Linus Media Group Inc.(LMG) is aprivately heldCanadian digital media entertainment company with a focus on technology, founded byLinus Sebastianand Yvonne Ho in 2012. The companyowns and operatesseveral technology-orientedYouTubechannels and podcasts, most popularlyLinus Tech Tips(LTT), serving as their production agency and distributor.[4]
 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Entertainment |
| Founded | October 3, 2012[1]inSurrey, British Columbia,Canada |
| Founders |
|
| Headquarters | Surrey, British Columbia ,Canada |
Key people | |
Number of employees | |
| Divisions | LTT Labs |
| Subsidiaries | |
| Website | linusmediagroup |
LMG's other channels, includingTechquickie,TechLinked,ShortCircuit,andGameLinkedhave amassed a total of 26.39 million subscribers, resulting in 9.16 billion video views between them.
After serving as theCEOof Linus Media Group for 10 years, Sebastian stepped down from this position effective July 1, 2023, replaced by Terren Tong. Sebastian and his wife, Yvonne Ho, remain the sole shareholders in the company, and Sebastian transitioned tochief visionary officer.[5][6][7]
History
British ColumbianativeLinus Sebastianand several others launched Linus Media Group in January 2013 out of a garage,[8]while the company was incorporated in October 2012.[1]Previously Sebastian worked for the now-defunct Canadian online computer retailerNCIXand later on served as a host for the retailer's online video content.[9]Due to high costs and low viewership during the early days of the channel, Sebastian was instructed to create theLinus Tech Tipschannel as a cheaper offshoot of the NCIX channel, to allow for lower production values without affecting the NCIX brand. He describedTigerDirectandNeweggas competitors.[10]Linus Tech Tipswas created on November 24, 2008.[11]He eventually left NCIX following a dispute regarding company management, negotiating an agreement in which he could keep the channel as long as he signed anon-compete clause.[12]Within two years of its establishment, in 2014,TubefilternamedLinus Tech Tipsas being within the "top 1% of Google's preferred advertising channels" on YouTube for the technology category.[13]
Currently, LMG is headquartered inSurrey,British Columbia, Canada.[14]As of May 2023,[update]it has over 100 full-time employees.[15]
The company has several subsidiaries:
| Name | Incorporation date | Purpose | Ref(s). |
|---|---|---|---|
| LTX Expo Inc. | January 21, 2020 | Used to handle the LTX Expo, an annual summer event which LMG has hosted since 2017. It is described as a "convention featuring tech-focused content creators and personalities". | [16][17] |
| Creator Warehouse Inc. | September 17, 2018 | Merchandise company founded by Sebastian that creates and sells LMG branded merchandise, tools and affiliate products through its own dedicated website, LTTstore.com. | [18][19] |
| Floatplane Media Inc.[i] | April 3, 2017 | Online streaming service founded by Sebastian that offers creators a platform to upload and monetize their content. One of its main selling points is its support for higherbit ratecompared to YouTube. All videos are behind a paywall. | [20][21][22] |
In 2022, Sebastian announced the creation of LTT Labs, a division dedicated to testing the validity of manufacturer claims.[23]
On May 18, 2023, Sebastian announced that he would be stepping down as Chief Executive Officer and would be transitioning into a creative role, effective July 1, 2023. Terren Tong, previously an executive ofCorsair Gamingand whom Sebastian worked under during his time at NCIX, was named to replace Sebastian as CEO. In the announcement, Sebastian mentioned he had received a buyout offer for the company from an unnamed entity, valuing it at around $100 million. Sebastian declined the offer.[24][25][26]
March 2023 hack
On March 23, 2023,Linus Tech Tips,TechLinked,andTechquickiewere hacked and subsequently terminated due to a security breach.[27]The hackers changed the channel names, changing the main channel name toTeslaand started broadcasting two identical live streams which appeared to showdeepfakesofElon Musk,Jack Dorsey,and others having a conversation aboutEthereum,GPT-4,and other topics.[28]The hackers also unlisted many videos and later re-published them as well as uploaded videos with titles that stated "DONOTUPLOAD" and subsequently changed the name toLinusTechTipsTempto seem more legitimate.[29]Sometime before 11:51 am UTC, all hacked channels were terminated,[30]although it is unclear if it was by the hackers or by YouTube. Around 3 pm UTC, Sebastian published a message on Floatplane, saying that he had everything "locked down" and that he is working with Google to get everything reinstated.[31]At approximately 3 am UTC, all hacked channels were reinstated, with most unauthorized changes reverted some time later. A video was later published on theLinus Tech Tipschannel about the incident explaining that an employee had downloaded aTrojan horsein the guise of aPDF filefrom a seemingly legitimate sponsor email.[32]
Copyright Strike
On September 7, 2024,Linus Tech Tipsreleased a video stating that one of their recent videos in the series,How to De-Google Your Lifewas taken down by Google[33]due to an alleged breach of Youtube's terms of service. The video stated thatLinus Media Groupreleased a video explaining how to use an Ad Blocker to bypass Youtube's advertisements in a video, which is in breach of the Terms Of Service.[34]Since this was their first copyright strike, the channel did not suffer any additional sanctions.
