There were a series of accusations about our company last August from a former employee. Immediately following these accusations, LMG hired Roper Greyell - a large Vancouver-based law firm specializing in labor and employment law, to conduct a third-party investigation. Their website describes them as “one of the largest employment and labour law firms in Western Canada.” They work with both private and public sector employers.
To ensure a fair investigation, LMG did not comment or publicly release any data and asked our team members to do the same. Now that the investigation is complete, we’re able to provide a summary of the findings.
The investigation found that:
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Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.
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Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
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Any concerns that were raised were investigated. Furthermore, from reviewing our history, the investigator is confident that if any other concerns had been raised, we would have investigated them.
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There was no evidence of “abuse of power” or retaliation. The individual involved may not have agreed with our decisions or performance feedback, but our actions were for legitimate work-related purposes, and our business reasons were valid.
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Allegations of process errors and miscommunication while onboarding this individual were partially substantiated, but the investigator found ample documentary evidence of LMG working to rectify the errors and the individual being treated generously and respectfully. When they had questions, they were responded to and addressed.
In summary, as confirmed by the investigation, the allegations made against the team were largely unfounded, misleading, and unfair.
With all of that said, in the spirit of ongoing improvement, the investigator shared their general recommendation that fast-growing workplaces should invest in continuing professional development. The investigator encouraged us to provide further training to our team about how to raise concerns to reinforce our existing workplace policies.
Prior to receiving this report, LMG solicited anonymous feedback from the team in an effort to ensure there was no unreported bullying and harassment and hosted a training session which reiterated our workplace policies and reinforced our reporting structure. LMG will continue to assess ongoing continuing education for our team.
At this time, we feel our case for a defamation suit would be very strong; however, our deepest wish is to simply put all of this behind us. We hope that will be the case, given the investigator’s clear findings that the allegations made online were misrepresentations of what actually occurred. We will continue to assess if there is persistent reputational damage or further defamation.
This doesn’t mean our company is perfect and our journey is over. We are continuously learning and trying to do better. Thank you all for being part of our community.
It’s unbelievable how much hate for LTT there is on this platform. I like them. No one is perfect. This investigation from a third party is a good thing and the findings are good as well. The statement about defamation, I feel, is warranted because the ex-employee made a ton of very damning claims and really hurt their image. The Fediverse is a great example of this damage.
The hate from this community towards LTT is extreme and unfounded.
I’m glad this report showed their innocence but I unsubscribed after the GN/Billet Labs thing.
I might check them out again later but that situation made me kind of uncomfortable with supporting them
They have a huge reach and tremendous influence, but are not always conscientious, careful, and thorough as they should be given their sway. Still, that doesn’t justify the vitriol.
I watch almost all of the LTT videos as well as most of the videos across all the other LMG channels. While I think I’d probably get along really well with Linus as a friend or acquaintance, and I don’t necessarily have any issue with him as a person, he has had some pretty irritating takes and used his bully pit to essentially swat away or mock legitimate criticism on his takes. Usually about things that are outside of his core competencies. The ones that come to mind are some of the things he has said about unions (he’s not anti Union to be clear), the backpack, car dependency in North America, and worker cooperatives.
I personally think it would be pretty interesting if he had experts in those areas come on the WAN show to talk about those things. Instead he does the super ADHD thing (something he has admitted he has, and something I have definitely recognized him doing having had a partner with severe ADHD exhibit similar behaviors) where he spends seconds finding an article, skims it not noting much nuance, and then somehow simultaneously says something confidently while also saying he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He often wants the best of both worlds. He wants to be taken seriously while also being given the latitude to joke around and just make hot takes.
Even with all that said, as stated above, I will still watch most of his videos and wish him well. Recognizing the flaws in something I enjoy doesn’t mean I hate something, especially if I take the time to voice it. It usually means I care and I want to see something I like or that is good improve and get better.
I just don’t like Linus because he’s annoying and abuses clickbait thumbnails and titles.
Some of their videos (from other people than himself) are good, but usually I’ll avoid LTT content all together.
For that reason I’m not really sure what happened, and I don’t really care.
He said previously that he also dislikes the clickbait thumbnails, but they do it because it works. If they adhered to what the enthusiasts wanted their view counts would drop and they wouldn’t be able to have so many employees on payroll.
Maybe, whatever. It’s just too annoying for me to click on that shit.
He said previously that he also dislikes the clickbait thumbnails, but they do it because it works. If they adhered to what the enthusiasts wanted their view counts would drop and they wouldn’t be able to have so many employees on payroll.
Are you just going to ignore Linus and the companies abhorrent response to the situation? That alone should make anyone lose any respect they had for them.
I agree, I don’t think it’s unfounded, their immediate response was really tone deaf and I’ve yet to see them own up to that.
I’m a bit uncertain as to how I feel about the overall response. I don’t exactly fault people for getting publicly upset, and I don’t hate anyone for still watching. I personally don’t feel the need to broadcast my thoughts. I canceled my floatplane subscription and stopped watching LMG videos on YouTube, but I haven’t tried to get anyone else to stop- or really even talked about them much at all, save for this post
No, you’re right. That was shitty, but this report sorta puts a different light on it. I would hope that Linus was caught off guard by the allegations and responded poorly. I’m clearly giving him the benefit of the doubt though and I hope I’m not wrong.
Time may tell. Idk.
I have no issue with LTT as a whole, I just really don’t like Linus. He portrays an almost weaponized incompetence in a lot of computing topics and doesn’t accurately represent his own lack of understanding to the audience that couldn’t tell on their own. By all accounts there is one hell of a team working there, they just chose a really bad face to represent the actual content.
Just my personal take for what it’s worth.
It’s important to remember that the people who are okay with this report probably won’t speak up. Those who find reasons to not be okay will speak loudly. Personally, I take reports like this with a grain of salt and an assumption we are told only the good or neutral bits. I then decide if those bits are enough to constitute good will. In this I feel they are.
So good job: LTT.
Yeah, I definitely see that now. The loud ones are apparently all I saw.