I've watched plenty of videos of other people googling themselves, and it's
always super entertaining from the outside, but it never occurred to me how
stressful it would be to actually be the subject of one of these. Uh, without
further ado, let's jump right in. Is Lionus white or Asian?
I'm just going to put that one down. What is Lionus Tech Tips?
Is this Jeopardy? Are we playing Jeopardy right now? That's not a
question. That's an answer. Why does Lionus hate Dbrand?
I don't. But it is absolutely hilarious that enough of you think I do. That
that's one of the autocompletes. Dbrand and I have curated kind of an faux
adversarial relationship throughout the many, many years that we've
collaborated. I think it's been over 10 years now of them sponsoring us and even
going so far as to work together on collaborative products like the Glow
Circuit Skin that I have on my phone right now. I won't lie, there are times
when I think they do take things a little bit too far. Like sometimes the
stuff they put in their newsletters crosses the line into just downright
mean. But the truth is I can take it and
I can dish it right back. You Dbrand, your products cost too much. There. You
like that? Yeah, you do. You'll sponsor me anyway. Who else are you going to go
to? When will Lionus segue to his
sponsor? Oh, I get it. Odo. They got everything you need to run your business
from invoicing to inventory, except they're less like a Swiss Army knife and
more like a sick custom workshop full of every full-size tool you could possibly
want. Maybe there's even a disco ball in there if you want to have dance parties.
You know, I don't know if they actually have that. This is a metaphor.
Okay, obviously this one wasn't real, but the rest of them are and were
compiled using a combination of Google autocomplete prompts along with search
results for my name on Quora and on our forums to find out what exactly it is
that people want to know about me. That is a lot of questions and they didn't
let me peek even a little bit. Let's see how many of them we can get through. Why
does Linus Sebastian drop so many graphics cards? Okay, I do think this
one's a little overblown. One of the most egregious instances of me dropping
something was actually a fake GPU. I was just trying to psych people out. That
GPU never worked. With that said, there
have definitely been times that I have dropped things. I am a little bit
inattentive. I'm a little bit of a butterfingers and I'm often in a hurry.
That all combines to create a perfect storm where things do fall sometimes,
but in general, if I know something is really valuable and important, I can
hold on to it. You're also good at catching stuff.
Thank you. Well, I always say you drop enough things, you get pretty good at catching them.
What does Linus Tech Tips do for a living? Huh. Is this still a question? I
guess that actually makes sense. I have seen people discuss on some of the
videos where we show how many members there are of our team and stuff like
that, you know, oh, what is their real job? Like, what is it that they actually
do? This is it. We make videos. Uh we work
with sponsors, we sell merchandise like on ltstore.com.
We make money from Google AdSense. We have done very occasionally some just
like paid contract production work, but it is not a significant component of our
business. We make tech videos. We educate and we entertain people. Is
Linus Sebastian the king of PC gaming?
This must have been asked by someone who's never seen me play a video game.
If anything, I'm the king of demonstrating that better gear does not
make you a better gamer. That crown I will wear. Another one. What does Lionus
actually do? Okay, you know what? You're
not asking what my job is. You're asking what I do for my job. The biggest part
of it is working with the writing team. So, ideulating, figuring out, you know,
what the best videos that we can make are. That also involves some external
communication whether it's with brands or people who have created super cool
outside projects. Then I work with them on sort of what the flow of that video
will be. I review scripts and of course
I am a host. In my role as chief vision
officer though I do still work with the executive team providing them the
guidance for you know how I feel the company should be run in hopes that they
will execute on it to the best of their abilities. And I also set sort of our
long-term roadmap for what we want to reinvest in. So over the last few years,
a big part of that has been in Labs testing, which has taken more time to
ramp up than obviously we would have liked, but in the long term, I believe
will safeguard our position as a trusted
source of information about technology. Lionus, Sebastian, kids. I have three
children, a boy and then two girls, and
they're teenage and then coming up on teenage and a little bit younger than
that. You might have noticed that I didn't say their names, and I didn't
even give their exact ages. That's because while obviously doing stuff with
my kids is great content, not to mention a lot of fun, we've always felt that
there's a fine line between working with your kids and exploiting your kids. and
we've always been a little uncomfortable with the idea of disclosing a bunch of
personal information about them before they're really old enough for informed
consent. So, my son is getting to the
age where I've actually asked him, "Hey, do you want your name out there? Do you
want to be featured more prominently in videos?" And he's kind of festering on
it right now. The daughters, though, I don't think they're old enough yet, so
we haven't even really given them the option. really doesn't help that they're
ladies and uh the internet is not always
a great place for young women.
