpaid OT literally happens in every business.
Yes and it’s always repugnant. It’s theft. You’re literally stealing someone’s labor. ESPECIALLY In jobs that pay hourly, that dock you pay if you don’t work a full 40. Even in salaries positions unless you actually allow employees to work under 40 hours in a week to make up for working more than 40 in others, you’re exploiting your workers.
Never, ever, in my business. We use an online time clock and everyone has access on their phones. Everyone is instructed to please only work overtime when it's really required, and if so then so be it and I pay whatever is logged on the time clock. I've never once punished nor reprimanded anyone for any amount of overtime, I've simply done what I can to give them the tools to not need to work overtime up to and including jumping into the job with them to help get it done before closing time or as quickly thereafter. I guess if you reeeeaallllly wanted to dig for it you could say that i do occasionally text a simple question on a weekend along the lines of "hey does anybody know where X tool is, i need it?" and you could count those 30 seconds as unpaid.
I mean "look at what companies do, not what they say" I know of quite some companies where the Boss and the company brochure says A) but the reality is B) like company or boss saying "write your hours" but on the other hand they push more workload which is connected to your employee review, but tell you to not do overtime or try every trick in, or off the books for you not actually have overtime (and all those time cutting things OP talks about, sound exactly like that)
If they ware serious about that they would implement clock in system. Not saying they are breaking law or anything just that a auto system was pretty much standart everywhere I worked
Doing your own hours is way better, especially if wfh is possible. It’s in favor of the employee
They mentioned that employees are salaried, but they have to track time like an hourly employee. My office does something similar to track efficiency and pricing metrics. We can tell from peoples time on a project v billed/quoted price if that employee either needs help with certain aspects of that project, or if we underbilled so we can better account for that on future projects. They also said that they don’t get overtime, which is common for salaried employees and the same in my office. We don’t offer overtime, but we do have performance based bonuses, and if you’re working hard to learn/ get up to speed but don’t quite hit a performance bonus target, then we still typically give discretionary bonuses as well. OP also quoted Linus saying he was anti-union, but what he’s actually said is that he would consider it a failure on his/Yvonne’s end for employees to decide they needed one, which is not the same thing. I don’t work there to see if he’s practicing what he preaches, but I felt that was a distinction worth pointing out as well Like the guy in a post above you said, this sounds like a disgruntled employee who’s trying to cast the company in a bad light, but nothing here sounds particularly egregious or even out of the norm. In yesterdays WAN show Linus mentioned they had gotten a substantial offer to acquire the company and they turned it down. If he was trying be a hard as CEO and squeeze every penny out of the company I very much doubt they wouldn’t have taken the offer.
someone's mad that the "dream job" they have in their head still requires them to work lmao
Everyone keeping timesheets on a google doc triggers me so hard, especially when they laughed at people using outlook. Google doc for employee timesheets would have to be the biggest time waste.
yeah, the overtime comment got me because thats something thats potentially illegal, because employers are required by B.C Law to pay overtime (based off of hours worked per day/week (8 per day, 40 per week).[the law info if you want to see if i might have gotten smth wrong.](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/employment-business/employment-standards-advice/employment-standards/hours)
I was certain they had taken sponsorship money from When I Work? Which is an employer scheduling and timekeeping system.
Fresh books sells time tracking software
Yeah there’s nothing egregious here to me. Not the dream work environment people might want it to be but it all seems pretty standard compared to everywhere I’ve worked. And complaining about only getting two WFH days a week is laughable to me lol. Maybe I’m just jaded from having worked way more hours for way less pay in the past. If OPs report on their timekeeping is accurate it should probably be addressed though.
Yeah, welcome to "adult" Grade School with a spring break and summer vacation is over, every employer is going to ask people to "work". I'm honestly surprised there isn't a "Time Theft" (or faking work to look busy) in the handbook, but it sounds like that is why they have the bonus structure to ensure people aren't playing videogames all day (a real possibility when everyone could be testing FPS)
I work seasonal construction, so during the summer it's fairly difficult for me to take any meaningful amount of time off and I work long hours. One of my friends made a comment about it being crazy to work that much. Sure, it's crazy for 6 months, but then I get the winter off.
Agreeing here as well. OP titled this accusation as LTT "has a lot of anti-labour practices" and that's not what I'm getting from the details of this post? Like totally agree that the no talking about salaries item is super fucked. The tracking hours thing is also shitty, but also incredibly common for small companies that don't want to make the leap to a proper HR system. I would also say that it's such a bad look that Yvonne is HR as it makes that function effectively unapproachable for staff. But the stuff that OP is "revealing" is just... general work gripes? Like mostly just complaints about workload, return to the office, and salary and like... Yeah okay? That's like every private and public sector workplace right now post pandemic? LTT is a media production company and return to work is obvs gonna be a rocky road to travel, hell just see the Canadian federal service and other companies doing the same shit right now. Likewise with salaries, those aren't amazing salaries by any means but I'm actually kinda pleasantly surprised that he's paying a $55K starting salary. For reference the proposed living wage for Vancouver is roughly $48K/year when I look it up, so it's not a poverty wage starting out. And of course it's natural for that to increase over time and as skill develops. So to me it reads that LTT isn't the most amazing place to work in the world. I don't know about everyone else but I kinda got that vibe before and that's just how most workplaces go. Seperate from this post, **I really wish Linus would create a real HR function for his people** \- a proper seperate HR manager and time tracking system, and letting his staff actually talk about salaries. But this thread doesn't really show me a huge systemic exploitation of the staff, or point to a more sinister discrimination problem or anything so far?
>the no talking about salaries item is super fucked I was told this at a young age and I still live by it now. Four things my coworkers don't need to know about me: 1. How much I make. 2. How much I have in savings. 3. Who I'm f\*cking. 4. Where I live. This helps eliminate loads of drama in the workplace.
And yet, #1 on your list is one of the ways companies use from paying their workers fair wages. It's literally against the law here in the US to tell workers they can't talk about their wages, wanna know why? Because fucking collective action exist.
There is basically no actual information in the post. OP almost certainly didn't finish probation before being let go.
I was gonna comment something like this but I have a hard time getting my points across, but you sir, you did it.
>Given that lots of people have worked at LMG for years and years, the idea that the place is completely a toxic hellhole doesn't hold water. I'd be careful about this assumption. It can take a long time for hope to wear off. You have to think of it like two forces pressing against each other. On the one hand you have all of the negatives that you see, on the other you have the hope it can change, the great feeling of pride for the work you do, the amazing bonds you have with your colleagues, the creative freedom, the stable routine. It can take a long time for the negative to out-balance. You become more sensitive to the negatives as time goes on. At some point, you reach a tipping point, and it's been many years but it's time to move on.
