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 Linus white or Asian?
I'm just gonna put that one down. What is Linus tech tips?
Is this Jeopardy? Are we playing Jeopardy right now? That's not a question. That's an answer
Why does Linus hate D brand? I don't but it is absolutely hilarious that enough of you think I do that
That's one of the auto-completes. D brand and I have curated kind of an
Full 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 D brand your products cost too much there. You like that
Yeah, you do. You'll sponsor me. Anyway, who else are you gonna go to?
When will Linus segue to his sponsor? Oh, I get it
Okay, obviously this one wasn't real But the rest of them are and we're compiled using a combination of Google auto-complete 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 peak 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
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 no, what is their real job? Like what is it that they actually do?
This is it we make videos
We work with sponsors. We sell merchandise like on LTT Store calm
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 year does not make you a better gamer that crown. I will wear
Another one. What does Linus 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 ideating 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
Linus 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
The internet is not always a great place for young women. Oh
Here's a thick one. Can Linus TechTubes code?
No, the closest I've ever gotten was that time that my stepdad bought me like a C plus manual that was like this thick when I was 16
Never cracked it open. I'm afraid Do you think Linus 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 villainy as I think even
Alec Guinness could imagine When did Linus 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 that 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 Linus 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 it did have the foresight to use a stage name rather than his real name
His real name is 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 Linus 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 Linus tech tips start? The short version is I had pretty much decided my time at NCIX 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 Linus tech tips channel that I don't think you can really use
Anyway, I mean it's got Linus 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 tech tips brand and I will grant you a
Perpetual license to use any Linus tech tips content as rich video merchandising on your website in return
I expect to pay a sum of one dollar 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
He missed out Amazon is Linus tech tips hacked
Not currently But I know what 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 that Linus 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 COVID 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. It doesn't matter how many subscribers you have
Linus tech tips store Did we just take anything that auto-completed from putting my name in it? Yes Linus tech tips store
What did Linus tech tips study? Hmm. 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 gonna end up with is not gonna 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?
Linus Sebastian uses Linux every day
My NAS at home runs Linux Trina 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 far as 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 on to 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 Linus wife from?
I Know where her parents are from
Once from Malaysia once from Brunei I believe she was actually born in Brunei and she moved here when she was very young like three years old or something like that
So functionally speaking she's from Canada culturally. We call her CBC Canadian born 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 Torvalds. I'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 Linus 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 gonna have 10 plus video shoots to sort out. We're probably gonna have some kind of apparel or
Physical merchandise launch. We're gonna have to do all of the accounting for all of that move around all the physical items
That need to be moved to do product testing for the LTT 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 LMG.gg slash Floatplane you guys can check that out. It's just a lot to do
All right, let's grab one from the bottom. What does Linus tech tips use to benchmark? Oh, that's a good question
Over the last few years, we've been working on a software that we call mark bench, 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 ideas something like a geek bench or
Future marks products, but in practice what we found is that the very best way to test things is to use real-world
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?
Hmm. I used to say Vancouver just because
internationally people are more likely to know where that is but I've lived in Surrey so long and
Surrey has gotten a lot better than its old reputation used to be but I think now I'm ready to say it
Surrey BC does Linus tech tips have a boss
This one's a little complicated. Yes as the chief vision officer
I do report to our chief executive officer Taryn 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 day today. 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 Reese. Yeah Linus 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 tips have so many sponsors?
It becomes kind of this perpetual motion 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 ten 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 Linus Sebastian's hobbies?
work raising kids
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 roguelite hockey game called tape to tape
Absolutely love it team over there is super small, but they're killing it
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 and to the point where I actually started up my own badminton gym is Linus Sebastian a
psychopath Okay, I'm going back to the phone here for a second. I forget. Oh
Psychopathy test Seeing someone cry has a 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 Tech Tips 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
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
But post high school. I was not a very good student
Really distracted by a girl. She managed to finish her degree somehow, but
She's just plain smarter than me, I think Did Linus 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 first-name basis me and Eminem. You think that's gonna work? 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
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 Linus own Linus Tech Tips
Yes, after we acquired it from NCIX the computer store that I used to work at
Yvonne 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 Floatplane 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 know, you know, I get a million views every day or whatever
But for some reason 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 be like
And 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 me you could tell how stressed I was at the beginning. 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
Exposed 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 Linus Sebastian of Linus tech tips?
Have you ever tried turning it off and turning it back on have you ever tried this segue
To our sponsor if you guys enjoyed this video, I don't know. Maybe go check out the time I read mean comments
That was that's hurtful But fun