Oh, here's a thick one. Can Linus TechTips code?
No. The closest I've ever gotten was that time that my stepdad bought me like
a C+ manual that was like this thick
when I was 16. Never cracked it open, I'm afraid. Do
you think Lionus Sebastian would make a good Canadian prime minister?
No, I'm not tall.
No, I'm actually serious. Like that's that's a thing, right? Like people sort
of imagine leaders as being like, you know, tall and stuff, right? And I'm
probably way too trusting. A big part of being the head of state of any
significant country or even the head of state of Canada is dealing with other
heads of states. And that's about as wretched a hive of scum and villain as I
think even Alec Guinness could imagine. Guess what? It's lime day. This week on
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before it's too late. No, I'm not doing that again. When did Lina Sebastian
start YouTube? I was not involved in the creation of YouTube,
which I'm sure is not what you meant. I always forget this. 2007, I was working
at the computer store and my boss basically pulled me and he goes, "Tiger
Direct has these product videos on their site. They're killing us. They're eating
us alive. We've got to have product videos. You go make product videos. I
had no idea what I was doing. I mean, look at me. I'm like a deer in headlights.
And the rest is history. What is Lionus Sebastian's real name? I wish I'd been
smart enough to adopt a stage name on the subject of our competition, Tiger
Direct. Their host did have some background in performing arts and did
have the foresight to use a stage name rather than his real name. His real
name's out there now at this point, but at least he got to make the decision
about when to disclose it for me. I just I just didn't think that many people
would care about tech tips. I didn't think it would ever matter. My real name
is Lionus Gabriel Sebastian. I've actually thought about changing my legal
name as well, just to make it a little bit more difficult for people to
identity theft me. And maybe I have.
How did Lionus Tech Tip start? The short version is I had pretty much
decided my time at NCX computers had come to an end. So I walked into the
president's office and I said, "Look, I think that my best marketable skill is
making videos. So we have two options here. One is I can go to a competitor
and I can make videos." Option number two is I can work out a deal with you
where I take this Lionus Tech Tips channel that I don't think you can
really use anyway. I mean, it's got Lionus right in the name of it. At that
time, it was much harder to rename a channel. So, I'm going to take that with
me. And in return, I will sign a non-compete. I will continue to help you
build up your team around the NCIX TechTips brand, and I will grant you a
perpetual license to use any Linus TechTips content as rich video
merchandising on your website. In return, I expect to pay a sum of $1 for
the Linus Tech Tips channel. He took it and I'm really glad he did because
otherwise I could be working at Amazon now. I couldn't actually. I did apply
there but they never responded to me.
You missed out. Amazon is Lionus Tech Tips hacked.
Um, not currently that I know of. I
mean, my phone did buzz just now. Everything's fine. Cool. No, no, no, I'm
not. It's happened before, though. We've lost the channel a couple of times. Why
does Linus Tech Tips use Crab Rave? It's a banger.
Where did Linus Tech Tips used to work? My entire job history all the way back
to that summer when I worked as a camp counselor in Quebec, is on my LinkedIn
along with a really outdated picture of me. I have not updated that since I
started Atlantis Media Group, which was over 10 years ago. So, if my employer
was worried I'm looking for opportunities elsewhere, I think they can probably relax.
How is Linus Tech Tips doing? Man, we're
really getting to the core of it. We're in a bit of a lull. Our peak for
viewership was kind of back in the co era when we had the benefit of
affordable computers. That is until the big crypto run that drove GPU pricing up
through the roof where it has stayed.