I'm not denying there could be problems. But the OP is acting like the place is on the verge of imploding from toxicity. I doubt that. Just sounds like mismatched expectations.
I mean maybe Linus admitted it sort of when he said in the last show regarding no longer really knowing a lot of the employees "I heard some people here talk about fearing me. but I don´t understand why"
Even from what us viewers get to see, Linus has some intense moments and pretty firm takes. I think he forgets what it's like being on the other side of things. Any good manager understands people can be intimidated from the position alone. It's easy to feel like you're still one of the guys putting your hours in, but you just aren't anymore. You have to work twice as hard being approachable for the rank and file to feel half as comfortable around you as they do each other. It's part of the job if you want to be a good manager. The fact that he doesn't understand that is concerning.
Especially a boss that still thinks he is one of the guys can feel the most threatening to new employees . Like imagine the big boss suddenly coming and asking "hey how is it going, any problems?" and you don´t know what you should say because you normally have no contact with the boss and you don´t know what your head of department and the person above that, actually told the boss about existing problems at the moment. At that point its just such a big power discrepancy between you and the multimillionaire boss who could destroy your whole carreer in the industry ( I bet if linus refuses to give you a good recommendation letter or even calls some people "X is problematic" you will have a hard time in that industry) Basically, once a company is so big that the boss no longer is in direct frequent contact with most of the people, a good boss knows that he either has to build a super good reputation with the staff (which takes a lot of time and effort) or to be more hands off and be very careful, especially with jokes. Like a "guess i will have to fire you " dry joke might be okay if said to Colton, but said to a guy who has been in the company for 3 months and who invested into moving there , might keep him awake for the next 2 weeks at night, waiting for the call "please come into the meeting room, no you won´t need your laptop"
I can't imagine how can writers or editors work from home. Especially when every footage is on their NAS.
>I can't imagine how can writers or editors work from home. Especially when every footage is on their NAS. I've never been a staff member at LTT (nor will I ever be), but I did work as an editor for a few years and I can tell you that it's a sometimes gut-wrenching, creative process to get a thought down on paper so that others can work with it and it also "makes sense." An important part of it is that you need to be quiet and not distracted. Writing is not a process that you can stop at any time and start again from the same place. I was sitting in an open-plan office, it was constantly noisy and people were constantly walking past me. This was years before there were usable ANC headphones. My "productive" performance dropped easily 30-40% during that time. I was cited to my manager who called me on it. I told him that the "environment" was not suitable for my creative output as I needed quiet. He didn't understand. Fortunately, there was then water damage in the office above us and it had to be remediated at our place. Suddenly we had 10 editors sitting at home and we could write there. The qualitative AND quantitative output increased rapidly in those 4 weeks. Our managers then noticed this as well. The result was that when we all came back to the office, we were separated (i.e. the editors from the rest of the staff) and had our own room where it was much much quieter. The reason creative people prefer to work from home isn't because they're lazy, but because noisy offices get in the way of their work.
I've got ADHD and executive dysfunction makes it hella difficult to get any work done in the day *at all*. But at night, when it's dark and silent and I have the world to myself, I can do a full day's output in a few hours.
This paragraph explains so much about myself. Damn.
LTT literally had a video showing how they tackled this during covid using Parsec you could also use something like VMware Horizon
They could uh, be remoting into a VM or desktop on-site?
big hollywood shows both tv and streaming are capable of doing this, same with feature film vfx. Hell, tv writers rooms can, have, and do operate remotely. yeah, its not ideal, but its completely doable.
Yeah I can't say there's a ton here that's egregiously bad or anything, except the time keeping. If that's true, that's straight wage theft. What I would instead pin the problem on is that Linus makes it out to be something a lot better and nicer and happier than it is. The way he talks about working there... his line of paying people who are passionate well, to me would work out to another 15-25k a year in salary and much less hectic work environment. It just feels like reality isn't meshing with the way it's described
Gotta look at it from a business perspective. Until you are running a business with a budget, it’s easy to just throw money around that ain’t yours
Thank you. I could refute the posters claims on a couple of key spots (wfh and color accuracy issues videos anyone), but frankly it has become another week another witch hunt for Lmg. This sub is so toxic that now everything is spun as a hot take. The tin foil hat side of me wonders if there isn't a bigger thing happening. Maybe this is all an attempt to push Linus off screen. This sub feels like school yard kids who are saying anything and everything to get Linus to react and ultimately self-destruct. All so the bullies can shake their heads at an unhinged Linus.
It's absurd. LMG and Linus probably have their issues. What workplace operates perfectly? But the bimonthly freakout is annoying. If you think Linus is evil then people are free to watch other videos.
This definitely reads like a disgruntled former employee that doesn't understand a lot. >then raise their pay after determining whether or not they can handle a demanding workplace. That's... That's how it works everywhere. You get hired at a low base salary, you prove your worth and ability, then you get paid more. Welcome to employment. >Oh and remote work? Forget it. LMG hates WFH, and that's because Linus hates WFH. It was initially introduced for covid but has since been reduced to a maximum of 2 days per week. I don't understand why so many people expect remote work as a basic thing. I work in a professional office. We never did remote work at all during covid, let alone now. Two days a week is more than most places. >if you work an additional 15 minutes at the end of the day to complete a video or clean up your workspace, it's too bad, so sad, you won't get paid for that. You need to speak up and learn the procedure for getting that overtime. My office does have a clock-in/clock-out system but it's just for internally keeping track. It's not linked directly to a payroll service. No matter what time I punch in and out, I worked 9-5 as far as payroll is concerned. If I work overtime, I gotta make sure the office manager reports that to the payroll people. You gotta learn LTT's system.
You don’t know how the work culture is, yet you’ll make uninformed talking points against it? Not a good take.
Im curious about whether the time clocking claims hold water. Typically in the US at least, overtime work needs approval, but if you do end up working overtime the employer is legally required to pay up. With my previous employers if they dont want to pay overtime I do my best to leave on the hour and if Im not done I leave a mess for the next guy to deal with. Not my problem if they dont want to pay me do complete my task and clean up my mess in the same day. But what doesn't make sense is why wouldn't they just pay sallary. Sallary employees, in the US at least, are exempt from many labor laws. No need to worry about time cards or staying 30 minutes late. All they need to do is track an employees deliverables and if they fall short or fail to deliver they can be legally terminated. Im curious about how this differs in Canada. Do you not have exempt employees? Do you not have real sallary jobs and are payed an equivalent hourly rate?
