with over 100 employees producing nearly 20 videos a week there are very few
companies quite like lonus Media Group so what's it like being an employee here
I don't know I'm the boss which is why my team has put together this video to
try and explain what it's like to work for me with me and near me at this wild
company and we're going to see if I'm completely out of touch the only rules
are that I'm not allowed to be involved in this video at all including watching
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multiple viewing positions check it out at the link below disclaimer disclaimer
disclaimer Daddy disclimer yeah my name is Sarah but uh
I'm a designer here and occasional host and I've been here for about 3 years I'm
Sean Caldera I am our marketing lead here at Linus Media Group and I've been
working here since June 2022 I'm Anthony I'm a writer I've been working here
since 2017 what I am Emily I'm a video
editor here part-time camera operator sometimes supervisor sometimes my name
is Arthur some of you guys might know me as Arty I am the social media manager
I'm Maria I am the thumbnail artist and I also take pictures for the merch store
I run TechLinked and LMG clips and the
pre-production part of the WAN Show and I've been here since April 2018 that was
part-time though I think if we look back at the original goal of creating a team
that was fun to work with and hardworking and passionate that it's
absolutely been a huge success what's your favorite part of working at LMG oh
Jesus Christ it's going to sound cheesy but my
favorite part about working here is the people I know blah blah blah should be
something better but I find there's a lot of like-minded people that I have
very enjoyable conversations with on a daily basis and I often find that I
would rather just hang around and talk with my co-workers than work so I think
my favorite part of working here is the
variety and there's also a lot of freedom to do the weird stuff that
nobody else would be able to every day and I'm learning something every project
whether it's uh something new or something I already know about I'm going
to have to learn more about it I get to come in work on crazy problems most of
which Al Linus's fault uh but you know
it's it's fun my favorite part of working at LMG is probably how different
it is every day there's always like 600 different things I should be doing and
there's about 18 hours of work that needs to be completed I think one of the
worst Parts about working at LMG is that there's like 18 hours of work to do
every day and all the tasks are very varied I would probably say Colton it's
fun stuff but in a hurry every week is stressful every Friday every day is hard
the upside of that is that you don't look at the clock and go oh it's only 2
you go oh my God it's already 2 uh which makes for a happier life I think it's
just that your life might be shortened we we're growing pretty fast right now
and that presents a bunch of challenges in terms of like getting systems in
place um I don't really think that's a negative thing that's just something we
have to push through I don't follow things up I am kind of scattershot when
it comes to training especially documentation like creating processes is
not something that I'm good at at all I find it frustrating sometimes I wish we
could collaborate a little bit more and so I think that ties into I don't love
that we have to release so many videos I don't know what our current count is weekly but I know it's very high and
every video has to make it out uh and there's not you know a huge amount of
resources or time that can be given to any particular one and so I find very
rarely am I particularly proud of a video I've worked on because of the
rising production values in our videos I feel a lot like I'm crunching more than
I ever was that and we're much more strict about how much time we're able to
work in the course of a day so like I can't stay a little longer in one day to
make sure I don't have to rush the next day so everything's kind of more compressed and there's more to it and I
feel like a lot of the time I'm I'm just like
rushing I don't like arriving at a set
time I don't like leaving at a set time I don't like working exactly 8 hours per
day if I could do 6 one one day and 10 the next I think that would be great the
problem is that no matter what it is if
you have any kind of flexibility someone is going to ruin it for everyone and the
bigger you get the better the chances that that's going to
happen I'd say fat gained 30 lb since I started here
and yet I'm somehow always tired parking
sucks there's no parking if you're not here by like 9:00 you're probably not
getting a parking spot and you're going to have to park on the street I think the worst part about working here is for
a long time my direct report was lonus and he is the most stubborn person I've
ever met in my entire life when he does like the thumbnail reviews with me one
day he told me like oh why do you have my eyes blue I didn't turn your eyes
blue like what are you talking about
like he's in his own world and he's be very BC lus is the only boss I've ever
had who hides in the bathroom to avoid doing work and that makes him very
relatable to me he farts a lot just constantly generally he has a super good
spirit about everything that we're doing uh and he obviously cares a lot about
all of the projects that we're working on too I think lonus is a very good boss
he does have his ego he does have his like you know biggest fish in this bowl
kind of thing going on he does surround himself with like dissenting viewpoints
I think working for me is the experience that you make it and I see that people
will just kind of treat me however they think a boss should be treated we yell
at each other a lot the only thing that I can really do is say look don't call
