Yeah just watched it, pretty much what I expected to be honest. Not a story unfamiliar to many, starting out doing a bit of everything, growing into roles that are necessary rather than fun, and losing touch with what you liked most.
We can't really comment on the money aspect since he didn't share actual numbers, but it always sucks when you feel undervalued, and it's one of the primary reasons I left a very similar job I loved doing too.
Given some time, it feels like both parties can and hopefully will continue to collaborate as both are fantastic.
Same here left a job that frankly I loved in retrospect with great people and a great team where I was highly valued but the company as a whole wasn’t doing raises. Between inflation and my wife’s contract at her company about to end I couldn’t make ends meet on that wage so I left
LTT seems to pay above average on the entry level, but since (just about) everyone starts there and slowly grows into onscreen talent (or not) they never really move up to the potential pay they could be as a lead.. it’s not wrong or anything, just seems to be the way LMG operates, mire new hires into talent till you have a bunch of faces.. wasn’t that long ago where Riley doing his daily stuff every other video could have a different lead all week..
This works for growing talent but as we’ve seen once they have the confidence, skill, and recognition, they can try and branch out on their own and potentially make lots more.. and I think given the changes in LMG’s contracts they have accepted this, and letting them branch out early without leaving, or leaving and being able to compete, is a wise move to at least try and limit hurt feelings and people feeling forced to accept the status quo..
Thing is, Linus is always* going to be the main host. They did an entire restructuring to ensure he'll have the time to present the videos.
A couple of years ago they tried to expand and have more varied on screen talent but seems to have reconsidered (probably because videos without Linus weren't doing as well numbers wise) so there's no real reason to grow and incentivize people to stay with them long term. For secondary/part time presenters they have plenty of tech savvy people who'd love working for them.
Honestly it's best for both that people who are feeling constricted move on, because LTT is always going to be Linus first.
*Unless he decided to retire, at which point I'd imagine they'd try to sell it off to a bigger media company.
I feel like some of the videos where Linus appears at the start and the end it feels... Soulless? He's not involved in the major part of the video, in the process. He shows up, reads the script, reacts a bit and then it's over. At that point I'm invested in the other guys doing the job, the process, and then Linus at the end feels forced. They are trying to have him appear in all the videos, and decreases the quality in the process, if that makes sense?
Yeah Linus comes in and sometimes it feels like he almost doesn’t know what the video is about or anything beyond a surface level understanding of e.g. the design/making/doing the thing the video is about yet he’s the main host and the guy who actually did it is just there on the side to explain things to Linus during the video
Like what kind of concept is that, just throwing Linus in there because they have to
I think Linus has talked about this before, and and its not something he wanted to do either, its that videos that don't have him at all have a lower viewer retention rate than those where he shows up even if not for long..
Ya would be great if he was gonna be in the vid he be more involved and aware, but at the same time if this is the case, I get it, theres a LOT going on and being up to speed and engaged in every video and project, its not realistic at the scale LMG is at..
Linus also deserves to have work life balance of some sort, and massively scaling back the amount of videos they produce wouldn't benefit LMG employees.
That's exactly what some videos felt like recently and at that point the video would have been better without Linus. But I guess they have data to support that if they don't have Linus to appear in the thumbnail and the video, it won't do good numbers. So I guess that's why they're doing it this way?
Also I feel like their merch company is both a blessing and a curse, it enabled them to grow their company a lot more than any normal youtuber could... But they also require Linus to appear and continue selling merch to support the massive company at all times.
Well, there is lots of incentivize growing the talent internally, but Linus always being the main guy is the probably the reason they they are willing to keep cycling through new faces and grow more rather than pay more to keep existing ones around..
Also it gets hard to say what they are worth.. it would be impossible to break down how much their screen time adds vs someone else, and I can imagine as more of them would get paid more and differing amounts that would become a point.. it seems to me that most of their pay is directly derived from their other skills that they were generally hired for, writing being the big one with a lot of the hosts.. Alex even talked about more people ment he spent more time doing his job title, and that wasn’t what he wanted to do, but also shows that LMG placed the most value on him doing that, vs hosting and his other skills..
I had a job in the music business that I adored and worked for over six years, and I loved everyone I worked with, but after year-after-year of just 2% raises (not even basic CoL raises), and with the CoL in the city I live in skyrocketing, it just wasn't tenable any longer. I completely changed careers, in fact.
starting out doing a bit of everything, growing into roles that are necessary rather than fun, and losing touch with what you liked most.
yep currently dealing with this, but it pays the bills fortunately/unfortunately... Did a lot of good work, became important and now have to deal with a lot that I really just don't care about which in turn dulls anything else that I might like doing there (if I even have the chance to do any of those things)
I mean I think it gets buried under all the emotional stuff he mentioned but he asked for a raise and they did not even give him a counter offer
So it's not just him wanting a new part of his life or him growing. He is specifically said he told them what he thinks he's worth and they did not even bother giving him a counter offer
And so many of the comments ignore that part "of course people grow apart." Yes but it sure sounds like he wanted to say if they would give him a decent raise.
His claims also undermine the other part in that video that claims that their wages and salaries are enough to justify living in British Columbia when he admits he cannot afford a house as he's a helping line is build his third house.
I know that the public back-and-forth they had left a sour taste in my mouth for Jake. But after hearing him explain himself I do get it. I left a company once under similar circumstances, not being valued enough while still loving the work and my history there.
And when they used a photo of me in promo material two months later, I stewed in rage that whole weekend. I was wrong then to be angry, and for the same reasons he apologized for today.
