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most successful companies eventually outgrow the leadership of their Founders

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and it looks like my time is now effective July 1st 2023 after 10 wilds

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and very eventful years I will be stepping down as CEO of Linus Media

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Group Creator warehouse and Floatplane media I'm sure you have a lot of

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questions and I'm gonna try to answer them all here like why now what's going

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to happen to the channels in the lab and if not you who's going to be around to

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tell us about our sponsor the ridge Father's Day is coming up luckily Ridge

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is having one of their biggest sales of the Year give the dads in your life a

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unique and functional Ridge wallet or key case so they can do dad things like

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brag about their wallet and keys check the ridge out of the link below and make

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Dad proud the truth is I was never really cut out to be a CEO I remember

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putting it on my business cards in the early days when we had only four

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employees thinking this feels ridiculous and

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I've never really outgrown that I'm a lot of things I'm a bottomless pit of

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Creative Energy an excellent motivator and speaker

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I'm wicked smart Charming really funny but in addition to

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those strengths both real and imagined I have a lot of weaknesses and chief among

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them is that I've just never really had the attention to detail or the

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temperament that it takes to run an organization this large I touched on

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some of this during my Infamous 10 million subscriber stream but the truth

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is while I did manage to wrap that up with a positive message about finding

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motivation to move forward none of those feelings I talked about

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ever went away I wasn't built for this and I'm tired like really can't do this

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anymore tired and if I try to drag myself through another 10 years of

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business administration I know I'm gonna destroy myself and

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probably end up killing the company and the community that I love so much in the

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process I'm at my best when I'm pitching

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new content or product ideas or when I'm problem solving ways to wipe garbage

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sites like user Benchmark out once and for all and I have some good news none

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of that stuff is going to be going away my new role is going to be Chief Vision

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officer which is a stupid like BS sounding made-up role but I I think it

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really is the best one we thought about creative officer but that didn't really

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Encompass what I'm going to be responsible for because my gut and

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principles are what got us to where we are today so I'm still going to be

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charting the path that I think makes sense we don't want to lose our moral

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compass but when it comes to the details

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of how to best utilize our resources to get there

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I need some help I'm sure you have a lot of questions right now like who our

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second sponsor is I'm just kidding we're going to get to that later first I want

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to talk about what isn't did I really write that sorry first I

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want to talk about what isn't going to change and the biggest one is the rest

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of our leadership team Yvonne and I spent the last six months working with

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them on my replacement which included having him work for us on a contract

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basis to ensure that they feel he is a a competent manager and B the kind of

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person who can comfortably integrate into our team they are going to be

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continuing to work alongside him to ensure that this transition goes as

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smoothly as possible the next thing that isn't going to change is me I am not going away you can

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expect to see me on camera just as much as you used to I mean ideally maybe more

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since if all goes according to plan I'm going to be left to do what I do best

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which is engage with our community that's you and create speaking of which

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I'm going to be doing a q a session about this with the community in the

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next week or so make sure you're signed up at Floatplane.com LTT so you don't

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miss it also not changing our ownership structure Yvonne and I are still the

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sole shareholders and directors of the company so there hasn't been some kind

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of corporate buyout that's going to force us to sell our souls to cover

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their purchase investment we did have a substantial offer recently to sell out

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and I might as well speak plainly the offer was a hundred million dollars

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sixty percent cash 40 shares in the

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acquiring company basically it was enough to live in a beachfront hotel for

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the rest of our lives for our kids to do that and for our kids kids to do the

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same we decided not to take it and there were a few reasons for that first is

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that honestly speaking it wouldn't really change our lifestyle much I mean what

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are we going to do buy an even bigger house an even faster car I mean that's

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never really been us anyway second is because we love this company and the

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people in it and I just I just don't think our mission's complete yet I'm not

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sure that it will ever be my point is just that our attitude towards money so

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make lots of it and keep reinvesting and building this thing to do even better

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it's not going to change and you're not going to see the kind of short-term

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thinking that comes from investor pressure our long-term thinking is just

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going to come from this guy instead on that note then let's talk about what

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does change and this is actually mostly for the benefit of my team who's

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watching this but you guys might as well be in on it the biggest change is in

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reporting no one will report directly into me anymore if there's an issue with

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salary transparency or the snacks in the lunchroom or the warranty on the

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backpack or whatever I promise you I give you my personal guarantee trust me

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bro whatever it is there is somebody else who's in charge of that and that is

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by Design Yvonne and I have laid out a clear set of guidelines for how we want

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this company handled with integrity and compassion people first we want to make

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strong investments in building something that's going to continue to offer growth

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opportunities to everyone who's part of our team beyond that though the buck

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stops with the new CEO I'm not going to be stepping in to undermine him and this

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is a big shift that's going to mean we're all going to need to break some

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really old habits with that out of the way then

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who the hell is this guy right the key night among you might have noticed that

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the picture I showed you is actually from the roast a few years back so this

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isn't your first exposure to Mr Taran Tong he was my boss when I worked at

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NCIX which makes him kind of uniquely

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qualified for this position because managing me is a challenging task I am

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everywhere even the most skilled of Administrators have struggled with it

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and he's one of the only people to ever successfully do that in and teach me he

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and I mean if I'm being honest really one of our other colleagues begrudging

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shout out to Jack the two of them taught me most of what I

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know about business both what to do and what not to do shout out Jack

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in the years since his departure from NCIX Taryn has done stints at Corsair

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and Dell both of which have been successful enough that they've thwarted

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all of my previous attempts to hire him seriously since pretty much day one I've

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been looking for an excuse for us to work together again and every single

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time I would talk to him he was worth so much more than the last time that I'd go

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and I guess we're not really ready for this yet but now that the deal is Inked

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I'm really excited I'm excited to work with my friend again I'm excited to have

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a steady hand that I can trust on the tiller of this ship a second Steady Hand

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I haven't forgotten about Yvonne who's the only reason I've lasted this long at

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all and I'm also excited about the mentorship that he can provide to me

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again and also to the rest of our team we are headed into a really exciting new

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chapter guys better videos better products new Investments that are going

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to make us just the Primo source of tech

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information on the web I'm sure of it now I don't want to say too much more

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about him for now once he's onboarded I'm sure he's going to want to prepare a

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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

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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

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he's a super hard working guy with great attention to detail and not only a ton

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of experience in the computer industry he actually has a background in media as

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well he formally wrote at Neo Seeker if you want to go dig up some of his old

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articles for fun sorry Taryn sorry for

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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

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for this big change I would suggest checking out the I'm thinking of

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retiring stream I still can't watch it just to find the time stamps for what I

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put in the video earlier I had to just download a transcript it's just rough

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but it might give you guys a better idea of the headspace that ultimately led me

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to give up the reins so that I can focus just on my love of tech and bringing you

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guys the best content that I can