The YouTube channel “Linus Tech Tips” got into serious trouble about 10 days ago: After criticism from a competitor and allegations from a former employee, the channel hit the brakes. Now founder Linus Sebastian is back with a video. He appeared dejected but also combative: Quality over quantity is supposed to fuel the big tech channel now.
What was the crisis about? Linus Tech Tips faced a two-stage crisis about 2 weeks ago:
- First, the direct competitor on YouTube “GamerNexus” shot against the channel: There were allegations of improper procedures, claiming the team auctioned off a borrowed prototype. The channel was said to focus more on quantity than quality.
- Shortly after, a former employee spoke out, accusing the company of putting such enormous pressure on employees that she had to injure herself to get a day off.
- After initial attempts to contain the damage only provoked more criticism, the channel withdrew for more than a week: No new videos, tweets or products were released.
Channel aims to grow beyond “just entertainment”
This is the announcement: On August 26, Linus Sebastian returned with a video. He said he was “justly” criticized and deserved it. However, he added: They have been working on many of the criticisms raised for months and years. Therefore, they have also hired a new CEO.
The team has now done something completely new for a week, engaged in intense self-reflection, through passionate discussions and meetings, they questioned themselves and initiated new processes.
The result:
This underscores our new commitment to do everything, and to become more than “just entertainment” and to become the authority and voice that you deserve and that we all want to be.
After 10 years, no more “We release a new video daily” mentality
How do they plan to achieve this?? They are abandoning the mentality of “We release a new video every day and have been doing it for 10 years; the streak must not break”. If a video is not ready for broadcast, they will not air it but halt the process.
They want to be more transparent, correct videos on-screen, reshoot if necessary, or take them off the network entirely in case of serious errors.
Additionally, they want to ensure that employees truly understand what they are doing: They should not just be drawing graphs, but understanding what the graph is about.
The team also wants to leverage the knowledge of fans and form a “Community Squad” of about 10 experts who can provide direct feedback to correct the experts’ mistakes.
How did Linus appear? In the first part of the video, the YouTuber seemed visibly affected, striving for closeness and transparency.
In the second part of the video, however, he went on the offensive, as some claims about his company and working methods that arose during the criticism seemed to have upset him. Linus Sebastian then corrected some of the more absurd allegations against his company:
- No one is being strictly monitored.
- He is certainly not simultaneously responsible for the HR department.
- Not excessively many people have left the company – at a media company, departures are just louder than elsewhere.
Although he reached out so strongly to the fans, he distanced himself from the parts of the community that acted aggressively towards the team, harassing and threatening employees: Those who do this are not part of the community. People should be ashamed of their behavior. For this shit, there is zero tolerance.
How is the video being received? The video now seems to be received much better than the initial attempts at damage control.
Generally, there is relief that the channel is back and anticipation for how the “quality over quantity” approach and the transparency initiative will manifest.
Linus Sebastian once tested how much a gaming PC for 10,000 € performs:
YouTuber spends 10,000 € on a gaming PC – but the differences to a 600 € system are tiny