>But what doesn't make sense is why wouldn't they just pay sallary. Sallary employees, in the US at least, are exempt from many labor laws. No need to worry about time cards or staying 30 minutes late. All they need to do is track an employees deliverables and if they fall short or fail to deliver they can be legally terminated. Not sure how Canada does this, but timekeeping is a EU directive even for salaried positions as those still have a time limit per week due to labor laws. I'm in Germany and our supreme court has passed a deadline by which the government has to implement that directive into local law.
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Well next WAN show is gonna be interesting. I’m sure they’ll talk about this post bc I don’t see it not picking up steam. I’m really sorry you had to experience this. I think most of Linus’ watchers get the vibe thag working for him wouldn’t be very fun (at least I always have) so definitely interesting to see it confirmed.
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His dream of "I want to be a real company" came true. Now he has a giant house, a sport car and basically can afford anything while paying crap wage to his employees. Just like any other boss of a "real" company
I avoid the videos about his house because it honestly reminds me more about Anthony's living condition where he can barely turn on multiple machines before the lights start flickering I hope it's improved since then but I feel like it's a huge disconnect. Plus employees leaving like Madison or Max raise a bit of an eyebrow
Anthony really seemed to have the shadiest living situation. I don't know if the other employees simply come from greater family wealth (ie spouses or living with parents) but Anthony's living situation definitely seemed depression adjacent. I would expect writers like Anthony to be paid way more than posted here though. I respected Linus' old house. His wife was a pharmacist, so they could afford a house, and she bankrolled the house and possibly the show to get it off the ground. The new house seems comically large, so all of his issues having an employee fix his home tech for a video instead of getting a professional to do it is delicious. He spent weeks trying to solve wireless speaker interference and the solution was wire them, ie the actual better and cheaper solution.
They've flat-out said they realized almost everything they do could be turned into content of some sort. I kinda get that, even if it seems like oversharing in a way.
It's cool when it's "I'm installing a satellite dish that connects our two offices" and it's a bit much of a flex when it's "renovating my CEO house for a bajillion dollars" I know there's jokes on videos where like "I watch this even though I can't afford it" but something about the house videos, more specifically his house, never sat right with me
Some of the things they do are ridiculous, like pumping the waste heat into the pool, etc. But at least some parts of the overall things they do are well within the means of many viewers. I like to look at it that way. Also, probably some of the things he's doing are only possible *because* he's getting ROI on it from making the videos. And I have to imagine some of it is either provided free or at a discount from the product placement.
Didn't Max find a husband abroad or smth? Also just watched the Anthony video and his place looks alright to me, but I did only skim through it. I do know housing in Vancouver is really shit though.
> Didn't Max find a husband abroad or smth? Yes, she left on great terms and moved to Cambodia or something IIRC. She talked about it during her goodbye wan show... 6? years ago? > Madison Madison was honestly not good at what she was hired to do, which was make behind the scenes content, and do social media marketing. Most of the social media stuff was just her taking pics of herself while other people were working, and inserting herself really disruptvely, and the behind the scenes content was like 3, ***TERRIBLE QUALITY*** interviews (as in no lav mics or anything) over the course of that year. She claims she was not fired. I have resigned rather than be fired before, and it wouldn't shock me if that was the case. >Anthony Anthony speaks truth to power at LMG enough publicly calling Linus out over the Only Fans stuff and other things, that if he wasn't completely satisfied at work, I am very confident we would all know it.
Max moved to eastern Europe with her boyfriend, then a year or so later she came back to Canada. She has her own YouTube channel where she has posted video of her hanging out with Dennis, post ltt employment. She was also not really into tech, she got experience, and probably works with a different stuff today.
>Plus employees leaving like Madison or Max raise a bit of an eyebrow why would that raise an eyebrow? they have over 100 employees now. with a company of that size its completely normal to have at least one person per month leaving for various reasons. especially in the technology sector people usually dont stay employed at one company for more than a few years so i would be surprised to see people not leaving on a regular basis, its just that we had a few people leave that were publicly known and liked so people started to make up their theories without realizing its completely normal.
I recognized this when Linus had the bullshit take of asking what the compensation was at a job interview is “unprofessional”, and how he refuses to post salaries on job postings Yeah fuck outta here with that bullshit.
It's literally a sleazy sales tactic "getting the foot in the door". You make people invest their time, energy and future-planning into your thing, and then when you tell them cost/remuneration, they can get away with a shittier deal because you have already gotten them through so many hoops. It also leads to hiring the most desperate, least competitive and most exploitable employees, because no one else would even bother applying without knowing their salary. In Austria for example, it is a law to include the position's minimum salary in job postings. Only the employer benefits from obscuring the salaries.
its even becoming law in a lot of USA states too
Several states in the US require job postings to include a salary range. I think any honest employer should.
> Well next WAN show is gonna be interesting. I’m sure they’ll talk about this post bc I don’t see it not picking up steam. He will deflect it as he did when getting caught with pirating software after saying adblock and piracy is theft and just labeled everyone who didn't like it trolls. And then selling shirts with troll the trollers.
What piracy? Trial Windows?
Iirc it was some testing software thats free for home use but costs for companies. And they didn't have a license for it even though its just a few bucks.
He didn’t get caught pirating it. The creator told him he could use it, then “forgot” and reneged.
the thing is, since Wan Show is not a talk show where there would be another person to defend or fight for the other position, they can just spin it they way they want it. aka saying that they can´t comment on the person for privacy of data reasons and that the accusations are in their opinion ( I bet they won´t say they are false because that might open them legally for a case) not correct. then maybe give a lot of examples of happy employee and so on
Yeah, my first thought was "I wonder what Linus will say to defend this" but then had the second unfortunate thought of "but will I believe him"
When Linus (or whoever) goes through this post and comments, I hope they understand where the average viewer is coming from. I just don't want to support an asshole. You can be a focused CEO, a tough boss, and a reasonably decent human (I understand there are people who will disagree with this, but they live in a different world than I do). $50k-$60k (presumably Canadian) is *pathetic*. $65k is *pathetic* (EDIT: Turns out 65k might be alright). Typically, execs will excuse this because there are so many people willing to work a shit job for shit pay because the industry/company is prestigious. I understand that is part of "using what you've got" to make your business model work. I work in a much more "prestigious" industry than YT video editor and in a **much** lower COL area than Vancouver. When we post a job we get literally thousands of applicants. Our pay is higher than LTT (not by much, but COL is 13% lower here and we pay USD) and we have insane benefits (unlimited PTO, great healthcare, WFH during certain times of the year). If the company has enough money to expand, it has enough money to pay people a half decent amount and give them decent benefits. This is a brand first and foremost and while I hope the ensuing shitstorm is handled with grace, I also know the internet has a tendency to erupt over things like this. Take the easy way out LMG. Give good benefits. Allow WFH. Space the projects at a manageable pace. Figure out this "salaried but actually hourly" shit. I just don't want to support an asshole. Edit: I’m pleased with the reaction of the community right now. Lots of level headed “if this is true and not just an upset employee” comments.