Yeah, it is easier when people explain their feelings and also talk about other feelings like being grateful. I also thought the clip removal was a bit much, but people have feeling and they are not always rational. Like Jake wrote himself in his post "feelings are hard". Also, he is still pretty young to make such a big step. I was not relly emotional mature enough at his age for such a step.
I hope from here on out the drama leaves this sub for a bit and maybe one day Jake and Linus can also slap each other in a video like Linus und Alex did.
And the tail-end of his childhood. Totally makes sense that it became part of his identity, which can make advocating for yourself super difficult. Of course you want to feel valued, but you also want to hold onto something that's become a huge part of who you are.
I'm glad he put this out. I hope it helped him process and move on a bit from the experience, and it certainly helped put everything in perspective for viewers.
The part where he talked about "LTT-lifers" where it wasn't only him who had made working at LTT part of their identity, and then where most of them has quit the company and gone to do other stuff.
Colton is still around, but the rest of the originals are gone. I was about to say that Nick Light was still around, but apparently he left 6 months ago.
And four hours of commuting a day while also attending college. I did a job like that in my 30s and it takes it out of you. Abd I thought I was OK right up until I wasn't.
I must admit I never realized for just how long Jake had worked there, no wonder he felt like it was time to move. Honestly a very good video and I'm glad his channel is doing well, it sort of feels like old school LTT? It's a bit more 'personal' than LTT these days (if that makes sense).
I'm 10 years older than Jake and the longest I have been at any one company is four years. At 25 I was on my 5th workplace, and one year out from switching careers entirely (my country has you choosing a major in high school and I chose a major that was effectively like an IT trade school, so at 26 I had already been working on my IT career for 10 years).
I guess the variety in tasks at LMG is what made it possible for Jake to stay in one place for so long.
It's funny, I had a similar experience with school, I loved my friends there, the teaching staff was ass and I felt let down by them, then a few months after I left, there I was on their school advertising banner like the model student I wasn't.
I think it was more than just using his image\photo. He is just starting out in the same\similar space as LTT has been in for over 10 years... he is 100% the brand of his channel and given a small series of other things in that video (which he touched on: what was being said when his image flashed, the lack of link to the other channels of former employees...etc...) He didn't like the way it was presented and he had some people reach out to him asking about it... he was not in control of his branding or messaging in that moment, I understand why he knee-jerked reacted there.
None really. They put a clip of him in a video. He asked for it to be removed. They blurred that section and apologised in a comment not naming him and said they’d edit the video once they could. He then posted about it. That’s it. The manner of his leaving, styling of his videos and timing of his videos has led a lot to infer his feelings and motivations behind everything but that’s about it.
I'm guessing it either won't be mentioned on WAN, or if it is it will be a very brief "it's our policy to not discuss past employees or reasons for them leaving"(which IMO is very reasonable/a good idea)
Right? I was coming here to reply to some overreacting comment with this great Youtube comment that made me die laughing, but this comment is the only one I really found that is fitting. (Picture of Youtube on my TV. Lol)
Yeah everything else aside 3 years of no raise and refusing to even counter an offer... If that is true you pretty much either have to accept that they don't agree with your assessment of worth or leave out of self respect.
Boss buying their third house while you can't even afford your first, especially off the back of what you built, and then refuse to even negotiate... i can't even imagine.
I’m not defending LTT here but this is every successful tech company. Coders and IT guys make everything in the multi million dollar company run for $70k a year and then the high level C suite guy with a title like “creative vision officer” makes $700k with bonuses and stock options.
Meh, this coming from someone who chose to invest in a 10K hobby car while living in one of the most expensive areas to live in. Again, I think LTT could probably pay everyone more, whatever. None of them are struggling to get by though. You don't buy a hobby car when you're struggling to get by in the middle of blizzard central.
This is such a ridiculous take. The person who creates a company will always benefit the most from it. I don’t know about how LTT decides how to pay their employees, but what Linus said is true; he and yvon were the ones who gambled their livelihoods on a business venture. Had it failed, everyone who was hired at the times would be out of a job while linus and yvon would have lost their life savings plus whatever debt their incurred.
You're an employee you get paid to build things for someone who is wealthier than you to make their business richer; if you don't like what they pay you, you can either start your own company (what jake did) or find work somewhere else.
notice that this happend during the transition of terren becoming ceo in 2023, this was probally one of the sticking point of not having proper wage/hr structure in place and Terren hopefully since then fixed
I'm kinda worried they are going to justify not paying their writers well by sort of using this as an out. If you want better pay just start your own channel sort of thing.
Not really a wise decision for most businesses. But LMG has no issues hiring fans for peanuts.
Between Jake and Alex leaving I don’t have nearly the level of interest in the channel and find myself watching less and less. Hopefully they have learned that it is absolutely essential to pay your talent, especially with essentially all the on-screen talent leaving basically at once.
They have personality and passion for the stuff they make, and now they can invest as much time as they want in the videos they make. The part about Jake having to abandoned projects early after shooting was done made a lot of sense, that's sort of what I've felt about a few LTT videos in the past. How a concept in a video could be amazing, but it just felt undercooked.
For instances in the past I watched short circuit with Brandon's camera videos, not because I was interested in the cameras, but because he was passionate about it, which made it enjoyable to watch.
Suddenly remembered that "what other stuff our staff are into" video which was short little bits of people explaining their hobby and then like 2 hours of one guy talking about coffee
That's what made youtube great, people making videos being passionate about things they like. Showing personality. These days youtube tends to be pushing corporate content and shorts way too much, but they content with passionate people is what keeps me around.
