How We Make 17 Videos a Week

[mynameGeoff]

Thanks to monday.com for sponsoring this video! Get a 30 day Pro plan trial for free at https://lmg.gg/G4WPB

 

In this video, we follow a typical week at LMG as the team works to shoot all the Linus Tech Tips, ShortCircuit, and TechQuickie videos that our fans expect.

 

[SorryBella]

Quote

James Strieb

-Banned From Twitter

Yeah, that aged poorly.

[Downkey]

Ah. I remember the Sarah Secret Shopper Video. That was a fun one to watch.

[Murasaki]

13 minutes ago, SorryClaire said:

Yeah, that aged poorly.

lol what did he get banned for?

[SorryBella]

1 minute ago, Murasaki said:

lol what did he get banned for?

Literally on his twitter banner. He's unbanned now, handle is @james_strieb on twitter.

[Nystemy]

Truly a ton of work for a ton of videos.

And even if one has a bit of a buffer between production and release, one can't technically have too much of that either, since it can create a false sense of security.

Honestly more impressive that LMG can keep up with this frankly silly release schedule.

[Streetguru]

Why don't ya just make like 6 videos a week though...

[Quackers101]

This video was pre-scripted!

Is LTT even real?

 

LTT videos done by AI or aliens!

Also Geoff going to 3 posts! Huzza!

[Roswell]

A 20 minute paid ad…. Jesus.

 

I think the “sponsored by” language is intentionally misleading. This is a full on ad revolving around Monday.com, not an organic video with a sponsor.

 

 

[RoseLuck462]

I love these behind the scenes vids.

 

And wow they’re really busy, it’s worth it though 

[Spindel]

I feel so sorry for Linus, I feel stressed just by watching this video. 
 

LMG needs to use more other hosts than Linus for Linuses sake. 

[Luscious]

I'm a LTT regular and yet I don't even watch 17 LTT videos in a week - my life is just too damn busy. I also probably wouldn't want Linus' face in my face 17 times a week but that's a whole other rant completely LOL

 

I understand the method to the madness, but is there a reason? Who is your target viewer you are trying to drown in LTT content? There comes a point where quality trumps quantity.

 

Linus is still the face of the channel and making that many videos with him (or without him) certainly requires a herculean effort... and a support team with it. I could argue for having more hosts to take his place in front of the camera, but can you ever really replace the guy? I know he's still having too much fun now, but the day will eventually come.

[Radium_Angel]

4 minutes ago, Luscious said:

There comes a point where quality trumps quantity.

The quality of LTT videos dropped off a cliff years ago

[dwrecks]

What's blurred on James mask

[Nystemy]

21 minutes ago, Luscious said:

I'm a LTT regular and yet I don't even watch 17 LTT videos in a week - my life is just too damn busy. I also probably wouldn't want Linus' face in my face 17 times a week but that's a whole other rant completely LOL

 

I understand the method to the madness, but is there a reason? Who is your target viewer you are trying to drown in LTT content? There comes a point where quality trumps quantity.

 

Linus is still the face of the channel and making that many videos with him (or without him) certainly requires a herculean effort... and a support team with it. I could argue for having more hosts to take his place in front of the camera, but can you ever really replace the guy? I know he's still having too much fun now, but the day will eventually come.

They are however not putting out 17 LTT videos a week, but rather LMG is putting out 17 videos across its 8 channels every week.
And in regards to the audience, with 8 different channels, there is 8 different audiences to target.

It is more about not putting all eggs in one basket. All though, as it currently stands, most eggs are still in the Linus basket.

And to be fair, the LTT channel could likely skip a video every other week or so, I don't think the majority of people would notice to be fair. And those who do are likely the most adherent of fans that would still watch. And if it means a slight quality improvement due to less stress, then it might even give better audience retentionship, something Youtube has explicitly stated is what drives their "algorithms".