me sir or you know whatever else right and I tell him he's an idiot he's very
demanding and he has really high standards um he does change his mind but
it's usually for a good reason so I've
only ever had to basically argue full
stop once I enjoy working with lonus a
lot when I first started at the company I was worried you know I would find him
to be a rich guy weasel full of himself but what I find that he's more grounded
uh and he's self-deprecating in a way that I really appreciate if I had to
distill down what makes me good at this I think it's a combination of just
generally being passionate about technology and having add um really
though my superpower is that I get bored before anyone else gets a chance to you
know it's from the writing team lius we should do a video about this I'm like ah
yeah I don't know we've done something kind of like that I don't want to do that again you know or the audience
saying we want more power supply unboxings and I go these are played out
I have nothing left to say I'm bored let's move on I think that's what's kept
the channel fresh all these years when I'm training new designers on my team to
work with lus uh the first thing I say is don't tell him no right like he's
going to come with you with an idea and he's going to be super passionate about it and your job is not to say no but
it's to give him every single reason why not to do it or if it's it's not a dumb
idea what challenges present him in
going the path that he chooses right it's like it's kind of like diverting
his attention into like a channel rather
than him doing a shotgun of like this is what it should be so working with less
is like trying to guide a river
sometimes it's like you can't stop it but you might be able to get it to move
in a particular direction there's a lot of energy behind it sometimes it's a
little intimidating cuz like uh to me he's still like a celebrity I know we
you know we work together um you know I'm able to talk to him whenever uh but
to me he's he's such a he's that guy you
know I don't know this is the liess of Li Tech tips can be a little daunting
but once you get comfortable in your position and he starts to get to know you he's a great guy when he's outside
of his Persona of like on and getting ready to be on camera he's super
generous super nice intense a little bit when he's filming but I think in the way
of wanting to be constructive and get things running the best they can do what
the is up with lius he's not like other
people I have a psychology degree I
could talk about lonus for decades I
think on camera he just has to be flamboyant and really out there but
that's not necessarily who he is all the time otherwise he would like combust
like you can't have that energy all the time he's happy on camera and a normal
person when he's not not on camera slightly more likable in
person if you've seen the WAN Show you
pretty much know what Linus is like in person it's not like going to be an
Ellen degenerous situation where he's like a jerk he's a very nice person he's
very good at keeping his cool he's very professional last time I saw him get
like mad on like pretty mad CU a shoot was a complete debacle in very public uh
was two years ago already but I if I was
in his position I would have a way worse reputation I would describe myself as an
A type chaotic um generally trying to do
the right thing but also resigned to the fact that I can't change everything and
I think that can come across badly sometimes I care too
much how has LMG changed since you've
started bro how has LMG changed since I
started oh my god oh
it's gone from it's sort of a company to
it's definitely a company like I'll level with you I don't actually know
half of the people who work here anymore we're in multiple buildings multiple
different departments managers I mean even just the the that standard
hierarchy that you have of like a department and a manager reporting to
the CEO is like fairly new we've also
added channels we've added Labs I mean we've hired so many people I can't hold
the door open for anyone cuz I have no idea if they actually work here
and then as you grow that rapidly you have to start dealing with like real
company stuff like hey we need a system
for this because it's almost like unmanageable by a single person or
double the amount of people using the shop so that means there triple the
amount of mess we went from just a few
of us in the garage trying to survive with the hope that one day we will have
enough Revenue that we can all make a comfortable living I was hand assembling
our first set with sheets of drywall and a 2X two frame that I didn't even know
how to do properly like I did everything myself whereas now I get in trouble for
doing things myself I wanted to walk between the offices and James like
pulled me aside and was like you can't do that that costs us whatever an
opportunity cost I mean there's someone standing right out there making sure
that I go to wherever I'm supposed to go to next right now in some ways I'm the
boss in other ways I am just ordered
around all day has lonus changed um well
of course as the audience knows he's gone through the whole am I going to
retire portion the environment around him has changed like it used to be the
case where he could just easily say I would go and hang out with everyone who
works here anyone who works here is is cool and like they're all great people
it's like now he just doesn't even know that it might seem like lonus has
changed but the thing is that everything else around him has changed and he
hasn't and that's where some of the the idea that you know minus is out of
touch because spending $11,000 on a GPU
doesn't sound like a bad idea anymore but that's mostly because the shock is
worn off like it's it's been like that for years now I was very naive coming
