The personality traits that made Linus a very successful YouTuber are probably the exact same personality traits that make him unable to deal with this kind of backlash in a healthy way, or to run a 100-person team for that matter.
drlecompte
joined 2 years ago
Yeah, but from those videos it's unclear whether that's an act or real. Iirc there have been Reddit AMAs about 'what it's like to work for LTT' and the tone there was always 'It's intense' and 'His YouTube persona is not an act' but never anything really damning. The ex-employees there seemed to respect him, but did see it as a place with a harsh work culture and little space for a personal/family life.
I think the fast growth accelerated some bad tendencies in the culture, and now it's all a complete mess that got away from them. The CEO change in hindsight seems quite ominous, now.
He has a grating loud attitude that works well on YouTube and has served him well, and I never found his videos to be obnoxious. But his talents obviously do not include running a 100-person team, that much is certain. I hope he turns it around and makes amends, but given his recent comments and his general attitude, I doubt it.
What I would expect:
- Don't start the meeting by apologizing for being 'boring and corporate' as that sends out the wrong message.
- Don't blame employees for bad company culture. A workplace where people are belittled, bullied, harassed, etc. doesn't just spring into being, it emerges due to neglect of basic HR needs.
- Information on how you'll evaluate and change procedures, because they obviously aren't working.
- Some sort of acknowledgement of psychological harm that has been done by bullying, gossip, etc., instead of just describing it as 'personal problems'.
- Don't emphasize your own stated powerlessness. If you're the CEO, that's a devastating message for employees. If they get the impression that you're not in control, they will absolutely not feel safe.
The video seems to suggest that it's a phone on a table, not any official recording equipment.
This is such a braindead comment. Even a company with an on-site HR team can’t know about something unless someone tells them. What do you think they’re like constantly reviewing cameras and recording all employee conversations or something? The first step is to speak up.
There are quite a few steps to take before counting on people reporting sexual harassment. Train management properly and regularly. Make sure all layers of management are 100% aware of what kind of behavior is and isn't tolerated. Immediately take action on small, seemingly insignificant incidents. Remove or lower any barriers to reporting incidents, etc. I'm assuming here that those things didn't happen, as the company grew quickly and it was probably assumed by Linus that the chummy goofy atmosphere would just scale up and people would be decent to each other. That was a mistake. None of that is mentioned in this speech, nor is any future change in managing company culture. He's basically blaming people for not using the channels that are already in place.
If anyone in that room was experiencing any form of bullying or harassment by their manager, they would not feel reassured by this speech, quite to the contrary. That's a failure of management. Linus doesn't seem to understand what a huge risk people take by speaking out, and how it's not something you 'just do'.
It's good Linus stepped down as CEO since then, he is obviously not great at running a company this size day-to-day, but stamping out a bad culture is tougher than just switching out the CEO.
Imagine being in that room and being someone who is harassed or mistreated, would you feel safe to report it after this meeting? I wouldn't.
Not blame employees for your shitty work culture for starters. 'If you don't report it, we can't know about it' is a huge red flag.
I can pretty much guarantee that this is not the only case. This is the tip of the iceberg.
He's minimizing it. If it were truly just about low level gossip and 'not liking someone' they wouldn't have this meeting.
There are a number of red flags here. 'We can't know about problems if you don't tell us about them' is bullshit. It is not on the employees to ensure that people don't get harassed or mistreated.
The 'sorry we have to be corporate' at the start is also problematic. Dealing with toxic work culture is not 'boring corporate stuff' and leadership should not make that suggestion.
The whole thing feels like a teacher reprimanding a bunch of unruly teens about classroom drama. Which seems misguided at best. If your company is infested with gossip, badmouthing and harassment, it's not because you happened to hire all the gossipy people, it's because you're creating a bad work culture that reinforces that kind of behavior, and you need to address that instead of blaming the people who work for you. Managers don't go around berating colleagues for the heck of it, they do it because it is accepted normalized behavior. And that starts from the top.
tbf, you don't know that. Linus is probably also the guy you can call at 3AM in an emergency, and he'll be there for you. Which might explain the loyalty he gets from early hires.