WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.920 I'm James, I'm head of writing, and I've worked here over six years now. 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:09.920 My favorite part of working here, it's a very agreeable job. It's a cool job, get to wear 00:00:09.920 --> 00:00:15.120 whatever you want, get to work on cool stuff. I describe it as fun stuff in a hurry. It's not 00:00:15.120 --> 00:00:20.560 an easy job, but it's a cool job. And there's lots of great perks. Lots of great perks. I probably 00:00:20.560 --> 00:00:26.080 haven't bought a piece of consumer electronics from a retail store since I've worked here. I just 00:00:26.160 --> 00:00:31.680 always just wait for the Christmas party or buy it from work or something like that. It's fun stuff, 00:00:31.680 --> 00:00:37.280 but in a hurry. Every week is stressful. Every Friday, every day is hard. This isn't the kind 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:43.360 of job where you can just like text all day. I have my phone just on Do Not Disturb because I'm 00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:48.160 in so many group chats where my friends or wife are at work and they're just texting all day because 00:00:48.160 --> 00:00:54.560 their job's allowed them to do that. Not here, it's like there's so much to do. The upside of that 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:59.840 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. 00:01:00.400 --> 00:01:05.040 Which makes for a happier life, I think. It's just that your life might be shortened. 00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:13.680 I think Linus is a very good boss. I think he's a better boss than I would be. 00:01:15.520 --> 00:01:23.040 Yeah, I look up to him in a lot of ways. I think he's a very fair person. He does have his ego. 00:01:23.040 --> 00:01:31.280 He does have his biggest fish in this bowl kind of thing going on, but he does surround himself 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:38.800 with dissenting viewpoints. Pretty much all of his lieutenants are all kind of... 00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:48.480 We all have some parts of his personality. Some of us are very contrarian. 00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:54.480 He's not surrounded by sycophants like Putin or something. He's getting real information because 00:01:55.040 --> 00:01:59.840 we'll just argue with him and he will listen to our arguments and we'll get to the bottom. 00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:04.000 Usually we reach consensus, but he does sometimes just use his veto powers, 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:09.440 which can be frustrating, but at least he hears you out. Has Linus changed? Well, of course, 00:02:09.440 --> 00:02:13.840 as the audience knows, he's gone through the whole, am I going to retire portion? 00:02:14.800 --> 00:02:20.480 So we've kind of been with him for that journey, but a lot of the core things haven't changed in 00:02:20.480 --> 00:02:28.480 terms of what he believes he owes the audience, what he will and will not do for sponsors. 00:02:28.480 --> 00:02:35.680 A lot of those things have just been set in stone. Has he changed? The environment around him has 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:40.880 changed. It used to be the case where he could just easily say, I would go and hang out with 00:02:40.880 --> 00:02:45.360 everyone who works here. Anyone who works here is cool and they're all great people. 00:02:45.360 --> 00:02:50.080 It's like now he just doesn't even know that because there's people he doesn't recognize. 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:54.800 I think that kind of bothers him and we all feel it to an extent where you're at the lunch 00:02:54.800 --> 00:03:02.160 table and you're just like, who is that? It's getting crazy. The change management aspect of 00:03:02.160 --> 00:03:08.880 this job is nuts. The fact that it's growing so fast year on year is both kind of the worst thing, 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:13.760 but also awesome because would you rather be the opposite? Would you rather be in a stagnant 00:03:13.760 --> 00:03:17.680 work environment where you're just like, yeah, we'll just do the same thing as last year and 00:03:18.480 --> 00:03:23.120 hopefully we'll have a job next year. At least in our situation, which is ideal, 00:03:23.120 --> 00:03:26.720 the problems we're going to have next year are going to be more complex than problems we have 00:03:26.720 --> 00:03:32.800 this year. And that sounds like a bad thing, but that's an indicator that your business is successful. 