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I'm James, I'm head of writing, and I've worked here over six years now.

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My favorite part of working here, it's a very agreeable job. It's a cool job, get to wear

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whatever you want, get to work on cool stuff. I describe it as fun stuff in a hurry. It's not

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an easy job, but it's a cool job. And there's lots of great perks. Lots of great perks. I probably

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haven't bought a piece of consumer electronics from a retail store since I've worked here. I just

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always just wait for the Christmas party or buy it from work or something like that. It's fun stuff,

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but in a hurry. Every week is stressful. Every Friday, every day is hard. This isn't the kind

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of job where you can just like text all day. I have my phone just on Do Not Disturb because I'm

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in so many group chats where my friends or wife are at work and they're just texting all day because

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their job's allowed them to do that. Not here, it's like there's so much to do. The upside of that

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is that you don't look at the clock and go, oh, it's only two. You go, oh my god, it's already two.

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Which makes for a happier life, I think. It's just that your life might be shortened.

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I think Linus is a very good boss. I think he's a better boss than I would be.

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Yeah, I look up to him in a lot of ways. I think he's a very fair person. He does have his ego.

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He does have his biggest fish in this bowl kind of thing going on, but he does surround himself

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with dissenting viewpoints. Pretty much all of his lieutenants are all kind of...

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We all have some parts of his personality. Some of us are very contrarian.

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He's not surrounded by sycophants like Putin or something. He's getting real information because

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we'll just argue with him and he will listen to our arguments and we'll get to the bottom.

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Usually we reach consensus, but he does sometimes just use his veto powers,

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which can be frustrating, but at least he hears you out. Has Linus changed? Well, of course,

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as the audience knows, he's gone through the whole, am I going to retire portion?

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So we've kind of been with him for that journey, but a lot of the core things haven't changed in

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terms of what he believes he owes the audience, what he will and will not do for sponsors.

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A lot of those things have just been set in stone. Has he changed? The environment around him has

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changed. It used to be the case where he could just easily say, I would go and hang out with

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everyone who works here. Anyone who works here is cool and they're all great people.

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It's like now he just doesn't even know that because there's people he doesn't recognize.

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I think that kind of bothers him and we all feel it to an extent where you're at the lunch

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table and you're just like, who is that? It's getting crazy. The change management aspect of

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this job is nuts. The fact that it's growing so fast year on year is both kind of the worst thing,

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but also awesome because would you rather be the opposite? Would you rather be in a stagnant

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work environment where you're just like, yeah, we'll just do the same thing as last year and

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hopefully we'll have a job next year. At least in our situation, which is ideal,

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the problems we're going to have next year are going to be more complex than problems we have

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this year. And that sounds like a bad thing, but that's an indicator that your business is successful.

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Do I miss the old days? I don't know. I was hired with Alex and Anthony at the same time. So I

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believe we're in numbers like 14, 15, 16. And then now there's over 100. Some people have left

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since then, so that makes us like, I think I'm more like number 10 now. But it's definitely

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different now. Back then it was mostly all guys. And when it's a smaller group, like especially

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in the old old days before me, it's like Channel Super Fun. It's like, that's what you get. It's

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just like a bunch of bros hanging out like tech bros, nerd bros, not chads, but they're bros.

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And that makes a certain culture. And then as you get bigger, you just, you have to just broaden

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or narrow in some sense what you do, what's allowed, right? So it's becoming more corporate

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means you just get to expose less of yourself. And I think that's a challenge for some creatives,

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like even Linus. It's just hard for him. You hear a stupid, cringy dad jokes and like any,

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remember that video where him and Yvonne made that ITX case and it's that dual ITX case and it's

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just like cringe in Uendo the whole time. It's like, I think it's hard for some people to turn

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that off and just be like, like a banker, like the kind of like, how's the weather kind of conversation

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you get with a, with a banker. And that's kind of what a larger organization demands. And that

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kind of sucks. So I feel like it's part of my job to just like fight tooth and nail to resist

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becoming too corporate too fast. Otherwise, this place won't have a soul. Fans are gonna,

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it's going to be a different answer than like friends and family. A lot of people, especially

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before when we were smaller, if I, I tell them, like I'm a writer for a YouTube channel, a lot

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of people will first just think, Oh, you are a YouTuber or you work for YouTube or, uh, that

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they're even fans, maybe that there's just like one channel. And then it's like, no, no, there's

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so much more going on. There's like eight channels and they have all these different pieces. They