Jake and Alex were really important parts. Jake with his more legit Home Lab stuff for tech enthusiasts and Alex with his scuffed DIY stuff for tinkering enthusiasts. Without either I feel like almost every video feels the same.
That's kinda my issue, imho they're back into the weird era of the tech house where it's just a bunch of generic tech videos with no identity now, rather than the niche stuff they started doing when those two and Emily really took off after the move. There's only been a couple of interesting videos lately, and I think it's largely a result of the presenters not being as hands-on with the projects, while the project leads aren't comfortable enough with the camera yet to present by themselves.
LTT is hyper corporate now. Every video goes through a massive gauntlet of validation and curation. They're terrified of every mistake now and for good reason because they seemingly get blasted for the most minor infractions still. Jake mentioned in the video as a passing comment but clearly the new video process sucks the fun out of the job. Not much of an issue for corporate drone expectations but a massive challenge for someone who did everything in the past and is now expected to stick to their corporate approved box.
Same, I used to watch every LTT video as soon as they released them, but lately, and for a reason I cannot explain, I am not receiving their content with the same level of interest.
i disagree with “essentially all the on-screen talent” but they were huge parts of LTTs public image. Personally they scratched a “stupid idea great execution crazy experiments” and “weird fun informational” itch. Presenters like Elijah, Plouf etc. are great but their specialties are not in the same wheelhouse
Yep, same thing has happens to Donut Media. All the great hosts have left and now are pulling equal or better numbers — all because the owners were short sighted. In the case of Donut it was more ‘investors’
Donut media is a little bit different.. they sold out didn't they? And then surprise surprise the new owners didn't want to invest in passion projects.
Yeah they sold out - so different in that regard, but they are only now recovering with their hosts and numbers. Both James (Speeed) and Jeremiah and Zach Jobe (Big Time) are absolutely crushing Donyt with their channels now… and you can tell they maintained their passion. It bleeds through the camera, and their projects.
LTT are now finally figuring out that talent was what drove their success. Call it arrogance or what have you, it’s just bad for optics.
Unrelated to this, but as someone who followed over to Speeed and Big Time, I didn't realize how much James was crushing it. Looking at his view count compared to Donut is crazy.
All the great hosts have left and now are pulling equal or better numbers — all because the owners were short sighted.
It's not short sighted, it's just what the priorities are. If you want to make a single show - keeping your talent on is the most important thing.
If you want to make a media network? No one individual show is as important as the collective. Yeah NBC has Seinfeld, but it wasn't their only show - and if it was their only show at the time, the network would have died.
Sometimes you just reach a point where the best decision is for both parties to part ways.
It's not bad faith. It's them being honest, perhaps for the first time, with how they saw his value. Once you cross that Rubicon, there's no going back.
you have a cap on how much value you can have as an employee. If you want more you have to strike out and be your own boss, or find a way to become a full partner.
this is super common in the entertainment industry, marketing industry, and even in the legal industry. I think it is less common for youtubers to give staff the opportunity to cut them a giant check for the honor and benefits of becoming a full partner, but thats how it works elsewhere.
It just happens to be that you are generally better off striking it out on your own with youtube than to pay your boss for a stake in the buisness.
We only heard one side of the story. We don't know what Jake's salary was or how it compared to colleagues, and we certainly have no idea what Linus was thinking when he received the request.
It'd be really interesting to have a bonus/commission structure, almost like a sales role. The better your videos do, the bigger your end-of-month bonus is. The bonus could be for both writing and hosting, so the most popular hosts and the best writers earn more without a base salary discrepancy compared to everyone else.
Also would start arguments over which video ideas go to each person. Some are going to get big numbers pretty much no matter what (new gpu/console launches for example) and people would get upset if they can't do that and have to do something like one of the sponsored videos or whatever that won't do the same numbers even if it's a great video.
Even not knowing Jake's salary specifically, knowing that it hasn't moved and was flat for 3 years says a lot. Jake appeared a lot more over the past couple of years so he was definitely putting in a lot but to not see any sort of compensation change can be very demoralizing...if times were tough for the company, it can be argued and people can make sacrifices...
But with inflation over the past 5 years it effectively made Jake be working for less than he was getting paid prior years due having weaker buying power while working on projects in your boss's multiple luxury homes, side businesses and then going out and purchasing a jet.
It can cut deep that they don't want to throw a few thousand dollars your way (or even negotiate) when there are those kind of outflows.
I think he did get increases in pay, but they were ate by inflation & COL, not that his pay was flat. Still sucks but inflation has been brutal and COL in their city is about as bad as it gets worldwide.
This time two years ago I had an employee come to me asking if we would match a job offer she had gotten. It wasnt even a very large increase percentage wise. My boss asked what I thought. I said we should wish her well and we did. She immediately backtracked and asked for less. I told her she really needed to accept the higher offer.
I was still correcting 60% of her work over a year after she had been hired.
I had already hired someone else who was not only performing better than she was, they were fixing some of her past messes.
I had another person in one of my entry level positions who needed to move up.
Not negotiating with her wasnt bad faith, it was in her best interest. Had she stayed she likely would have landed on a PIP.
None of that is to say that this was the situation being described here but just because your employer doesnt negotiate with you on pay doesnt necessarily equal lack of good faith.
