most successful companies eventually outgrow the leadership of their Founders
and it looks like my time is now effective July 1st 2023 after 10 wilds
and very eventful years I will be stepping down as CEO of Linus Media
Group Creator warehouse and Floatplane media I'm sure you have a lot of
questions and I'm gonna try to answer them all here like why now what's going
to happen to the channels in the lab and if not you who's going to be around to
tell us about our sponsor the ridge Father's Day is coming up luckily Ridge
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Dad proud the truth is I was never really cut out to be a CEO I remember
putting it on my business cards in the early days when we had only four
employees thinking this feels ridiculous and
I've never really outgrown that I'm a lot of things I'm a bottomless pit of
Creative Energy an excellent motivator and speaker
I'm wicked smart Charming really funny but in addition to
those strengths both real and imagined I have a lot of weaknesses and chief among
them is that I've just never really had the attention to detail or the
temperament that it takes to run an organization this large I touched on
some of this during my Infamous 10 million subscriber stream but the truth
is while I did manage to wrap that up with a positive message about finding
motivation to move forward none of those feelings I talked about
ever went away I wasn't built for this and I'm tired like really can't do this
anymore tired and if I try to drag myself through another 10 years of
business administration I know I'm gonna destroy myself and
probably end up killing the company and the community that I love so much in the
process I'm at my best when I'm pitching
new content or product ideas or when I'm problem solving ways to wipe garbage
sites like user Benchmark out once and for all and I have some good news none
of that stuff is going to be going away my new role is going to be Chief Vision
officer which is a stupid like BS sounding made-up role but I I think it
really is the best one we thought about creative officer but that didn't really
Encompass what I'm going to be responsible for because my gut and
principles are what got us to where we are today so I'm still going to be
charting the path that I think makes sense we don't want to lose our moral
compass but when it comes to the details
of how to best utilize our resources to get there
I need some help I'm sure you have a lot of questions right now like who our
second sponsor is I'm just kidding we're going to get to that later first I want
to talk about what isn't did I really write that sorry first I
want to talk about what isn't going to change and the biggest one is the rest
of our leadership team Yvonne and I spent the last six months working with
them on my replacement which included having him work for us on a contract
basis to ensure that they feel he is a a competent manager and B the kind of
person who can comfortably integrate into our team they are going to be
continuing to work alongside him to ensure that this transition goes as
smoothly as possible the next thing that isn't going to change is me I am not going away you can
expect to see me on camera just as much as you used to I mean ideally maybe more
since if all goes according to plan I'm going to be left to do what I do best
which is engage with our community that's you and create speaking of which
I'm going to be doing a q a session about this with the community in the
next week or so make sure you're signed up at Floatplane.com LTT so you don't
miss it also not changing our ownership structure Yvonne and I are still the
sole shareholders and directors of the company so there hasn't been some kind
of corporate buyout that's going to force us to sell our souls to cover
their purchase investment we did have a substantial offer recently to sell out
and I might as well speak plainly the offer was a hundred million dollars
sixty percent cash 40 shares in the
acquiring company basically it was enough to live in a beachfront hotel for
the rest of our lives for our kids to do that and for our kids kids to do the
same we decided not to take it and there were a few reasons for that first is
that honestly speaking it wouldn't really change our lifestyle much I mean what
are we going to do buy an even bigger house an even faster car I mean that's
never really been us anyway second is because we love this company and the
people in it and I just I just don't think our mission's complete yet I'm not
sure that it will ever be my point is just that our attitude towards money so
make lots of it and keep reinvesting and building this thing to do even better
it's not going to change and you're not going to see the kind of short-term
thinking that comes from investor pressure our long-term thinking is just
going to come from this guy instead on that note then let's talk about what
does change and this is actually mostly for the benefit of my team who's
watching this but you guys might as well be in on it the biggest change is in
reporting no one will report directly into me anymore if there's an issue with
salary transparency or the snacks in the lunchroom or the warranty on the
backpack or whatever I promise you I give you my personal guarantee trust me
bro whatever it is there is somebody else who's in charge of that and that is
by Design Yvonne and I have laid out a clear set of guidelines for how we want
this company handled with integrity and compassion people first we want to make
strong investments in building something that's going to continue to offer growth
opportunities to everyone who's part of our team beyond that though the buck
stops with the new CEO I'm not going to be stepping in to undermine him and this
is a big shift that's going to mean we're all going to need to break some
really old habits with that out of the way then
who the hell is this guy right the key night among you might have noticed that
the picture I showed you is actually from the roast a few years back so this
isn't your first exposure to Mr Taran Tong he was my boss when I worked at
NCIX which makes him kind of uniquely
qualified for this position because managing me is a challenging task I am
everywhere even the most skilled of Administrators have struggled with it
and he's one of the only people to ever successfully do that in and teach me he
and I mean if I'm being honest really one of our other colleagues begrudging
shout out to Jack the two of them taught me most of what I
know about business both what to do and what not to do shout out Jack
in the years since his departure from NCIX Taryn has done stints at Corsair
and Dell both of which have been successful enough that they've thwarted
all of my previous attempts to hire him seriously since pretty much day one I've
been looking for an excuse for us to work together again and every single
time I would talk to him he was worth so much more than the last time that I'd go
and I guess we're not really ready for this yet but now that the deal is Inked
I'm really excited I'm excited to work with my friend again I'm excited to have
a steady hand that I can trust on the tiller of this ship a second Steady Hand
I haven't forgotten about Yvonne who's the only reason I've lasted this long at
all and I'm also excited about the mentorship that he can provide to me
again and also to the rest of our team we are headed into a really exciting new
chapter guys better videos better products new Investments that are going
to make us just the Primo source of tech
information on the web I'm sure of it now I don't want to say too much more
about him for now once he's onboarded I'm sure he's going to want to prepare a
little thing to talk to you guys about you know it'd be kind of fun Should I interview him is that as funny as I
think it is you know it doesn't matter we'll figure it out in the meantime I can assure you that he is zero
he's a super hard working guy with great attention to detail and not only a ton
of experience in the computer industry he actually has a background in media as
well he formally wrote at Neo Seeker if you want to go dig up some of his old
articles for fun sorry Taryn sorry for
bringing that up and sorry for turning your introduction here into this segue
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go-to destination for all your Tech needs if you guys want some more context
for this big change I would suggest checking out the I'm thinking of
retiring stream I still can't watch it just to find the time stamps for what I
put in the video earlier I had to just download a transcript it's just rough
but it might give you guys a better idea of the headspace that ultimately led me
to give up the reins so that I can focus just on my love of tech and bringing you
guys the best content that I can