00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:38.400 Do I miss the old days? I don't know. I was hired with Alex and Anthony at the same time. So I 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:44.720 believe we're in numbers like 14, 15, 16. And then now there's over 100. Some people have left 00:03:44.720 --> 00:03:51.040 since then, so that makes us like, I think I'm more like number 10 now. But it's definitely 00:03:51.040 --> 00:03:58.480 different now. Back then it was mostly all guys. And when it's a smaller group, like especially 00:03:58.480 --> 00:04:02.160 in the old old days before me, it's like Channel Super Fun. It's like, that's what you get. It's 00:04:02.160 --> 00:04:06.480 just like a bunch of bros hanging out like tech bros, nerd bros, not chads, but they're bros. 00:04:07.200 --> 00:04:12.000 And that makes a certain culture. And then as you get bigger, you just, you have to just broaden 00:04:13.040 --> 00:04:19.040 or narrow in some sense what you do, what's allowed, right? So it's becoming more corporate 00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:24.320 means you just get to expose less of yourself. And I think that's a challenge for some creatives, 00:04:24.320 --> 00:04:31.680 like even Linus. It's just hard for him. You hear a stupid, cringy dad jokes and like any, 00:04:31.760 --> 00:04:36.320 remember that video where him and Yvonne made that ITX case and it's that dual ITX case and it's 00:04:36.320 --> 00:04:41.520 just like cringe in Uendo the whole time. It's like, I think it's hard for some people to turn 00:04:41.520 --> 00:04:48.160 that off and just be like, like a banker, like the kind of like, how's the weather kind of conversation 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:52.720 you get with a, with a banker. And that's kind of what a larger organization demands. And that 00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:58.240 kind of sucks. So I feel like it's part of my job to just like fight tooth and nail to resist 00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:04.480 becoming too corporate too fast. Otherwise, this place won't have a soul. Fans are gonna, 00:05:04.480 --> 00:05:08.960 it's going to be a different answer than like friends and family. A lot of people, especially 00:05:08.960 --> 00:05:13.600 before when we were smaller, if I, I tell them, like I'm a writer for a YouTube channel, a lot 00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:22.560 of people will first just think, Oh, you are a YouTuber or you work for YouTube or, uh, that 00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:28.240 they're even fans, maybe that there's just like one channel. And then it's like, no, no, there's 00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:33.680 so much more going on. There's like eight channels and they have all these different pieces. They 00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:37.440 might also assume that you're just like on camera that like, if you work for a YouTube channel, 00:05:37.440 --> 00:05:41.440 it means you're on camera. In terms of what do the fans get wrong, they might not appreciate 00:05:41.440 --> 00:05:46.080 that now that we're larger, we have levels of management. So if you see criticism, 00:05:46.080 --> 00:05:52.480 criticism about how this company runs, they might, they might make a judgment call. That 00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:59.680 means Linus acts this way, but maybe that person with a grievance only interacts with me, who's a 00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:06.160 bad manager, not or like a different manager than how Linus manages. And it's actually not 00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:13.120 necessarily a reflection on the top brass. Um, when you go through a couple of different levels, 00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:21.040 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 00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:27.360 with those people day to day, then, uh, it's not necessarily Linus' fault for every, every 00:06:27.360 --> 00:06:32.080 single grievance out there. It could be my fault. This one is like a careful what you wish for. 00:06:32.080 --> 00:06:36.640 It would be nice if the pace was lessened a little bit. So we could just like relax, 00:06:37.280 --> 00:06:42.560 maybe just like have some meetings on Fridays, um, have time to like debrief or look in the rear 00:06:42.640 --> 00:06:48.960 of your mirror that how things went. But at the same time, I think it's kind of in our DNA. I think 00:06:48.960 --> 00:06:53.840 if we ever freed up more hours, we would just, well, let's have a whale land. Let's, we just are 00:06:53.840 --> 00:06:56.960 always put, I think that's part of the culture that comes from Linus and goes all the way down. 00:06:56.960 --> 00:07:02.560 It's like, we're just always going to squeeze every last drop out. Um, but honestly, what the main 00:07:02.560 --> 00:07:08.240 thing I would change is the location that there's so many headwinds we encounter because of the 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:15.280 geography here. Mr. Beast is in North Carolina. He, the cost of the facility of the warehouse, 00:07:15.280 --> 00:07:19.520 you can get there for what we've paid here. We wouldn't have to be in these multiple buildings 00:07:19.520 --> 00:07:25.520 driving in between. You know, where can we shoot this? We have to like talk to the airport to see 00:07:25.520 --> 00:07:30.240 if we, there's space like that sucks. If we were in a different location, we could do so much more. 