Notable videos
On January 2, 2016,Linus Tech Tipsreleased a video demonstrating a computer capable of supporting seven individual users at once, with an estimated total cost of $30,000.[35]The video made technology news on a number of websites.[36][37][38]
In August 2017, theLinus Tech Tipschannel uploaded a two part video where they were able to game at16K resolution(15360 by 8640 pixels) using 164Kmonitors in a 4 by 4 configuration.[39]
In April 2018, theLinus Tech Tipschannel uploaded a video claiming thatApplerefused to repair Sebastian'siMac ProafterLinus Tech Tipsstaff damaged it in a product teardown,[40]a refusal thatVentureBeatspeculated is illegal.[41]
In December 2018,Linus Tech Tipsreleased a four-part series detailing their experience buying a gaming PC from 6systems integratorsrepresenting 3 different market tiers.[42]The series has gained over 12 million views and was covered inPC Gamer.[42]
In 2021,Linus Tech Tipsreleased a three-part series showing the process of making an 18-carat gold Xbox Series Xcontroller.The first video showed the prototyping, the second the making of the gold shells, and the third the reactions of employees at their headquarters.[43][44]
Controversies
Allegations of misconduct by GamersNexus
On June 24, 2023,Linus Tech Tipsuploaded a video demonstrating a prototype dualwater blockfrom Billet Labs.[45]The video involved Linus and fellow LMG employee Adam Sondergard testing the block with aGeForce RTX 4090graphics card,even though the unit had been specifically designed for theGeForce RTX 3090 Ti.Sondergard advised that they re-test the block using a 3090 Ti; however, Sebastian decided to publish the video of testing with the 4090, justifying this by saying that re-testing would not change the outcome of the video. Sebastian concluded that the dual design had no advantages and criticized the building experience, saying that consumers should not buy the product.
The review led to a video from GamersNexus, a tech YouTube channel, in which GamersNexus editor-in-chief Steve Burke stated thatLinus Tech Tipshad sold the prototype during a silent charity auction at LTX 2023 without the consent of Billet Labs. More broadly, GamersNexus accusedLinus Tech Tipsof "rushing content out the door" and tarnishing its "accuracy, ethics, and responsibility". They cited a number of videos in whichLinus Tech Tipshad made mistakes which in the eyes of GamersNexus were corrected in an insufficient manner, or not at all.[46][47]
Sebastian made a written response to GamersNexus, saying that the company had experienced "growing pains" and would strive to increase the quality of their work in the future, but he defended not retesting the prototype with the proper graphics card as he saw that it would not improve the results and called the product an "egregious waste of money." Burke criticized this response as "unhinged" and "unapologetic."[48]Linus Media Group later agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of the prototype.
