I'm James, I'm head of writing, and I've worked here over six years now.
My favorite part of working here, it's a very agreeable job. It's a cool job, get to wear
whatever you want, get to work on cool stuff. I describe it as fun stuff in a hurry. It's not
an easy job, but it's a cool job. And there's lots of great perks. Lots of great perks. I probably
haven't bought a piece of consumer electronics from a retail store since I've worked here. I just
always just wait for the Christmas party or buy it from work or something like that. It's fun stuff,
but in a hurry. Every week is stressful. Every Friday, every day is hard. This isn't the kind
of job where you can just like text all day. I have my phone just on Do Not Disturb because I'm
in so many group chats where my friends or wife are at work and they're just texting all day because
their job's allowed them to do that. Not here, it's like there's so much to do. The upside of that
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.
Which makes for a happier life, I think. It's just that your life might be shortened.
I think Linus is a very good boss. I think he's a better boss than I would be.
Yeah, I look up to him in a lot of ways. I think he's a very fair person. He does have his ego.
He does have his biggest fish in this bowl kind of thing going on, but he does surround himself
with dissenting viewpoints. Pretty much all of his lieutenants are all kind of...
We all have some parts of his personality. Some of us are very contrarian.
He's not surrounded by sycophants like Putin or something. He's getting real information because
we'll just argue with him and he will listen to our arguments and we'll get to the bottom.
Usually we reach consensus, but he does sometimes just use his veto powers,
which can be frustrating, but at least he hears you out. Has Linus changed? Well, of course,
as the audience knows, he's gone through the whole, am I going to retire portion?
So we've kind of been with him for that journey, but a lot of the core things haven't changed in
terms of what he believes he owes the audience, what he will and will not do for sponsors.
A lot of those things have just been set in stone. Has he changed? The environment around him has
changed. 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 cool and they're all great people.
It's like now he just doesn't even know that because there's people he doesn't recognize.
I think that kind of bothers him and we all feel it to an extent where you're at the lunch
table and you're just like, who is that? It's getting crazy. The change management aspect of
this job is nuts. The fact that it's growing so fast year on year is both kind of the worst thing,
but also awesome because would you rather be the opposite? Would you rather be in a stagnant
work environment where you're just like, yeah, we'll just do the same thing as last year and
hopefully we'll have a job next year. At least in our situation, which is ideal,
the problems we're going to have next year are going to be more complex than problems we have
this year. And that sounds like a bad thing, but that's an indicator that your business is successful.
Do I miss the old days? I don't know. I was hired with Alex and Anthony at the same time. So I
believe we're in numbers like 14, 15, 16. And then now there's over 100. Some people have left
since then, so that makes us like, I think I'm more like number 10 now. But it's definitely
different now. Back then it was mostly all guys. And when it's a smaller group, like especially
in the old old days before me, it's like Channel Super Fun. It's like, that's what you get. It's
just like a bunch of bros hanging out like tech bros, nerd bros, not chads, but they're bros.
And that makes a certain culture. And then as you get bigger, you just, you have to just broaden
or narrow in some sense what you do, what's allowed, right? So it's becoming more corporate
means you just get to expose less of yourself. And I think that's a challenge for some creatives,
like even Linus. It's just hard for him. You hear a stupid, cringy dad jokes and like any,
remember that video where him and Yvonne made that ITX case and it's that dual ITX case and it's
just like cringe in Uendo the whole time. It's like, I think it's hard for some people to turn
that off and just be like, like a banker, like the kind of like, how's the weather kind of conversation
you get with a, with a banker. And that's kind of what a larger organization demands. And that
kind of sucks. So I feel like it's part of my job to just like fight tooth and nail to resist
becoming too corporate too fast. Otherwise, this place won't have a soul. Fans are gonna,
it's going to be a different answer than like friends and family. A lot of people, especially
before when we were smaller, if I, I tell them, like I'm a writer for a YouTube channel, a lot
of people will first just think, Oh, you are a YouTuber or you work for YouTube or, uh, that
they're even fans, maybe that there's just like one channel. And then it's like, no, no, there's
so much more going on. There's like eight channels and they have all these different pieces. They
might also assume that you're just like on camera that like, if you work for a YouTube channel,
it means you're on camera. In terms of what do the fans get wrong, they might not appreciate
that now that we're larger, we have levels of management. So if you see criticism,
criticism about how this company runs, they might, they might make a judgment call. That
means Linus acts this way, but maybe that person with a grievance only interacts with me, who's a
bad manager, not or like a different manager than how Linus manages. And it's actually not
necessarily a reflection on the top brass. Um, when you go through a couple of different levels,
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
with those people day to day, then, uh, it's not necessarily Linus' fault for every, every
single grievance out there. It could be my fault. This one is like a careful what you wish for.