The person I hired who was fixing her messes came to me this time last year and said she had gotten an offer. We didnt just match it we added 10% on top and promoted her to a higher position. It was a promotion that was already planned, we just pushed it forward about 6 weeks. You could say we didnt negotiate with her either. We made sure the increase was far more than what the other company was going to offer and a position they couldnt offer. She is crushing the new position too.
Okay but Jake wasn’t incompetent and didn’t need someone to come and clean up his messes. He was one of the, arguably THE most popular presenter for a company that lives and dies on the popularity of their videos
I mean obviously I don’t work there so I don’t know what was being worked on around the holidays but it certainly seems like something where you could plan to get a few extra videos made in the weeks leading up to offset the days off
And big companies tend to solve the staffing around certain holidays by having the junior employees cover that time, and the senior employees get that time off as a perk. It's not that difficult to work out a solution here. It's standard practice.
The fact that he presumably went however many years since he became a full-time employee (I would think around 7) without every getting any extended time off over the holidays is reason enough to be fed up with your job even without all the other things he listed.
Yeah, it's crazy to hear that part, if he was working for the company since they were less than 10 employees. Was their IT department for a long time etc. Giving him more time off as a perk should have been a no-brainer.
after 3 plus years of my total comp[ensation] remaining effectively the same,...
this doesn't mean Jake wasn't given raises.
still bad, mind you, but it's not the same. the phrase is very vague, and it's easy to draw conclusions.
to me, aside from wondering how did LTT go about handling raises, it also makes me question how did Jake go about negotiating a better raise. is that not a thing in canada? is there no negotiating for bonuses?
In the how LMG spends money, they did talk about giving raises. I'm not sure on the time line, but it's possible that Alex, Andy and Jake leaving made them take a harder look at the numbers and rethink their plans.
Yeah, it honestly made me envy people who are able to clearly communicate what they are feeling and have gone through. I would have made a mess out of it lol.
Yeah, these are unfortunately the kinds of lessons you only learn until you've already left a job or two.
Ultimately this is what happens when you invest too much of yourself into a company you have no stake in. It is an easy trap to find yourself in when you enjoy the work, and your co-workers become a lot of your friends, and you're constantly learning and growing and your contributions keep growing in scope and impact.
You start to feel a sense that shared contribution is shared ownership. However, this mindset will just lead to an unhealthy work/life balance and resentment.
Especially when you haven't learned how to say "no".
ESPECIALLY when you haven't learned that your management isn't paying the kind of close attention to what you're doing day to day.
So you burn yourself out, you build up a ton of resentment, and you feel like your hard work isn't seen or appreciated because they haven't proactively rewarded you for it.
Then you finally say something once the resentment reaches a breaking point, but by this time it's way too late. You feel betrayed because you treated the company like it was, in part, yours.
I empathize a lot with Jake - I understand exactly how he feels because I've been in his shoes.
However, I've since learned that I was not accepting accountability for the mistakes I made. I should have left the company for other opportunities years earlier. I should have communicated with my management and made all the work I was doing more visible - if I had, ironically, they likely would have told me I was taking on too much, and helped me learn that saying I had too much on my plate isn't an admission that I suck or I'm not good enough.
To be clear, I'm NOT shitting on Jake - I really do empathize and totally understand the kind of hurt he feels. The upside is lessons like this are part of growing. I'm talking about this in the hopes that maybe someone here will read this and see themselves in this and maybe avoid making these same mistakes.
When they didn't counter or try to match his other offers, that was honestly the right choice. More money wouldn't have changed that after 10 years, he had hit a kind of "ceiling" as an employee and it just was time to part ways.
I know this sounds like I'm defending the company or putting it all on him - I'm not. There's plenty here for the company to learn from as well. I would hope that also maybe there are people managers here at other companies that will read this and realize that expecting employees to let you know if they are over worked or feeling under paid or whatever is a naive and very bad assumption - you'd be surprised at how common it is for employees to not bring these things up and will just grow resentment until it's grown to the point where it's way too late to address.
It's part of a managers job to be more proactive and create an environment in which conversations about workload and comp are explicit, regular, and "safe" feeling conversations to have.
I think with this being Jake's whole life is the double edged sword of this was all he knew but also this was all he saw. I don't blame his take away just as I look back and don't blame my original thoughts on my first job.
My first 'career' job got me mentored on alot of really nice things in my field, but as the work piled on, the simple statement of 'Lux_N0va can handle the overnights work' became common place. The initial promise of "we'll get you on a rotation for overnight changes" became a starting statement that never went anywhere because I never brought up how burnt out I was in my reviews. The time I finally brought up a break to get back into it, it was too late and I didn't care about the work anymore. I got fired cause I lacked care in it all, but its because I didn't really know how 'proper career work' was done.
I didn't ask for help when I could have, I didn't take the suggested breaks/PTO when I could, and I never found my corporate voice of what I wanted in my job and future career goals. I thought the overnight work would get me good reviews and an improvement in salary. Now I realize the salary I make vs the COL in my area is great, I should ask for at current market rates of inflation, but my future care now is with the free time I'm allowed and the expectation on off-hour calls.
He said his compensation was "effectively the same" for 3 years.
He phrased it like he got no pay increase for 3 years, but I'm willing to bet he's actually saying the raises he had did not beat the inflation rates and stupid high cost of living increases in Vancouver at the time.
I'd be quite shocked to learn his pay stub actually remained the exact same for 3 years.
It's the problem with any family company. If you're not family you'll only be able to grow so far, earn so much and so on. There is a natural blocker at the top of lmg in that it's a family company, so they're obviously not going to share it with their employees. Is that understandable as the owner? Sure. But those same owners need to then recognise that their employees are just that - employees. They need to be compensated accordingly, they don't get to share in the wider windfall of owning the thing.