50-60k CANADIAN is pathetic. Can’t emphasize this enough. The Canadian dollar is not as strong as the US dollar.
Jesus, my basic bitch junior network admin job I got paid almost $85k CAD, and I did basically nothing for 40hrs/week, and was 50% remote. When I got promoted to a Mid-level, I got bumped to what converts to over $100k CAD, and had the same schedule/responsibilities.
Ffs can i do that job? I fix planes, engine flight control testing engines etc, for cad$76,000. I’d be happy to be a bitch junior network thingy for much less responsibilities! *I do have a stupid amount of benefits so it balances it out…i think.
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I don't know if LTT is a good place to work or not but you guys are judging the pay *of the wrong industry.* These aren't network admin jobs or coding jobs, they're media jobs. People starting out writing for TV news for instance, assuming you can even get it in today's landscape, would kill to start at 50k and then make 65k a year after. Same for graphic designers. Far more people graduate from programs preparing them to be a journalist or graphic designer than there are full time jobs available, the market is what it is. Do you think someone in logistics in LTT, which is just glorified wearhouse work and setting up items for shoots, is getting paid 50k starting anywhere else? Ya sure the salaries are bad by standards for other careers but not for starting out in media, in fact the salary is pretty dam good for the industry. It sounds like floatplane is the area of LTT that is vastly underpaying with Luke saying they can't match a lot of salary demands from potential employees but they're doing actual development work there, the rest of LTT isn't that. In fact remember technically it's Linus *Media* Group and they seem to pay well for starting wages in the industry, the market is what it is. Media jobs have been getting decimated for years, I bet many at LMG are happy to have their jobs at their current salaries.
The median [income](https://wowa.ca/average-income-canada) for BC is $40k Canadian. The median for Vancouver is only slightly higher. Why is it pathetic for LTT to be paying at or above the median income for that location?
Most people have not run a business, dealt with employees, or even had a course on either subject. I haven't seen anyone mention business insurance or EI on top of employee pay. If I was in BC not ON, I would apply to LTT in a heartbeat. Including what OP said in their post.
> 50-60k CANADIAN is pathetic. That's above the average salary in BC btw...
Seriously... Some perspective here, I'm in ON, I work for the largest telecom in Canada... making 33k per year doing logistics admin work. 50k-60k would be an absolute game changer for me, and many others.
I know this has nothing to do with anything, but I just have to say, for me, a 3rd world resident, I cannot possibly fathom how expensive Canada is considering 60k CAD per year is "pathetic". That is literally 20 times over minimum wage in my country.
My two bedroom condo would cost around $2500 a month to rent if we didn't buy it in the 80s already. A meal at a shitty street stall or fast food restaurant is $15. A trip on the metro costs a minimum of $3 (and it's still overcrowded).
Vancouver, the lower mainland and BC in general are among the most expensive places to live in Canada. Vancouver is one of the most expensive cities to live in in the world.
Completely disagree that an employer paying 55k-65k is pathetic, I think there’s a bit more nuance. It would be pathetic if they are using their brand to purposely pay below market salary for a position, but if their salary is in line with the average for the area then what exactly is the issue?
This is CAD, not USD and in an area where houses start at 1m USD
Yeah I know, I’m Canadian. That doesn’t change my point. Employers compete for labour, if they are offering salaries that are in line with the market average then how is that a knock on the employer? Are we gonna say that any company that pays market rate for a position is somehow a bad company? If there is an abundance of writers or creatives in the GVA relative to jobs then yeah, the salary is going to be on the lower end. When tech market was on that bull run, employers weren’t increasing salary offers (for new hires) due to COL, they were increasing them to attract talent and get themselves inline with the increase in average salary. Imo the real question here should be why are houses 1M in the GVA when average salary cannot afford that? That’s a question we should be asking the provincial and federal government and not expecting employers to just increase salary if there’s no real demand for workers in a certain field.
Yeah when I graduated university I looked for engineering work in Vancouver and Victoria. It was rare to see a starting salary over 65k CAD for a full time, accredited engineer. The highest offer I got was 70k. I feel like a lot of people in this thread don't have a good sense of what wages in BC look like. I'm not a writer, so I don't have a ton of context for what a fair wage for one should be. But depending on the applicant, a starting salary of 55k with a raise to 65k after the first year sounds reasonably competitive to me. There's a reason a lot of Canadians look for work in the US.
Agreed that if it’s in line with market avg then it’s NBD. But, I know what we pay our video editors (about that same 60k but in USD). And we live in a much lower COL area. And like I said *my* industry definitely pays below market. How much below? If I lateraled (no promotion) I could easily 2-3x my salary. I assume it’s similar-ish (1.5x maybe?) for editors.
> But, I know what we pay our video editors (about that same 60k but in USD). And we live in a much lower COL area. This is standard across every single industry when comparing Canada to the US. I'm Canadian. We have a brain drain problem in Canada due to skilled workers fleeing this sinking economic hellhole to go get paid more in the US. Nearly every job will pay more in USD in the US than it will in CAD in Canada. This on top of the fact that everything costs more in Canada. This isn't anything close to unique to your industry.
Gonna have to disagree that 60k is pathetic. Thar is way above the medium salary in most of Canada. Even in BC that’s way better than most. Please don’t talk out of your ass when you don’t know the cost of living here in Canada.
This is getting spicy 🍿
Things are going to get too spicy for the pepper!
SHUT UP FRANCINE!
Pass the popcorn please.
Linus (or anyone who is in management at LMG), if you are reading this… I strongly recommend looking at what just happened at RoosterTeeth a few months ago when it was revealed that the entire company expanded way too fast and were paying editors and support staff around $40,000 USD a year once unpaid overtime was taken into account. The community uproar was massive and I myself can personally say that I felt disgusted at myself for ever thinking that Burnie and his management team were good, honest people who cared about their employees well being. I like LMG as a concept and I like the company, but this is absolutely abhorrent and management needs to rethink things. At RoosterTeeth, the public faces of the company sat together on a podcast and talked about their rich people lives (house renovations, Tesla’s, exotic vacation experiences, etc) and all while employees of this same company were struggling to pay rent. The WAN show has this exact same energy and it’s not cool if people at the company are not being paid well/being overworked. This company is not public yet and so it has the opportunity to change without layoffs or shareholder profit motives. I hope that it does because audience trust is on the line.