into this I had no idea where this was
headed um I think I've had to grow up or at
least act like I've grown up a lot I have to be more professional now than I
used to be luke tells me I've changed
he says it's mostly okay though he still likes to use Windows when it's not
acceptable like in a server he still is very stubborn I do
miss when things were simpler and I think that you would you would miss that
because it's it's fun you know it's like there's not really a hierarchy you're
just kind of trying to get it out the door and to a certain extent we still do
that but doing the hard stuff is fun for
a while and then you kind of get sick of it and now you want help I miss how it
used to be every day but I also see the opportunity that is over the horizon
because if I wasn't looking for what's new what's next what are the career
advancement possibilities here Ed would still be our only video editor Luke
would still be what making notes for scripts come on right nobody's going to
stick around for that I think our retention here has been really good and I think that's a big part of it I think
maybe there's an assumption that like working for a YouTube company is going
to be this other worldly experience like
we're running around as if we're doing Channel Super Fun stuff all the time but
in reality it's surprisingly normal we
get to make cool content that lots of people enjoy but at the end of the day I'm just sitting at a desk like you you
know it's not really any different it's not as easy as we made a video there's
people behind it and that's the whole story our hosts the our staff they don't
really put on a Persona when they're behind the camera that is them and
that's something I think a lot of people don't realize especially when when
people comment you know whenever people have criticism obviously we take it in
but you know sometimes people aren't so constructive about it I mean go on the
subreddit and read the comments 95% of
them are completely Incorrect and 4% of them are mostly incorrect leaving 1%
that has any modicum of correctness to it the subreddit infuriates me there's
always a few people that you're like that person I hate that person you
Colton so the things that I would change are
probably things that would uh just hurt us overall I'd be like let's not have
deadlines let's let's publish less
videos if I could change one thing about LMG I'd make a car Channel yeah
yeah I wish we could back off the amount
and focus on quality for a bit and kind of raise the bar of what we're
outputting a little bit more I would like to focus on more content that is
less expensive it's hard to make that content but at the same time I think
there's a huge audience for people who want that so that's what I would like to
see uh more time for projects would be good I would probably try and hire like
five more writers and just allow us more time to
work on a video we never have time for
retrospection it's always just that's
out what's the next thing moving forward moving forward moving forward I
acknowledge that it's a treadmill but the reality it is that that's not a pace
that I set that's a pace that's set by the platform a pace that's set by the
audience a pace that's set by the tech industry in general I think it's kind of
in our DNA I think if we ever freed up more hours we would just well let's have
a whale land let's we just are always put I think that's part of the culture
that comes from lus and goes all the way down is like we're just always going to squeeze every last drop out would be
nice if the pace was lessened a little bit so we could just like relax maybe
just like have some meetings on Fridays have time to like de if you're look in
the rearview mirror how things went but honestly what the main thing I would
change is the location I would move the
office I would go to the cheapest cost of living place can we relocate to
Calgary like is that an option more dinosaurs have a bitter's neck bar like
the one in KD has on he's a studio I think just adding more people and
personalities and getting to show more vloggy stuff and I think having an
opportunity to show off some of the great people here that the audience doesn't get to meet that are really
awesome people but I think I think we should uh continue to raise up uh the
new or next generation of hosts and
personalities what's the weirdest thing that's happened to you since You'
started oh definitely taking pictures of
my bus in underwear for lt.com modeling
underwear was really weird uh posting mostly naked pictures of myself on the
internet the door was closed and the lights were off and I open the set and
lonus is standing there pulling up swim trunks
he's basically Buck ass naked and I'm
standing there never met him before never seen him in person slack jaw just
like uh he's like can I help you as he's
pulling up his swim trunks I'm like hi
I'm Tim I'm from the Labs I need to get behind you and he's like oh you're one
of Gary's group that makes sense I've slapped lonus in the face I've thrown
dildos at Dennis like there's a b-roll shot from the uh only fans video where
I'm like wearing wearing some like quasi fetish outfit anything for a video one
of the weird things that happened to me was I was asked to buy a cantaloupe cuz
we we needed an analog for someone's ass
the weirdest thing I've had to do here was we James strib's wife's pregnant
belly cast under a dress for a photo
shoot for a video I have multiple company tattoos on me for no reason I
didn't get paid for those I have an LT store tattoo I've got an Illuminati
tattoo I've got a dbrand tattoo is there anything that you wanted to say that I
haven't covered or if there's one more thing that I could tell the audience it
would be this message from our sponsor
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like 4 years ago maybe some opinions have changed