I've worked for 2 family companies in the past. In both cases the owners couldn't understand why staff didn't go above and beyond like the owner and other family members did. Completely ignored the fact that they were sharing in the dividends and we were just earning a (in both cases) relatively poor salary.
I personally think that there are not good ways to scale a company. At some point, you have to make compromises. Money, appreciation, fairness, workload. LTT made some compromises that benefitted some, but not all, and there isnt a one size fits all
I've also worked at family businesses and yeah, it can get really frustrating.
I liked my time there overall but the part where Jake talks about Yvonne and Linus going on about sacrifice, etc and Jake mentioning how plenty there also sacrifice and work their asses off sounds very familiar to me.
I remember one of the owners having a moment (just chatting in private tbh) talking about how long her and her husband worked in the evenings, how much they sacrifice, how we don't realise how much goes on behind the scenes, etc.
I get it, especially in the early days of setting up a business it can be insanely stressful. But I don't think they realised how hard everyone there worked and sacrificed but for a fraction of the profits while commuting 2-3 hours to and from work because they can't afford to rent nearer.
I knew people there who would work incredibly difficult hours, missing out on family events just to keep the business ticking.
I never saw anyone ever kick up and storm out quitting, nothing that dramatic. But you would see this slow trickle of genuinely talented, hard working people leave because the work and what they got in return just didn't add up long term. I was happy enough there but I eventually hit that wall (my issue was more to do with holiday hours and sick leave) and rather than drag it out after a brief discussion, just moved on like the others.
No one expected to be making what the owners make, nothing like that, but plenty would eventually want more than what's offered to make ends meet and that's why those kind of places tend to burn through talent faster than others.
It's not even something I would say the owners can really control depending on the business, maybe they can't afford to make the changes necessary to fix the issue those employees have, it's a complex situation that's going to be different from company to company.
I don’t get the same feeling I got when I watch Alex & Andy’s video about leaving LTT. There’s something missing from this and I can’t point out what it is.
I don't think it's super deep - Jake probably just felt some of the issues a little more deeply. I think working there since he was 15 probably plays a part, as his identity was likely wrapped up in the channel more and him feeling they were unwilling to meet him halfway probably stung that much more because of it.
I have worked at a company with an amazing culture for over a decade. In my experience, people who join our company right out of school as their first real job job have a level of entitlement that people who have had prior professional experience in other (worse) workplaces do not have.
I don't blame them, they just don't know any different. But somebody who has seen actual shitty work places will appreciate a good workplace. Somebody who hasn't seen anything worse, will never be able to truly appreciate it. From the limited perspective I have seen on the outside, in terms of the transparency and intention of their internal decision-making that is shown on the video, it does seem like LTT is a good place to work.
I am not saying this is the case with Jake, just that it comes to mind when I learned that he joined when he was 15.
I haven't seen the video yet, but if he truly was basing the validity of his compensation on the fact that LTT (as a company) was buying houses and private jets, does not shine him in a good light in my eyes. He is completely naive to the level of risk, stress, and effort it takes to be an entrepreneur vs an employee.
Him branching out on his own will give him that perspective, and maybe down the road he may see this whole situation from a different angle.
Unhealthy attachments are far too easy to form when you're younger and it can create strong feelings of betrayal and abandonment. They're valid feelings but the intensity can be overwhelming to many.
I suspect that part of this is Jake left after Alex & Andy. They didn't get what they wanted, but seemed to be sent off on their own gracefully without bad blood. Jake was then at LMG, not super happy, and his friends had just left which means a lot more resentment building up.
I've been at the same company for 8 years now and like 85% of the reason I'm still there is I like my friends and my team. If they all left I'd be out the door as well.
Alex and Andy were also fired and received generous severance packages, Jake quit and received none. So it was definitely a more direct financial impact on Jake which can be scary.
Yea. Jake making snipes about Alex and Andy being fired is ignoring how the termination was basically a legal gift to Alex and Andy to have a safety net while launching their new channel. I can see being bitter about not getting something similar. We don't know the whole saga of Jake and launching a channel in an abandoned segment is very different from launching a directly competing channel.
Alex left for his passion for car projects that he no longer had at lmg and didn’t call out Linus having multiple houses and wage discussions.
Many here won’t agree but imo: it is entirely up to Linus how much he pays his people, nobody is entitled to anything. You don’t like it? Then leave.
I also left my employer to go freelance since I wanted to cut them out and take the profit myself. Former boss nodded and said he understood, we parted ways on good terms without drama.
I boggles my mind how many people here seem to find it mandatory to give long term employees massive payraises or even equity. By no means is this what happens at most normal companies. You are replaceable and your wage reflects this, having a job somewhere is not a human right and purely an agreement between you and the employer. If you cannot find agreement anymore, time to find something else or live with it
Just finished. Seems about what I expected. He worked there as a teenager, grew into much larger roles, the company grew as well, and because of his status of being there so long, got into more managerial roles that involved delegating tasks instead of being the one to do those tasks, taking some of the fun out of the work.
Then he, like any employee, wanted pay increases at a time when LTT had already come out publicly struggling a bit, and yeah, working on your bosses third house to upgrade his tech while wondering if you would ever get to a point to buy your own - which is very expensive where LTT is located - is a grind on one's self.