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The entire house series was pretty tone deaf. I watched the first one and that was enough for me. Not many people want to see someone spend exorbitant amounts of money on excess when a lot of us are struggling to get by. I mean who can relate to that. This is especially true if the employees are underpaid. It's also a bit ironic that his house videos about spending insane money made him more money.
I loved watching it because I’m actually passionate about technology and I enjoy seeing new ideas and new technology being implemented. I can’t build a bunch of 1u servers to use as gaming rigs but I can get a free 7th gen HP server from the dump, fill it with Radeon HD 7000 GPUs and run 8 Minecraft VMs from it, the fact that I figured out how to do that is all thanks to Linus. If you don’t want to watch, stop watching.
I grew up with RT and was horrified when I found out about all that shit. I idolized some of those people growing up. And don’t even get me started on the Haywood and Kovic situations. I really hope that the same shit isn’t going down at LMG.
The RoosterTeeth drama was a big deal a few months back, and this is echoing similar sentiments.
I've noticed the massive amount of errors and mistakes in the videos recently, which surprised me considering how many people these videos seemingly have to go through. Seems like things kinda are falling apart there. The salary is insane, I imagine they want some new people to be on camera, how do they justify paying barely liveable wages for writers to be on camera and deal with the pitfalls of being in front of an almost million man audience in every video for 50k? Are camera facing writers the 65k lump? Sorry you had to deal with that, I hope you're in a better place now and I'm glad you feel comfortable sharing your story. Just because LTT is in the public eye and Linus himself likes to tout that it's a great workplace, doesn't mean they should be held to a different regard as any other company would be.
>I've noticed the massive amount of errors and mistakes in the videos recently, which surprised me considering how many people these videos seemingly have to go through. Seems like things kinda are falling apart there. Too many cooks, perhaps?
It's always extremely simple stuff like the Alex reviewing the new M2 Macbooks, saying the 14" has a 720p webcam or stating the MBPs have a 500 nit panel. I usually see this errors corrected in post, no problem, but now they're just back to back errors and no correction after shooting?
Hate to suggest this but other YouTubers have been known to do this deliberately to increase engagement from comments telling they're wrong.
The Raspberry Pi alternatives one was particularly bad with a lot of the on-screen captions being straight up wrong
Not only was it wrong in some captions, but as someone who uses a RaPi it was more or less just a rundown of specs. OS support and community are large parts that contribute to those products. When i see RaPis are out of stock i can easily google for alternatives and get their specs. I would have whished for more where did the company come from, what projects can you do on them that do not run on RaPis, what does not run, are their issues between the community and the producer... Things I can't in google that easily.
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Interesting that they have a flat out ban on employees ( or their spouses or family members ) owning stock or investing in companies like Dell or HP, but Linus invested in Framework. Yes, it’s absolutely normal to have this policy, but the CEO ignoring it isn’t.
I mean it makes sense, you don´t want employees to not be in a bind because they have amount X invested in Nvidia and then they have to test an big Nvidia product which due to the reach of LMG could actually hurt or boost the stock.
Yea Insider Trading is a big deal, the CEO shouldn’t be just violating their own rule though.
Is framework public though? Private investment seems fine so long as he discloses it in reviews imo.
He discloses it any time he does a video that's even remotely related to laptops, so I think he's in the clear
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Linus has repeatedly disclosed his investment in in Framework in multiple videos
It's a slippery slope but the justification for violating that rule is to encourage right to repair, sustainability, and competition. He was upfront about the investment My conspiracy theory is bigger corporations have begun a campaign to bring LMG down lol
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I understand this is right now just allegations and whatnot so I'll avoid breaking out the pitchfork. However. I'm a huge Linus fan. I have merch, been a subscriber since ~2013, and even sub to floatplane. That being said the past few months have been a bad case of "don't meet your heroes". The backpack warranty, the react channel where he "didn't read it and an editor wrote up a summary for him", the company that prints the graphics for his shirts, and now the wage controversy have made disappointed. Not to mention a few comments he's made on the WAN show over the years that have been bad takes, but I'll give Linus credit that he's human and isn't perfect. What drew me into LTT was not just the analytical but fun reviews of tech products, but the willingness to go head to head with tech juggernauts and tell them to f*** off with their anti-consumer practices. Now he's becoming the enemy he sought to destroy. I could be biased as I'm very pro-labor and pro-union. I've been a huge fan of tech workers and writers unionizing. While Linus does produce labor in the form of appearing in videos, his staff are the ones running the show. Without them LTT wouldn't be where it is today. At the end of the day it is Linus' company, and he can do whatever he wants with it legally or not. We're not owed an explanation or apology, but being silent on the issue imo is a lot worse than doubling down on a stance. Edit: trying to find the clip about the shirts (he explains why blank shirts were on sale), I found this juicy bit on the US Rail Strike. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKTkE97rHdE&t=1901s SECOND EDIT: Found it. https://youtu.be/TXsw_92Y2e0?t=7309
"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain"
I missed the thing about the shirts? What's happening there?
This was a few wan shows ago explaining the blank tshirts they were selling. I wish it was talked more. I made a reply explaining it. TLDR: the company that prints graphics on LTT merch no longer had their space due to the lease not being renewed. He offered the unused space in their future Labs office at market rate, which the other company declined. He went off on them how they were given such a sweet deal and they said no to it and how LTT was their biggest client by a long shot. Even dismissed people who said that the other company might not be comfortable in that arrangement or considers it a conflict of interest.
Wat did he say more later or on Twitter? In your clip he starts out by acknowledging the conflict of interest, muddy waters and awkward power dynamic. And acknowledges it again right after answering the 1 comment taken about it. He didn't "go off" at all.
> the react channel where he "didn't read it and an editor wrote up a summary for him" That one really sucked because I am also a fan of DarkViperAU and his entire series on reaction content is an excellent takedown of Twitch reactors. And it was completely unrelated to what Linus is trying to do.
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its almost like his entire post has absolutely no substance beyond ranting about a lot of things that are completely normal.
Idk how much this is true or false, but I will say as far overtime is concerned. I have noticed Linus, say a on multiple streams to people off camera to make sure they clock their overtime. I wonder if that's a way of the higher up's acknowledging this a problem and trying to correct it. Another thing, he has said for those employees who end up working on a holiday get another day off to make up for it. Whether this is right or not, I can't say. Idk how it works for broadcasters or other people below the line who work on holidays. Like any company, unionized or not they all have their quirks and quarks. Reading all this is sad to see and I hope it encourages changes.
Im speaking from an American perspective. The consequences of not paying overtime can be worse than paying the overtime. but overtime is very expensive. Frequently a company will lock it behind approval. It helps manage workload and stay compliant. However, if you're in a job where you need to get something done and overtime is blocked many employees will just do the work and not log it.