And people getting into, you know, remote work slash getting into gaming
for the first time in their lives. Since then, a combination of factors have made
it hard for us to achieve the same highs that we did in the past. High prices for
our hobby, competition from other hobbies now that we can, you know, go
outside, a proliferation of niche channels that are focused on a
particular vertical and do an outstanding job of covering it. And I
would say another factor is increased competition on YouTube in general for
people's attention. There is so little room for error in the current YouTube
meta. Every video needs to be a banger or it just won't perform. Doesn't matter
how many subscribers you have. Lionus TechTip store. Did we just take anything
that autocomp completed from putting my name in it? Yes, Lionus TechTip store.
What did Linus Tech Tip study? Hm. What did I study or what did I learn?
Definitely studied some things. I took first year calculus for instance in
university twice. Failed both times.
That was when I realized the hard sciences was probably not the place for
me. So, I shifted and I did some psychology and some English literature
and I got really good grades while attending probably a solid quarter of my
classes and I went, "Boy, if it's this easy to get good grades in these
subjects, maybe the degree that I'm going to end
up with is not going to be worth anything." So, I dropped out and went
back to the computer store, which ended up being a really good career move for me. Though, it is not one that I'm
necessarily recommending. Stay in school, kids. Why doesn't Linus
Sebastian even use Linux? Lionus Sebastian uses Linux every day. My NAS
at home runs Linux. True NAS scale.
Absolutely love it. I also use Linux here at work where predominantly our
infrastructure runs on it. Is that not enough for you? As for why I don't use
it in my desktop, for me, compatibility
across any of the games that I could want to play is worth a little bit more
to me than some of the admittedly nice creature comforts of Linux. With that
said, Linux as a living room OS for me
has a lot of appeal. So once Steam OS makes its way onto just a quick and easy
installer that I can chuck on any PC and then throw as like a Steam Machine
console in my family room. I am so there. Where is Lionus wife from?
I know where her parents are from. One's from Malaysia, one's from Brunai. I
believe she was actually born in Brunai and she moved here when she was very
young, like 3 years old or something like that. So functionally speaking,
she's from Canada. Culturally, we call her CBC, Canadianborn Chinese, even
though she's not technically born here. Why didn't Linus Sebastian become a
billionaire after creating Linux?
Common mistake. You're thinking of Linus Torvoltz. That'd be a fun collab,
wouldn't it? Like, let us know in the comments if you'd like to see us do
something with the OG tech Linus. Is
Lionus a robot? This can't be stuff
people are actually asking, is it? Why does Linus Tech Tips have so
many employees? Well, this may surprise
you, but we do a ton of stuff. In any
given week, we're going to have 10 plus video shoots to sort out. We're probably
going to have some kind of apparel or uh physical merchandise launch. We're going
to have to do all of the accounting for all of that. Move around all the
physical items that need to be moved. Do product testing for the LT Labs website.
There's just a lot of jobs to do here. Don't forget about Floatplane. I mean,
we have Sammy who's basically dedicated to creating exclusive content for our
Floatplane supporters. lg.gg/flatlane.
You guys can check that out. There's just a lot to do. All right, let's grab
one from the bottom. What does Linus Tech Tips use to benchmark? Ooh, that's
a good question. Over the last few years, we've been working on a software
that we call Markbench, which is pretty much a fancy automation tool for
benchmarking games and other pieces of software. Because the truth is, you
cannot use just one piece of software in
order to determine the performance of one component or system relative to
another. In theory, there are suites
that can help to give you some idea. Something like a Geekbench or um Future
Marks products, but in practice, what we found is that the very best way to test
things is to use realworld workloads. I'm talking actual games that run in
actual engines that people use to play video games and actual applications like
the Adobe Creative Suite or Blender that
real professionals are using to create their work. If you can quantify how a
system performs in those real applications, then there is no need for
synthetic benchmarks. At least that's our belief. Where is Linus Tech Tips
located? I used to say Vancouver just
cuz internationally people are more likely to know where that is, but I've
lived in Siri so long and Siri has gotten a lot better than its old
reputation used to be. But I think now I'm ready to say it. Siri, BC. Does
Linus detectives have a boss? This one's a little complicated. Yes, as the chief
vision officer, I do report to our chief executive officer, Taran Tong, who I
hired as our primary shareholder. So, I
report to him and he reports to me. The
relationship has to be then highly collaborative and there has to be a lot
of trust there in order for us to together guide the company forward. But
in terms of the dayto-day, yes, if he tells me to do something, I am supposed
to do it. There's also a lot of bottom up bossing that tends to happen because
I am notoriously scattered and disorganized and I kind of rely on my
team to yell at me and tell me where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to
do. Right, Reys? Yeah.