A video featuring Sebastian, CEO Terren Tong, and CFO Yvonne Ho was later published to theLinus Tech Tipschannel on August 16, 2023 apologizing for the handling of the prototype water block along with their response to the situation. In the video, Linus Media Group also announced that video production would be paused for a week while changes were made at the company.[49]The production pause actually lasted 9 days, confirmed by Sebastian in a follow-up video. The apology video was criticized for being monetized as well as featuring jokes about sponsorships and links to the channel's store page. The video was demonetized by Linus Media Group following the criticism.[48][50]The store page was also linked in the video's description, butDexertonoted that this could have been automated by YouTube and not purposefully placed. In response to a comment on Floatplane, Linus Media Group's video sharing platform, suggesting the jokes be removed, Sebastian responded through theLinus Tech Tipsaccount, saying that "We won't be able to make everyone perfectly happy, so what we're going to do is be ourselves—the best version of ourselves—and move past this", and asked "Is a little humor a bad thing...? Honest question".[51]
Allegations of hostile work environment
On August 16, 2023, former Linus Media Group employee Madison Reeve, who was previously hired after appearing in aLinus Tech Tipsvideo with Sebastian for winning a competition and left the company in late 2021, alleged within aTwitterthread of ahostile work environmentwhile she worked at the company, including instances ofassault,sexism,and other inappropriate conduct. She was reportedly scolded for taking sick days, which drove her to commitself-harm,because she saw it as "the only way in my mind to take a day off without being harassed for a reason why".[52][48]
Reeve said that she did not previously make these allegations public, because she "feared even more backlash from a community that was already attacking,defaming,and sending [her]death threats",and that her experience has been" eating away at [her] for 2 years. "According to Reeve, the company suffered from problems with" ego and the bottom line "and that there was an" internal paranoia "about employees leaving the company and setting up their own content creation platforms.[53][54][49][48]
In an email toThe Verge,Linus Sebastian said that Reeve's allegations "aren't consistent with [his] recollections", but said that Linus Media Group'shuman resourcesdepartment would be conducting an internal review. In an additional comment, CEO Terren Tong said that along with the internal review of the allegations, the company would be hiring an outside investigator and publish its findings.[49]The company published the outside investigator's findings in a statement in May 2024, stating the third-party investigator found the allegations of sexual harassment, bullying, abuse of power and retaliation were not substantiated. Allegations of process errors and miscommunication while onboarding Reeve were partially substantiated.[55][56][57]
List of YouTube channels
| Channel | Description | Subscribers | Views[ii] | Videos | Creation date | Hosts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linus Tech Tips | Flagship channel; long-form technology-related videos | 15.9 million | 8.08 billion | 7,006 | November 25, 2008 | |
| Techquickie | Short-form technology-related videos[42] | 4.27 million | 863 million | 1,201 | January 15, 2012 | |
| Channel Super Fun | Formerly Active, miscellaneous videos andgame show–esque challenges[58] | 1.28 million | 369 million | 194 | May 28, 2014 | Dennis Liao |
| TechLinked | Technology and gaming news, produced thrice-weekly; also a podcast[59] | 1.86 million | 508 million | 965 | May 3, 2018 | |
| LMG Clips | Highlight clips from popular videos and livestreams[60] | 556,000 | 249 million | 1,698 | September 21, 2019 | |
| They're Just Movies[iii] | Formerly active film-related vlogcast and podcast[61] | 141,000 | 4.61 million | 161 | December 20, 2019(endedMarch 6, 2024)[62] | |
| ShortCircuit | Technology-relatedunboxings[63] | 2.2 million | 542 million | 801 | January 24, 2020 | |
| Mac Address | Apple-related videos, hosted by Jonathan Horst[64] | 610,000 | 123 million | 111 | January 26, 2021 | Jonathan Horst |
| GameLinked | Gaming news videos, produced twice-weekly. | 452,000 | 19.4 million | 79 | July 22, 2022(launchedJune 29, 2023) | |
| PSU Circuit | Standardized analytical insights into power supplies | 6,890 | 51,430 | 19 | February 29, 2024(launchedMay 24, 2024) |
Notes
- ^Doing business asFloatplane
- ^Subscribers, videos and views updated as of March 29,2024
- ^They're Just Movieswas formerly known asCarpool Critics.
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