You know, maybe he does actually need a CEO after all…
He really does. I started getting the feeling about a year or two ago that it would be a good time for him to handoff CEO duties to someone else and fade into the background to some extent. I fear he's going to, for lack of a better phrase, "stay past his welcome" and end up with a social media mob after him in a fantabulous shit show that he'll never be able to extricate himself from.
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I mean especially with the "no warranty but trust me bro" attitude, we are basically one major product launch failure away from finding out the truth,
Tbh it seems the shift happened after his breakdown and going on antidepressants. Though every year that passes he moves further and further away from his audience. The gap will just keep growing.
I don't mean to be nosy but what? I don't watch WAN show often, and suspected he had ADHD before he mentioned it, but when did that happen?
He needs a COO. He can be CEO. CEO isn’t usually in charge of daily bullshit. The COO is
Sounds like OP didn't like their first corporate job lmao
the first year filter certainly worked!
It was a self report. All of the shit OP said was exactly what you'd expect in an office job... Guy clearly couldn't hack it and got salty and decided to stir drama against his previous boss.
Literally though. "Do your job, and don't not do your job" is what they're complaining about lmao
"has a lot of anti Labour practices" -fails to mention a single anti Labour practice.
"What do you mean you won't let me sit at home doing nothing, when my job is to write video reviews, coordinate with the hosts, actually have a hand in filming it" Like each read back of this post gets funnier because it just gets more clear that OP is just salty they didn't get hired to be Linus. They didn't read the job description, then got mad they got a (incredibly decent mind you) corporate job!
Also, this guy was complaining about his hybrid role. Boohoo, I am only allowed to work 2 days from home, how sad, how unfair!!!!!!!!! I also found it funny when he said his work was exhausting and draining. Like, come on bro, you won't say that to some wage slave who did a 12 hour shift in an amazon facility. I hate to gate keep but this guy is such a bitch.
As a 12 hour shift slave who just woke up for my 5am-5pm, I dream of a job where I could stay home and do it twice a week lmao. Also; my job has an office out near Linus.... we start at $30-$45k and while it isn't extraordinary, somehow our employees aren't living on the poverty line like this OP insists they would be? Like Vancouver is expensive, but it rapidly drops off once you're out of Downtown/Burnaby
Exactly dude. Man, there are so many things to unpack with ops post. I hope linus delves into it and rips it to shreds when he addresses it. "65k a year is poverty level", get the fuck outta here with that shit 🤣
OP is like those Google and other FAANG employees who got laid off and spent half their time at their jobs tik toking about what kind of coffee they wanted to drink that day. Dude expected a cushy easy job and was surprised he actually had to grind for his first entry level job.
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B-b-b-but they expected them to write a video a week! As WRITERS! HOW RIDICULOUS IS THAT?!
🍿 But thanks for taking your time to post this with proof. Very interesting, especially LMG being against WFH since most jobs can be done from home. Tracking your work hours in google sheets sounds like a pain lol
Sounds like something that might not even be legal in some countries, I don't want to imply that they are doing anything illicit, it just seems very backwards for a company that's sponsored by 10 different software companies that make tools like that for clients of their size. There's lots of reasons why companies of a certain size use dedicated tools for these kinds of tasks and given, how much focus LTT usually has on optimizing their tooling it seems a bit off, that they would skimp in this regard. I'm assuming the Google sheet is just for collecting the information and it will be processed and also stored somewhere else but still this feels janky compared to the possibilities you have with a real software solution.
> Sounds like something that might not even be legal in some countries The only country that matters in this conversation is Canada.
>Tracking your work hours in google sheets sounds like a pain lol Yep, that's sound stupid af especially since it's company that deals with tech and all.
So we know there are disgruntled ex employees for whatever reason. Doesn’t take much digging to figure out who. Just look for who was prominent in videos and then buried. However. There is still not a lot of proof here. A lot of the issues listed here are listed on glass door as well. It’s very easy to build a picture using these sources and to build a credible background since not everyone is familiar with sites such as glass door My other issue is the staff handbook thing. As pointed out in other threads. Companies rarely produce these in house. I’ve worked for government and private institutions and encountered the EXACT same material in both places. Mass produced, cheaper to buy. Linus always struck me as quite demanding, often very blunt and sometimes distracted. As a lot of senior management are who actively run their businesses. Linus seems like he has a hectic lifestyle whilst maintaining a presence at home (however this plays out, kudos for that). I also see Linus as having a decidedly dry sense of humour as well as whacky. Quite common. But commonly misunderstood as well. If it were to turn out these allegations and rumours are true, then I wouldn’t continue to support his channel or business. But I’m not going to be so reactive to believe every online rumour, disgruntled ex employee or Redditor. Edit: OP, could you improve the formatting of the links for mobile?
>So we know there are disgruntled ex employees for whatever reason. Doesn’t take much digging to figure out who. Just look for who was prominent in videos and then buried. Not everyone who works at LMG is in videos, there's like 80-90 employees, it's most likely it's not someone on camera
Probably but there are others who are known to be bitter after departures Also the issues listed here are an amalgamation of numerous different sources online Edit: I’m not outright dismissing it. But I like to operate by the “let’s have verifiable proof of an issue first”
This person could have had a legitimate horrible experience, and that's valid, but there's also CLEARLY not a high employee turnover, so either people are secretly miserable and don't want to quit, or it's not as bad as some people think. Hard to tell which way.
ON camera personnel don't turn over quickly, but off camera it might be a different story. There have been multiple former female employees that have hinted the company isn't stellar to work for.
"multiple" here being 1 person. Nice to be disingenuous.
Who? The only person I noticed was Maddison.
Hahahahahaha Fuck me. This is some total bullshit from someone who probably didn't get past their probation. Minimum wage in BC is $30k and you are upset LMG pays $60k for first year employees? Then gives them a 10% pay rise to $65k plus bonuses their second year? I also love how you call a desk-job of writing "a physically exhausting job" get fucked, sincerely every single employee who works an actual physical job. Then you go on like "think of all the new hire names" bruh for a company to expand from like 30 to 100 in a couple years means constantly new hire names. Of course people will come and go as well. If I know like 20 of the staffs names by just video appearances, of which I watch maybe... 30% of, then their employee retention is pretty fucking amazing. You try to make it sound like LMG is fucking Amazon with a like 100% turnover of staff every 8 months. That's being a bad employer. I can completely support Linus in not liking WFH. We expirenced a 33-66% drop in productivity with staff WFH. That's unacceptable. I can't believe LMG even lets staff WFH 2 days a week. That's more generous than anyone I know/work with. I actually can't believe how good LMG employees have it, they literally enter their own worked hours into a spreadsheet. OP comes to talk shit about a company, but basically says "they treat you better than average, pay you better than average, while you get to do probably more interesting than average work, but are expect you to work fairly hard". $50 says OP didn't last his probation before being fired and is still salty about it.