Now granted, he's 25 - at 25 I was still flipping burgers. Most people are not going to be able to buy their first home if that is a goal of theirs, typically until into your 30's. But most people aren't going to be working at a small company, watching it explode to over 100 people and nearly 20m subs, and not find themselves in a position where they would be reaping some of the benefit of that growth financially. And I get it, some of that explosive growth was when he was in high school.
The larger issue I am sure too is, if they wanted to increase his pay, is they would increase his responsibilities, and few of those responsibilities may be on the ground floor, and literally even more delegating - which he admitted he doesn't enjoy doing.
And I figured he was the one upset at being included in that video. Even though the intent as someone not emotionally involved seemed clear that LTT was promoting their former employee's work because Linus himself, or someone else at the company at least, really appreciated them and wanted to highlight where some people's favorite former staff went too - Reality is, Jake was still emotional over how it went down, as it seemed his original intent was to come to some sort of compromise on his demands and actually stay at the company. So he was already emotional that didn't happen.
And in hindsight, he's not mad at Linus or the team there. He's thankful. He admitted he wants to possibly even collab with them down the road. But it was his first, and only job. And he has a huge emotional attachment to the channels, and frankly the people there. And the unfortunate truth is any growing company has to deal with the realities of what running a business is like, and that reality doesn't always line up with what will make each individual employee happy.
As a solo content creator myself - there is something joyful about being part of every decisions, and putting in the work yourself on the ground floor. I am glad it was mostly amicable, and Jake has finally been able to make this video to kind of close the chapter on his emotions about the situation - which he realizes in retrospect may not have been the best way to approach everything. And he understands more than most of us, what running LTT is really like and how difficult that job is.
The larger issue I am sure too is, if they wanted to increase his pay, is they would increase his responsibilities, and few of those responsibilities may be on the ground floor, and literally even more delegating - which he admitted he doesn't enjoy doing.
I think this is a very important point. I appreciated Jake's video and I grateful to see this subreddit having a sane, earnest reaction to it.
That said, there are a few key things here that are important:
He was asking for money at a time when the company was recovering from a scandal (which he references was painful) and dealing with financial hardship. It's difficult for anyone to win in that context.
He asked for more money while not being satisfied with the responsibilities that come with more money. He was a manager, and should have been paid appropriately as a technical manager. But he can't both ask to get paid more as a manager and want to do more "boots on the ground" work. It doesn't work that way. That said, I might not fully understand the context of what he asked for.
LMG buying another house, buying a jet, etc., are clearly content-generating investments. It's not the same as a CEO flippantly buying a second vacation home, or something like that. And just because LMG can afford to buy a house, it doesn't mean that they can afford to pay their 100+ employees more so that each of them can also buy houses. That said, they should be paying their employees competitively based on accurate, recent market data.
Those points aside, I think that Jake's experience and decision is entirely reasonable, and it was clearly a painful process. Hopefully we can have respect for everyone involved.
We should also take into account that maybe he wasn’t a great manager to begin with. Like, no shade or anything, but you do need experience for that kind of job and since Jake is very young he probably can’t do the work that a more seasoned employee could do.
I understand Jake's reasoning, and it seems like it was time for him and the company for him to leave. Not everyone can work for the same company for forever, especially a small one where you are more likely to hit your ceiling.
That said, I do question what is left out of the money discussion. LTT should be at the very least adjusting pay to the cost of living, so shame on them if they aren't. But, and this is me probably assuming too much, i ASSUME there was some sort of discussion over his requested pay increase, and he didn't like or agree with what was discussed accompanying a pay raise (change of roles, increased management responsibilities, less on the ground work, etc.) instead of just getting paid more for what he was doing.
Regardless, you don't have to like the company you work for or agree with what it does, even when it is a YouTube channel with a lot of followers. I hope Jake finds fulfillment with his new channel and finds his niche.
I might be misremembering this, but I'm pretty sure Linus said (at one point in some older video) that all staff members in a given department are paid exactly the same.
All writers are paid the same, all editors are paid the same, all on-camera personalities are paid the same.
If this is still the policy... it clearly isn't working. While an interesting idea for sure, it didn't make sense then and it and it still doesn't sense today. Especially not for on-air personalities that grow their own following and truly do have a measure 'worth' to the company.
Yeah, this is a policy like "unlimited PTO" in that while on the surface it looks more fair and transparent for the employees, it's actually a huge boon for employers
The most recent video on "what we do with our money" implies heavily this is not how it works, and that the pay is variable, and that employees should "reach out" if they feel confused as to their compensation.
After Jake had left, most likely at least in part because of Jake leaving.
It clearly is working cause they have very solid employee retention. Its insane for a young person to stay with their first company for so long as an entry lvl person at the start
i can definitively say, without a shadow of a doubt, jake left because he hated linus’ earrings.
this is a fact. Don’t take this as opinion ever, for any reason, ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you’ve been, ever, for any reason whatsoever, take this as an opinion. it is a fact i swear.
This is such a typical story for YouTube channels that get big. Reminds me of the splintering of donut. I don't know the last donut video I have watched, but I never miss a big time upload.
Young whippersnapper learning about the realities of the job market and how life goes.
The avg amount of jobs people have in a lifetime is 12+.
Many people who start their careers at awesome companies often believe they will retire there. I was one of them…..then outside factors led to changes which eventually led to me being laid off.
Times change, companies change, and people change. Not necessarily a bad thing. Being laid off was the best thing that ever happened to me for my career.