It 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, um, have time to like debrief or look in the rear
of your mirror that how things went. But at the same time, 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 Linus and goes all the way down.
It's like, we're just always going to squeeze every last drop out. Um, but honestly, what the main
thing I would change is the location that there's so many headwinds we encounter because of the
geography here. Mr. Beast is in North Carolina. He, the cost of the facility of the warehouse,
you can get there for what we've paid here. We wouldn't have to be in these multiple buildings
driving in between. You know, where can we shoot this? We have to like talk to the airport to see
if we, there's space like that sucks. If we were in a different location, we could do so much more.
Or if we were in LA, we could collaborate so much more easily and it would be sunny all the time
and beautiful. So we could take pictures with the new phones outside and they wouldn't just
look like a fricking bramble wasteland. Like it looks like Mordor out there with all the
fricking invasive blackberry bushes. Like, ah, so yeah, but you know, we're all here. We have
family here. We're not moving. I started making YouTube videos for a completely unrelated thing,
kind of to promote like a business I was doing. And then, oh, I found out that Colton, who was my
best friend's ex roommate, Colton worked at Linus Media Group. And I didn't ever watch Linus Tech
Tips, but I did watch Techquickie. And I always just assumed LTT, LMG was like some big American
company. And I found out Colton worked here. So then I started sending him all my videos. And then
he replied and he said, Hey, do you edit these? And I was like, Yes, I do it all. So I guess you
needed editors at the time. But then I ended up applying as a writer. And I actually, I remember
I was underemployed at the time. So I wrote two scripts. I remember Linus replying, I like your
hustle. And then, yeah, I got an interview and I, they were going to hire two or three writers.
And I was the or three. And I managed to not get fired. It's been close, though.
Is Linus the same on or off camera? He'll say that the Linus you get on camera is like a persona.
It's not the real him. But honestly, it's pretty close. I think it's pretty close.
It's not like going to be an Ellen Jidenra 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 because the shoot was a complete debacle and very public was
two years ago already. And that's only really happened probably a handful of times since I've
even worked here. And the stakes are very high. So like, I get it. But if I was in his position,
I would have a way worse reputation. I don't even know what the weirdest thing that's happened.
Like, I've slapped Linus in the face for B roll shots. Like, I've thrown dildos at Dennis.
Like, there's, oh, that video where I'm like speed, speed walking in a, in a green Unitard.
It's like, there's so many weird things. Oh, there's a B roll shot from the only fans video
where I'm like wearing, wearing some like quasi fetish outfit. There's just like,
just bizarre stuff all the time, anything for a video. If you want to work here, you need to know
number one, that yeah, even though it's cool, it's a lot of work. And number two,
even though it is very important to have like a great work ethic and technical skills and a lot
of knowledge and expertise and passion for technology, nothing matters more than just
having a great attitude. Look at Andy. Best attitude, like just having a can do,
like every job application says, you must have a can do attitude. But it is honestly,
it is the best asset you could have. If you're just like, I am willing to learn,
I'm willing to shut up and you tell me what I did wrong. And I am committed to getting better
and making it not suck for everyone else to work around me. If you can do that,
you can work here. Having a great attitude is a better asset than anything else.
F*** you, Colton.