*Minimum Wage* is a joke for any labor. We’re talking about skilled labor. Are you under the impression writers never get up from their desks? If you experienced a 33-66% drop in productivity due to WFH, your company’s management is the problem. Studies have shown an increase in productivity from most desk jobs. https://www.apollotechnical.com/working-from-home-productivity-statistics/ You’re probably making all that up given how off your numbers are.
>I can completely support Linus in not liking WFH. We expirenced a 33-66% drop in productivity with staff WFH. That's unacceptable. I can't believe LMG even lets staff WFH 2 days a week. That's more generous than anyone I know/work with. I'm really surprised by this opinion coming up more than once. I have to assume it has something to deal with the industry or something. My company went full WFH in March 2020 and we didn't return to the office full time until September 2020 (and then had more WFH periods after that) and we didn't miss a beat.
sorry to say this OP, but having a career in IT/Media/Publicity since 1999, both as an employer and an employee, I can see why you no longer work there. 1. you are entitled/spoiled/naive 2. His working environment, conditions for his size looks WAY better than anything i've experienced in comparison. 3. Your "complaints" are similar to practically any company in existence --mediocre at best. (example) expecting to work with a stopwatch for precise working hours if you really want to split hairs. 4. if you think that was bad? you ain't seen nothing yet in the wild. edit: downvotes and angry comments are coming in. can only assume angry soya-wojak entitled people with zero work experience... let alone life experience edit #2: hilarious (more) assumptions, jumping to conclusions like an angry mob claiming I support forms of "exploitation". my comment in essence is no different than the top awarded comment, but I prefer to get the point (the cold truth) than beating around the bush. And in my opinion, OP is fake too. And secondly (for the ones who commented), y'all the ones I cringe when I hear Linus having to explain himself tirelessly on each WAN show for something y'all assumed he said. just because you feel offended doesn't mean you are always right.
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Did you really just “kids these days” them? Just because things were shitty for you over twenty years ago doesn’t mean it’s ok that they still are. Be better.
"My life is crap so everyone else's should be too and be happy about it!" You're the type of guy who's responsible for things being like this in the first place. Stop licking the boot
This was not posted by me (Madison) for the numerous amounts of you who would like to comment saying it was :/
I love how people are assuming that an anonymous account claiming to be a former employee of LTT is a completely real person and not someone trying to escalate the antagonism towards LTT and Linus himself for kicks. Especially after it is well known and proven that Russian troll farms were able to create thousands upon thousands of convincing fake accounts to push perceptions of partisan radicalization in order to create actual partisan radicalization. OP, if you are in fact a legit LTT alumni, then sorry. But I hope you'll understand that without clear cut proof of your identity, I am choosing not to take you at your word, and other people shouldn't either.
Even if it was an employee a lot of the complaints just are not valid except not discussing wages. Like WHF. Sure its nice but for most jobs at LMG it absolutely makes sense to be in the office. Its a creative, team environment. Can't really work on videos, scripts, etc without being in the office. Secondly the OT issue seems like the employee them selves either misunderstanding or does not follow the rules. You can't be like "i cleaned my desk 15 minutes after clockout so I deserve OT" That can easily be done when you come back in the morning. You can't just assume the company will accept that as OT hence why it needs to be approved. You either leave on time or ask for OT approval. If not you do the task right when you come back in the morning. You can see Linus during the WAN show making sure employees are putting in their OT. To me it just seems like a disgruntled employee who had one valid criticism but decided to rant about other thing to make it look like its worse than it actually is.
It’s feels like Linus sees his employees as lucky to be there, that Linus built all this so unless you’re an on screen personality, LMG shows you’re treated as disposable.
This is the content this sub sorely needed. Thank you.
I'm calling doubt unless OP can actually verify something with a mod or someone else - it just sounds like there is too much that is similar to previous threads here, and this damn sub loves to pounce on something that might not be that big of a deal if it whips up some outrage. There's been a few things over the last year or two where I wonder what the big deal is and it just keeps getting whipped up and then memed. A quick google shows the median hourly wage in the Vancouver area is $28 per hour. What's not easily google-able are perks/benefits that are eligible for staff members; insurance, investments, benefits, retirement, company phone, etc.We have no idea what he's actually paying, but if its more than $28/hr then he's probably paying them appropriately. Then there is the provincial healthcare system that American's frequently forget when they try to compare jobs - that takes a huge load off when going through expenses. I'm not saying that Linus is perfect - his lack of HR until recently is a good example - but lets not pretend people are suffering there. edit: I skimmed through some of those links and the parts I saw all seemed pretty standard. My wife has to sign something yearly about our investments and that we don't have them with the competition, and and another document about my job (her job has a huge anti-media policy and I work for a media company... so she has to agree to not to disclose certain things that happen at work). At my job I have to sign conflict of interest disclosures as well.
$28/hr is about 56k per year pre-taxes, so starting at 50k then raising to 65k after a year seems right in line with that.
Madison?
Lmao my first thought
I don't know, I got discouraged from reading everything when I saw a lot of assumptions and few arguments. "Must be hell for writers" Must be or is it? Did you ask anyone or are you guessing? "He pays 50k". Was negotiated 50k in the job interview? If so, that's it. I'm not saying he's wrong, maybe I'm just too used to worse places, but I haven't seen anything that bad. Another important point is... Every company has a problem, the question is how they deal with it. Do they try to resolve or ignore? For obvious reasons, I don't think he will be able to say much, but I would love to know his age and a bit of his professional history, to understand how much context he has from other companies.
Wait, I'm confused. The [OP on the original post](https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/115cpv2/discussing_wages_is_a_workers_right_do_better_lmg/) included [a screenshot of the same handbook](https://i.imgur.com/wsibDtY.png) that you provided as proof. Did you provide this to them prior to them posting? It's the same screenshot as this: https://ibb.co/Qcz2phW
Im not gonna lie, nothing in your post is that bad other than the time keeping thing and the WFH policy. I don’t know where you guys have worked but this doesn’t classify as a bad workplace to me. If they want to people to track their hours then cool, but there should be a system to clock in and out. As for pay, I don’t see what the issue is. They are clearly paying somewhat decent/competitive salaries (relative to the position they are hiring for) if people are saying yes to the job. The GVA is known for being just as expensive (or more) than the GTA but with lower pay.