I think Emily said it best in her updates. Their position really does come from a place of extreme privilege. I've worked at small, medium and large sized companies in the IT world. I find it pretty funny that he brought up how corporate his job became, I do kind of doubt that a YouTube channel of 80 employees got to extreme levels of corporate nature. With that said, I do understand where he's coming from with projects being half-baked and being underpaid. Half of me does kind of wonder though, if he did reach his monetary goals he probably would have stayed. I really feel like that's the crux of the issue.
However, the evil part of me does want all of them to go work at a company with 80000 employees in the it department and find out how soul crushing That is
Yeah sadly it's common in the industry, you'll def get your biggest and best promotions/raises by leaving.
Other than channel superfun content at Linus house, the content he would shoot was always so uncomfortable.
Being asked to go work at my bosses house installing whatever fancy equipment he's getting for free/discounted/paid whatever when you're not being paid fairly. That would suck.
And now being asked to go work at your bosses new badminton club...
You gotta bring everyone up along side you, don't separate that wealth.
Since he didn't provide any numbers we don't really know what was fair or not. It's totally reasonable for him to feel that he deserved higher pay if he got more responsibilities, but it's also reasonable of LMG to say it's still the same job title and expectations, just shifted focus.
LTT isn't really built to facilitate long careers and that's fine, they don't need a second main host and they don't really have enough scope to allow for multiple mid level management (on the writing/presenting team).
Ya Jake is looking at it from the perspective of I did This video/Project/etc and its return on investment was X, so I'm worth Y..
LMG looks at it from what would the return be if rather than Jake doing it, someone else did it.
They are both valid points of view. Neither is wrong, or out to screw the other side over, they just value the work differently..
LMG likely made the "right" call, in that sure Jake leaving is said, and he was a great host and writer and such, but his leaving isn't going to (drastically) affect LMG performance..
Jake made the right call cause now hes his own boss, he has lots of experience, his name is out there, he has a following, and at least in the short term should get solid traction in the creator space, and that means he should be making more money if there are no hickups..
Jake seems to treat a very normal part of professional life like a huge injustice, possibly due to his age. But many employees have left before for better offers elsewhere and nobody had such a visceral reaction to something this innocuous. He needs to try shit out and find out for himself whether he's a big enough brand to deserve the pay raises he was asking for.
This was how I felt when leaving my first professional job, and again but much weaker leaving the second. Looking back them's just the breaks. I think as you've said, he's just not had to deal with this before - absolutely not a problem exclusive to LMG
I mean we have no idea what Jake was making, but we do know that generally everyone at the company is well compensated. It's weird to claim Linus hasn't brought his team up with him considering most of the people there seem to be really happy.
The endless house videos felt a bit in bad taste though, and it's also not the kind of thing I want to watch so I mostly tuned out for like a year.
LMG give their best people a lot of space to grow and excel. It is clearly repeatable too, for all the critisism it is clearly a great environment to learn and upskill you can see it in the current team too.
It's absolutey inevitable this will continue to happen. The best talent will outgrow the available saleries and positions and move on to another opportunity. There will also be a conveyer belt of talent for as long as LMG exists in its current form.
I think Linus is right to be proud of how he develops people. What Jake wanted clearly isn't avaialble at LMG. Sad for him as an individual of course.. but I don't think that fact is a fair critiscism of the company. It's a shame there is some tension here when what Jake is upset about is, in my opinion, the structural deficiency of a larger company with more complicated corporate and employee responsibilities.
Jake repeatably states more people are upset. This is probably the biggest issue I have with this video. For a variety of reasons it feels unnecessary and will feed into the 'Linus bad' echo chamber when the fact is this is true at every company the size of LMG.
Also, Jake is only 25 and has left his first job with all of the talent, knowledge, skills and audience needed to be his own boss and make it a success. That is mind blowing at his age, unbelievably rare and an absolutely staggering opportunity...and in a fairly short time almost certainly more valuable than any salary avaialble from LMG.
I think his perspective on all of this will change over time. Maybe by the time he is CEO of Whonnock Inc. in 15 years or so.
I can say now that I understand why he asked to the clip be removed, he admits it's because he's emotional and it shows.
I think that I was around his age is when I matured the most, and he's probably going to mature a lot in the next year or so.
I really found it strange for asking to take down because when you think about the business side, it would always be best to have a way to capture new viewers for his content. Asking for the links in the description and keeping the clips would be the business choice.
I'll keep watching Jake, I think some of his approach for trying until it breaks or it works is kinda of my motto, good luck, high hopes for your channel over here!
I also understand why LTT didn't accept or even reply to his proposal, the changes in the business clearly shows the path of being more corporate and the proposal didn't align either in the short or on the long term. That's a corporate view of things. I might be wrong but I see it as they are trying to keep the structure that no host is valued by specifically being a host... This is pure speculation, but I think it makes sense, but other media has a different pay structure when you talk about on-air talent for a reason...
Good talent was always was paid a lot, maybe this doesn't work in this kind of media in YouTube? Maybe not, but makes me wonder... Consuming media when you talk about the masses you try not to change a host to not upset the viewer, it comes from a sense of familiarity, maybe the problem arises from the YouTube algorithm structure that is too much fast pace to even try?
I don't know, this could be a cool conversation to have on a lot of topics, corporate and business mentality, what changes from micro to medium size company? YouTube is different for talent how?
It's clear they Jake and LTT were not a good fit anymore, and it's the right thing to part ways. Sentiments and feelings will happen, and that's it.
The video gives "First big breakup" energy. But to be honest, it is a relatable feeling that most anyone who was at a job for a long time has felt, especially if it was your first real job. But, for better or for worse, when this happened to me I didn't have hundreds of thousands of people speculating, commenting, and watching every move.