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might also assume that you're just like on camera that like, if you work for a YouTube channel,

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it means you're on camera. In terms of what do the fans get wrong, they might not appreciate

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that now that we're larger, we have levels of management. So if you see criticism,

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criticism about how this company runs, they might, they might make a judgment call. That

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means Linus acts this way, but maybe that person with a grievance only interacts with me, who's a

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bad manager, not or like a different manager than how Linus manages. And it's actually not

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necessarily a reflection on the top brass. Um, when you go through a couple of different levels,

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ultimately it is like the people at the top of company are responsible for everything they company. Ultimately, like, I guess, like the buck stops with them. But if you're not interacting

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with those people day to day, then, uh, it's not necessarily Linus' fault for every, every

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single grievance out there. It could be my fault. This one is like a careful what you wish for.

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It would be nice if the pace was lessened a little bit. So we could just like relax,

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maybe just like have some meetings on Fridays, um, have time to like debrief or look in the rear

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of your mirror that how things went. But at the same time, I think it's kind of in our DNA. I think

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if we ever freed up more hours, we would just, well, let's have a whale land. Let's, we just are

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always put, I think that's part of the culture that comes from Linus and goes all the way down.

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It's like, we're just always going to squeeze every last drop out. Um, but honestly, what the main

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thing I would change is the location that there's so many headwinds we encounter because of the

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geography here. Mr. Beast is in North Carolina. He, the cost of the facility of the warehouse,

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you can get there for what we've paid here. We wouldn't have to be in these multiple buildings

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driving in between. You know, where can we shoot this? We have to like talk to the airport to see

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if we, there's space like that sucks. If we were in a different location, we could do so much more.

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Or if we were in LA, we could collaborate so much more easily and it would be sunny all the time

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and beautiful. So we could take pictures with the new phones outside and they wouldn't just

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look like a fricking bramble wasteland. Like it looks like Mordor out there with all the

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fricking invasive blackberry bushes. Like, ah, so yeah, but you know, we're all here. We have

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family here. We're not moving. I started making YouTube videos for a completely unrelated thing,

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kind of to promote like a business I was doing. And then, oh, I found out that Colton, who was my

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best friend's ex roommate, Colton worked at Linus Media Group. And I didn't ever watch Linus Tech

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Tips, but I did watch Techquickie. And I always just assumed LTT, LMG was like some big American

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company. And I found out Colton worked here. So then I started sending him all my videos. And then

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he replied and he said, Hey, do you edit these? And I was like, Yes, I do it all. So I guess you

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needed editors at the time. But then I ended up applying as a writer. And I actually, I remember

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I was underemployed at the time. So I wrote two scripts. I remember Linus replying, I like your

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hustle. And then, yeah, I got an interview and I, they were going to hire two or three writers.

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And I was the or three. And I managed to not get fired. It's been close, though.

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Is Linus the same on or off camera? He'll say that the Linus you get on camera is like a persona.

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It's not the real him. But honestly, it's pretty close. I think it's pretty close.

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It's not like going to be an Ellen Jidenra situation where he's like a jerk. He's a very

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nice person. He's very good at keeping his cool. He's very professional. Last time I saw him get

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like mad on like pretty mad because the shoot was a complete debacle and very public was

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two years ago already. And that's only really happened probably a handful of times since I've

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even worked here. And the stakes are very high. So like, I get it. But if I was in his position,

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I would have a way worse reputation. I don't even know what the weirdest thing that's happened.

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Like, I've slapped Linus in the face for B roll shots. Like, I've thrown dildos at Dennis.

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Like, there's, oh, that video where I'm like speed, speed walking in a, in a green Unitard.

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It's like, there's so many weird things. Oh, there's a B roll shot from the only fans video

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where I'm like wearing, wearing some like quasi fetish outfit. There's just like,

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just bizarre stuff all the time, anything for a video. If you want to work here, you need to know

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number one, that yeah, even though it's cool, it's a lot of work. And number two,

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even though it is very important to have like a great work ethic and technical skills and a lot

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of knowledge and expertise and passion for technology, nothing matters more than just

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having a great attitude. Look at Andy. Best attitude, like just having a can do,

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like every job application says, you must have a can do attitude. But it is honestly,

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it is the best asset you could have. If you're just like, I am willing to learn,

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I'm willing to shut up and you tell me what I did wrong. And I am committed to getting better

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and making it not suck for everyone else to work around me. If you can do that,

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you can work here. Having a great attitude is a better asset than anything else.

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F*** you, Colton.