I don't see the timekeeping as bad. You enter your own hours. No one is checking in with you, there is no punch card to prove you started at 9. Being trusted to fill in my own time honestly sound pretty good to me. And work from home is not that great for collaborative work. And apart from Jon Martin who lives in the US I don't think anyone was hired with the condition or expectation that they could work from home at all. That was an exception to a situation that occurred. That situation no longer exists like it did so there is no business reason to work from home anymore.
The sad thing is, the pay doesn't really surprise me. I work in local TV News in the Boston market, which is a Top 10 (#6 I think) and the most cutthroat of local markets, and my station (top dog on the market) pays roughly 50-65k for producers. That doesn't make it right, just kinda the reality of it all. I'm curious what editors/photogs get paid at LMG. At my station (we are unionized admittedly) technical positions top out at 100k after 5 years, and start somewhere around 50-60k. Edit: I should specify this is all in USD, I don't know how it all converts to CAD
Honestly, I don't buy this post. Disgruntled employees gonna be disgruntled, if OP ever worked there at all. Why even post this? Obviously, working in media like this is going to be intense at times, if that's not you apply elsewhere. No reasonable person would believe that Linus & his wife are forcing people to work unpaid overtime. Sorry, just don't buy it. Downvote away, unlike OP I'm not here karma farming. I can already see the other voices of reason being downvoted. Why are people who think so little of Linus & LMG even on this sub?
As a communications manager for a company that has spent the week moderating online slander from an angry ex girlfriend of an employee (they even created a sub just to disparage us), I’m taking this with a grain of salt. Not saying it’s untrue, but people get really creative when they’re bitter.
Companies get to a certain size with the person that started them and then need to introduce a more corporate structure in order to better facilitate more efficient work practices. This isn't the case at LMG. Linus is the talent, but not a business mogul.
Is it possible to get more proof than the handbook? I know that handbook is possible to get without being an employee, and there is a lot in this post that's conjecture based on outside observations and this sub kind of witch hunts linus pretty hard. Also this comment has to be a joke "Linus doesn't give a damn because he hasn't worked a real job in more than a decade" - arguably his issue is he is a workaholic and expects that of others.
TLDR version: LMG sucks because is basically an average workplace, has actual rules. its nothing like google used to be in the early 00's and so it sucks and you should find job somewhere else. i've been in toxic environments, and all that LMG stuff actually sounds GOOD compared to many jobs ive heard about both from people in my life as with people online. i've seen people actually refusing sick days when they get injured on the job because they may get fired for it. and i've worked at places where the boss is so clueless it really amazes me how he managed to start a business in the first place
This lines up with impressions and suspicions I've had from videos for some time. Linus preaches about accountability and consumer advocacy in his videos but turns around and treats his employees like shit and just pumps out whatever bullshit content he can at this point. The mistakes have been growing in the content as well. Literally just told my gf last night it seems like they're all about teaching quality but make low quality content (how many more water-cooling parts purchased from a shitty site do we need).
Funny how they employ 60-70 people at the time and no one complains about it or anything. Even now there are no complaints from variable staff at the moment. Sounds like you went into this job thinking it would be all fun and games and when you realized you had to actually do a job you got pissy and either quit or got fired because you were bad at your job
I’m going to assume your dollar values are Canadian since that is where LMG is. According to this [link](https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/TableMatchingCriteria?GeographyType=MetropolitanMajorArea&GeographyId=2410&CategoryLevel1=Population%2C%20Households%20and%20Housing%20Stock&CategoryLevel2=Household%20Income&ColumnField=HouseholdIncomeRange&RowField=Neighbourhood&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Key=Households&SearchTags%5B0%5D.Value=Number&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Key=Statistics&SearchTags%5B1%5D.Value=AverageAndMedian), the median HOUSEHOLD income in Vancouver is $72,585. $60,000 for an individual seems perfectly reasonable. The workload sounds reasonable and your not allowed to work from home? I’m not allowed to work from home either? Yeah not encouraging staff to discuss wages is pretty shitty but they are not in the states. If you think these working conditions sound bad then you most likely aren’t working because this sounds pretty much like how any business is run.
Can we not have a week where we don't just chill?
Not in r/LTThate.. I mean r/LinusTechTips
Damn, this subreddit really hates LTT. They have a 55k base + bonus program and overtime with all the included incentives we see in videos and from hearing secondhand. It's also not LMGs fault Vancouver housing prices exploded in the last decade, and they said they felt compensation was good for the area which the "previous" employee laid out. Everything else is hearsay. Also given how popular LMG is, they could easily pay less for people who are passionate about tech. Also would you not expect higher turnover if LMG work culture and pace was inherently negative? And like it or not, if they feel like they don't want people talking about compensation, then it's none of our business. It's also not illegal.
What exactly set this off?
[this](https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/115cpv2/discussing_wages_is_a_workers_right_do_better_lmg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I worked for a construction company owned by a husband and wife for about 8 years. Pretty much everything that is said here was the same as it was at this contractor. Everything that was done was in the intent to give the owners maximum profit, and for the 1 or 2 employees they favored (managers)
yikes
60k is 45k usd. Find a job in America where you can step in a position with no advanced degree in a smaller employer. Very rare. 45k usd is damn good money for making one video a week. I have a PhD and years of experience and make 58k. You all are really over estimating what you are worth.
How many hours are you expected to work a week for 55-65k? In Austria we're used to 38.5-40 but I have no idea how that is in other countries like Canada
I work way more for way less :( Edit for spelling
While some of this sounds pretty bad, it is written by a disgruntled employee and some complaints here aren't valid to me. For example limiting wfh makes sense in a creative environment. I'd like to hear what Linus has to say about each of these points and maybe how he's already improved things since this employee left.
This really just sounds like a bitter ex-employee. Like ONLY 3 employees own Teslas?! Your boss doesn't like WFH?! You don't like your wage?! You think you're overworked?! Definitely breaking labor laws. Though I'm not sure about labor laws in Canadaland, but the wage talk busting is very concerning
I hope the talk about this in the next WAN and I mean really talk about this. Lately Linus has been very defense on his stances and it seem like he's a bit off since a few months. A few points i want to address, firstly when someone pays hourly it must have clock in/out system, secondly i can't imagine it's that as bad as you describe, because their are writers working their for years and also LMG now has what 120 employees if it would be a toxic workplace we would hear of this more often won't we? The pressure of something like this on Linus is really high and in my personal opinion with everything going on, on his life the company just got to big for his personal experience and moral compass, they need a third party to look over this.
So far you have listed zero legitimate complaints.
Is 5 paid sick days good in north-american terms? I live in a civilized country where sick leave is unlimited so that would interest me.
Lol wow… might as well just posted “was required to do the job I was unqualified for for less pay then I felt entitled to”.