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:35.120 Or if we were in LA, we could collaborate so much more easily and it would be sunny all the time 00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:38.240 and beautiful. So we could take pictures with the new phones outside and they wouldn't just 00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:43.840 look like a fricking bramble wasteland. Like it looks like Mordor out there with all the 00:07:43.840 --> 00:07:49.200 fricking invasive blackberry bushes. Like, ah, so yeah, but you know, we're all here. We have 00:07:49.200 --> 00:07:54.080 family here. We're not moving. I started making YouTube videos for a completely unrelated thing, 00:07:54.080 --> 00:07:59.360 kind of to promote like a business I was doing. And then, oh, I found out that Colton, who was my 00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:06.560 best friend's ex roommate, Colton worked at Linus Media Group. And I didn't ever watch Linus Tech 00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:11.840 Tips, but I did watch Techquickie. And I always just assumed LTT, LMG was like some big American 00:08:11.840 --> 00:08:16.160 company. And I found out Colton worked here. So then I started sending him all my videos. And then 00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:23.200 he replied and he said, Hey, do you edit these? And I was like, Yes, I do it all. So I guess you 00:08:23.200 --> 00:08:28.640 needed editors at the time. But then I ended up applying as a writer. And I actually, I remember 00:08:28.640 --> 00:08:33.920 I was underemployed at the time. So I wrote two scripts. I remember Linus replying, I like your 00:08:33.920 --> 00:08:39.600 hustle. And then, yeah, I got an interview and I, they were going to hire two or three writers. 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:45.280 And I was the or three. And I managed to not get fired. It's been close, though. 00:08:45.280 --> 00:08:50.640 Is Linus the same on or off camera? He'll say that the Linus you get on camera is like a persona. 00:08:50.640 --> 00:08:55.760 It's not the real him. But honestly, it's pretty close. I think it's pretty close. 00:08:56.560 --> 00:09:01.840 It's not like going to be an Ellen Jidenra situation where he's like a jerk. He's a very 00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:06.560 nice person. He's very good at keeping his cool. He's very professional. Last time I saw him get 00:09:06.560 --> 00:09:12.560 like mad on like pretty mad because the shoot was a complete debacle and very public was 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:18.320 two years ago already. And that's only really happened probably a handful of times since I've 00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:24.720 even worked here. And the stakes are very high. So like, I get it. But if I was in his position, 00:09:24.800 --> 00:09:29.600 I would have a way worse reputation. I don't even know what the weirdest thing that's happened. 00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:36.800 Like, I've slapped Linus in the face for B roll shots. Like, I've thrown dildos at Dennis. 00:09:36.800 --> 00:09:43.440 Like, there's, oh, that video where I'm like speed, speed walking in a, in a green Unitard. 00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:49.840 It's like, there's so many weird things. Oh, there's a B roll shot from the only fans video 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:54.640 where I'm like wearing, wearing some like quasi fetish outfit. There's just like, 00:09:54.640 --> 00:10:00.800 just bizarre stuff all the time, anything for a video. If you want to work here, you need to know 00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:07.680 number one, that yeah, even though it's cool, it's a lot of work. And number two, 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:15.040 even though it is very important to have like a great work ethic and technical skills and a lot 00:10:15.040 --> 00:10:20.480 of knowledge and expertise and passion for technology, nothing matters more than just 00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:26.320 having a great attitude. Look at Andy. Best attitude, like just having a can do, 00:10:26.960 --> 00:10:31.120 like every job application says, you must have a can do attitude. But it is honestly, 00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:35.440 it is the best asset you could have. If you're just like, I am willing to learn, 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:40.960 I'm willing to shut up and you tell me what I did wrong. And I am committed to getting better 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:46.160 and making it not suck for everyone else to work around me. If you can do that, 00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:51.840 you can work here. Having a great attitude is a better asset than anything else. 00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:02.880 F*** you, Colton.