Lina, Sebastian, age. I am 38 years
young. And that's how you know you're old, the second you start saying years
young. Why does Linus Tech have so many sponsors?
It becomes kind of this perpetual emotion machine, right? You start making
more videos and then you need more team members and then you need more income
and then the sponsors expect you to like make more videos to attach their sponsor
messages to and it becomes this this cycle. Another big factor for me is
diversification. We don't want to be beholden to any one particular sponsor
or even five or 10 sponsors. Having a
diverse stable of sponsors that we can rely on to work with is a huge part of
maintaining our ongoing independence. What are some of Lennis Sebastian's
hobbies? Work, raising kids,
um my wife. I do make a little bit of
time for gaming. more over the last couple of years. I would say I've got a
couple hundred hours, for example, in this rog light hockey game called Tape
to Tape. Absolutely love it. Team over there is super small, but they're
killing it. Um I'm I've been painting my motorcycle for the last couple of years.
The only reason it's taken so long is because it was my first time and I made a lot of mistakes. Oh, badminton, right?
I forgot about that. It's Look, look, I'm under a lot of pressure here, okay?
I'm an avid badminton player to the point where I actually started up my own
badminton gym. Is Lionus Sebastian a
psychopath? Okay, I'm going back to the phone here
for a second. I forget. Oh, psychopathy test. Seeing someone cry has little
effect on me other than maybe irritating me. Good lord. How does Linus Tech Tips
make money? We actually did a video on this. We have a whole video that
outlines all the different ways we make money. Those are them. Does Linus
TechTips have a degree? I don't know. We'd need a thermometer, wouldn't we?
No. I was a really good student in high school. Um, so I have like my grade 12
of like basically everything, even though it was elective to pursue like
all the different sciences and stuff. Um, but post high school, I was not a
very good student. I got really distracted by a girl. She managed to
finish her degree somehow, but she's just plain smarter than me, I
think. Did Lionus, Sebastian, and Eminem
ever meet? No.
No. I don't know where we ever would have crossed paths. Though, I will say
some problematic behavior aside, kind of a fan. Marshall, if you need a gaming PC
or whatever, I would be happy to come out and deal with that for you. We on a
firstname basis, me and Eminem. You think that's gonna work? I It could
work. How do you wash Linus Tech Tips mouse pads? Oh, okay. I think the
official advice is to use a damp cloth, like a microfiber style cloth, and then
just like um kind of wipe them down. I
personally have had success with,
but I'm not supposed to recommend that because it is not the official care
instructions. Does Lionus own Lionus Tech Tips? Yes. After we acquired it
from NCIX, the computer store that I used to work at, Ivonne and I took
control as the sole shareholders and directors of Linus Media Group
Incorporated, which owns Linus Tech Tips, ShortCircuit, all our various
channels, as well as Flowplane. Linus, Sebastian, Jimmy Fallon. Hey, that would
be fun. Do you think they do you think they'd want to like collab again?
That was really fun. it. I I know, you know, I get a million views every day or
whatever, but for some reason, the the glamour of traditional media was just it
hits a little bit different. I had people from all different parts of my
life reaching out to me being like Jimmy Phone and uh and and even for me, like,
dude, that moment before they announced my name and I like walk across the
stage, it's like practically hyperventilating. You
could tell how stressed I was at the beginning. And I'm totally comfortable
in front of a camera. I'm even comfortable in front of a live audience at this point with like the uh expose
and stuff that we've done, but that hit different. It's just it's glamorous, you
know? Wasn't ready for it.
There's one last special one that they didn't put in the fishbowl apparently.
What is the greatest tech tip ever told by Lionus Sebastian of Lionus Tech Tips?
Have you ever tried turning it off and turning it back on? Have you ever tried
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I'll file these papers later. Okay, let's go.
If you guys enjoyed this video, I don't know, maybe go check out the time I read
mean comments. That was that was
hurtful, but fun.