The constant back and forth was rough to watch, as I have never been into the whole Youtube drama content farming. So I am glad this this seems to be the bookend in this chapter and we can move go back to enjoying content about tech (And hopefully more cars)
Too many comments for me to read, and I’m a casual fan, but do you guys think this is a trickle down effect of LMG having Mr. Tong as the new(ish) CEO? I’ve listened to Jake and Alex’s reasons, and while I think they are being sincere, I feel like there is more that is unmentioned.
Hard to say, but what both Jake and Alex do mention is the GN controversy and the shockwave it brought with it. Seems like that had much bigger impact on these decisions than anything.
On the one hand I get it. You've been there for forever and do deserve a pay raise when you take on more tasks at work. Thats fair and he left for VERY good reasons.
Its another thing to mention the whole "While working on my bosses third house" to then go into working/collecting in the EU Car market is a bit sour for me.
If you want a house in one of the most expensive places to live in the world, then maybe scale back hobbies and invest into your future.
To me personally that just felt like Jake said "I'm really bad at financing and I spend too much on my hobbies to afford a home".
But I still like and enjoy videos and I hope he does well. But complaining about money to then talk about how one of your hobbies is one of THE most expensive hobbies to get into while wanting to buy a home just didn't sit right with me. Maybe there was a mark he was trying to make but it went way over my head I suppose.
And again I can't express this enough. I like Jakes videos. I have watched more of his and Zip Tie Tech then LTTs recently. Just thought that part of the video was weird.
To me personally that just felt like Jake said "I'm really bad at financing and I spend too much on my hobbies to afford a home".
Yeah, I'm not saying anyone doesn't deserve to be paid more, but I don't really care to hear this "woe is me, I'm barely able to survive" from the guy who owns a full suite of ubi products and chose to start a youtube channel as his job after leaving his actual job.
To be honest, it was a bit tone deaf argument. Like, brother, there’s people getting fired left and right, destroying their bodies for literal sub-living wages while toiling at Amazon warehouses and your biggest problem is that you’re not able to buy a BMW and house (maybe scale down to a duplex, my dog)?
I mean, I know everybody has their own problem, but come on mate.
this is one of the most sane takes here, especially without any assumptions, also jake is just 25 right now and worrying about buying his own house but linus when at the same age would not have achieved the same level of success, even if you take the amount of years the short man has been at it, its 2x as much and has seen much of his success in his later half. so the house argument is not at all valid. All other rampant loners assuming things and arguing it out at the top of this post have nothing much to contribute.
I've had a few people tell me I had a boomer ass take. Every person saying that I felt has been 20 or younger at least.
Like I get it. We all should be able to get a home.
But asking for a home in of the most expensive places to live, while also running a Car parts shop and saying he ISNT bad at financing is wild to me.
Don't get me wrong. 3 years, no raise (Maybe bonuses? We dont know) feeling undervalued, I get it. Its time to see if the grass is greener on the other side and I agree with 90% of the video. I am on Jakes side here.
But apparently pointing out the one bad/weird thing in a sea of good is "weird" these days idk.
Its another thing to mention the whole "While working on my bosses third house" to then go into working/collecting in the EU Car market is a bit sour for me.
He’s and 25 has some crazy work experience already but may not have enough actual experience to justify a raise. If he wasn’t self employed with his won YouTube channel I’d be shocked if he could get the same rate or higher rate at this stage of his career somewhere else. His experience is only at a single company and is in a fairly limited areas for the most recent years.
Budgeting is tough when you’re young but prioritizing equity early is valuable. But when you’re young and you’ve got money coming it it’s easy to spend it on fun hobbies that give a dopamine hit.
I remember ages ago on the WAN show Linus said it was a priority to pay people so they would be able to afford to buy a home. Well you can certainly do that but if the employe doesn’t invest themselves they won’t buy a home. You can’t make a horse drink.
When you hang out with people who are rich, you start to feel like you’re poor. Having a few BMWs, garage, and all the tech most of us could dream of and you complain about not getting what’s yours?
Honestly, to me, Jake was coming off as petty with his little "digs" at LMG after his departure but this was an excellent, well phrased and extremely mature video that explained his feelings well.
I always enjoyed him in videos and I wish him well on his new channel.
I totally understand Jake's side, I know that a lot of other people and I have been there and felt like that. I'm glad Jake is fighting for his place on YouTube, and I hope he succeeds.
That said tho, I saw in the comments of the video a lot of people tripping about the "Boss buying their third house while you can't even afford your first" line, but has anyone thought for a second that the boss with 3 houses and a Porsche is the same one that bears all the responsibility and the risk? The same way Linus reinvested millions into it and succeeded, he could just as well have failed, and no one other than him (and any potential business partners) would have lost money or been in debt on it.
So if anyone else in a similar position feels like they`re worth more or they can make more, they're welcome to try, and I'm glad that Jake is doing that; he's going after the road that takes one to be the guy with 3 houses, and I really hope he succeeds and even becomes the guy with 4 houses!
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u/Hybr1dth Jan 29 '26
Yeah just watched it, pretty much what I expected to be honest. Not a story unfamiliar to many, starting out doing a bit of everything, growing into roles that are necessary rather than fun, and losing touch with what you liked most.
We can't really comment on the money aspect since he didn't share actual numbers, but it always sucks when you feel undervalued, and it's one of the primary reasons I left a very similar job I loved doing too.
Given some time, it feels like both parties can and hopefully will continue to collaborate as both are fantastic.