Linus Sebastian, known as the face of the Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel, has announced a major change that has shocked the internet. But based on what happened in the past, as well as old statements he made on social media, this change was inevitable, and there was no escaping it.
The tech YouTuber released an over nine-minute video, titled “I’m Stepping Down,” where he announced that he’s leaving the role of CEO. Essentially, he stated that he’s no longer going to be the leader of the social media empire he created back in 2013. Linus was transparent about his CEO departure to his audience and revealed that this change will be in immediate effect on July 1, 2023.
The YouTube star revealed that he’s become physically and mentally tired from his leadership role to the point of burnout and that if he continued, it’s going to damage him, and potentially the company even further. This made sense since one of the company’s most stressful events, when their channel got hacked, led to him sleeping on the job due to exhaustion and stress to recover his life’s work.
“I wasn’t built for this and I’m tired. Like ‘really can’t do this anymore’ tired. And if I try to drag myself through another 10 years of business administration, I know I’m going to destroy myself and probably end up killing the company and the community that I love so much in the process.”
Fortunately, Linus isn’t leaving the company. He announced that rather than steering the ship that took him a decade to build and control, he’s going to become “Chief Vision Officer” for Linus Media Group. His role allows him to continue to pitch in new content ideas, products for the channel’s merch store, and use his and his team’s expertise to provide more accurate tech information. The only difference is that he won’t be in charge of the business side of things, such as payroll issues.
“My new role is going to be Chief Vision Officer, which is a stupid like BS-sounding made-up role. But I think it really is the best one. We’ve thought about “Creative Officer” but that didn’t really encompass what I’m going to be responsible for because my gut and principles are what got us to where we are today. So I’m still going to be charting the path that I think makes sense. We don’t want to lose our moral compass.”
Linus has also announced who will be replacing him as CEO of Linus Media Group. Terren Tong, Linus’ former boss when he worked for the now-defunct tech company, NCIX, and the former Senior Director of Marketing and Business Development for Systems for Corsair, will be taking over Linus’ role. According to Linus, one of the reasons that made Tong qualified for the role is because he’s able to “manage Linus.”
“This isn’t your first exposure to Mr. Terren Tong. He was my boss when I worked for NCIX, which makes him uniquely qualified for this position. Because managing me is a challenging task. I’m everywhere. Even the most skilled of administrators have struggled with it. And he’s one of the only people to ever successfuly do that and teach me.”
The reason why this change was inevitable was that back in 2020, Linus held a 30-minute emotional live stream where he publically shared his thoughts on retiring. The video went through excruciating detail about why he wanted to end his YouTube journey and what motivated him to continue.
This isn’t the first time a YouTube channel announced major changes, such as this one. In December 2022, MatPat from the Game Theorist channel announced that he sold his company to LunarX. This company buyout led to the content creator to produce more content through YouTube Shorts and TikTok, whilst having someone else involved on the business side of things.
Linus mentioned in his recent video about a nine-figure offer for a company buyout but refused since it wouldn’t change his family’s lifestyle and doesn’t want to see his company fall due to short-term thinking that’s caused by “investor pressure.”
Linus has reassured fans that he isn’t going away and that he will still be on camera on the channel. He also announced hosting a Q&A session on Floatplane for subscribed members. He also reiterated that he and his wife, Yvonne are still the owners of Linus Media Group and that the company hasn’t sold out. The only thing that changes is that no one will have to report to Linus anymore.
Published: May 18, 2023 09:17 pm