[Dangerdash]

made an account to post here. Hello world!

a lot of people (on the youtube comments at least) are pleading with linus so he can give himself and his team a break and kick back a bit so as to not turn work into a nightmare, but in retrospect; its not that easy. with the relative size of LMG That linus has accomplished, less content = less revenue from youtube and less revenue is bad from a business standpoint when you got lots of things to pay for (including employees) to create said revenue. The LTT Store and Floatplane amounts to only a certain percentage (Refer to "How does Linus make money" videos) of revenue per quarter, and the struggle to, in this video, create a certain amount of content to avoid any gaps in planned releases so linus can use the buffer to "Take a vacation" and "spend time with his kids" is pretty damn admirable. but, admirable as it may be, eventually this is going to be a losing struggle.

 

IMHO, there should be more freedom for the team to handle things more often with linus less and less in the picture so he can focus on more on his business and business things instead having to be in a lot of videos and having to stretch himself all over the place production-wise. which IS Happening, you can see a lot more videos and channels with other people (shout out to riley at techlinked, james for carpool critics, Anthony, and others ive missed). i can't wait to see what LMG can do in the future when the team can handle the reins more often, but for now, they deserve a lot of respect and are going to need a lot of luck

 

TL:DR

 

Linus, you're not elasti-girl. you stretch yourself too thin. a lot of fans have voiced concerns and opinions of their own about how you handle this stuff. hey, i love the content, i listen to WAN show and Techlinked on my commute to work. but damn, this entire AD of a video for monday.com has me wondering how the hell you can keep going.

 

2 Espresso shots in one cup? do you even sleep? ... are you a Lizard?

[Egg-Roll]

First the WAN show shouldn't be classified as a video, it's a talk show based on released tech news that has been covered over the past week and notes should be added/removed throughout the week. Simply put outside of the mild initial hassle of setting up at home live streaming across platforms, if you still can't get it right after all these years maybe stop doing it?

 

Carpool critics is also like the wan show, I've never watched it but if it's anything like others similar to it, it isn't really scripted and shot in one sitting.

So you are actually making only 15 videos not 17. At least you didn't count the clips from the WAN show as work...

 

Also Linus only comes in 4 days a week? I hope that's only due to the Pandemic... Anything else as the reason is why you're always behind schedule, esp if he has to be there for any aspect of the video or if the video requiring him could be done sooner. If you run the company and expect your workers to be there for 5 days 40 hours a week and not to see their kids till the weekend, I expect you to be there too doing the same. Like holly hell 1:30 in and that whole situation likely could have been avoided if Linus just came in on Mondays. Every place I've ever worked for owners literally F'd off on Fridays by noon (if they showed up), but always there Monday to endure the week got off on a good foot. 2 minutes in James literally stated anyone who worked in a functional company should have known. Linus needs to start leading by example.

 

I genuinely feel sorry for James and crew for actually having to put up with this crap. No wonder the 3080 Ti video ended so poorly, Linus is never around for last minute recordings.

 

54 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

The quality of LTT videos dropped off a cliff years ago

Maybe the same time Linus started taking Mondays off  Seriously tho sad to see 4/6/8K cameras being wasted with the obnoxious wobble, it doesn't bug me as much as it bugs you but it's still annoying, even where the wobble shouldn't exist. Guess a tripod or 2 is too expensive for LTT for hallways while shooting these kinds of videos.

[asquirrel]

6 hours ago, Spindel said:

I feel so sorry for Linus, I feel stressed just by watching this video. 
 

LMG needs to use more other hosts than Linus for Linuses sake. 

Linus is his own worst enemy. Jocko Willink talks a lot about leadership. One of the fundamental pillars of that is delegating tasks. But then Jocko goes on to explain how you delegate. "That's a great idea, make it happen." and you give the entire thing to them.

 

Look at the body language of everyone in this video. They all answer to Linus and they know it. Nobody owns anything, because success is Thanks Be to Linus, and failure is your fault. There's no reason to strive or achieve when your 'rewards' are because of your boss, but your failures are because of your own failings. Look at the criticisms Linus receives about working at LMG during The Wan Show. He is absolutely hostile to anyone who says working at LMG is anything less than awesome. And if you don't let him flex the rules, and you hold him to the letter of the law, then you can GTFO. Smells like unpaid overtime to me.

 

Start with Riley. He 'owns' Techquickie. He chooses guest hosts, he does script reviews (and loops in someone like James, rather than Linus, if he is reviewing his own script), he talks to Ed, he resolves scheduling conflicts, etc. When a Techquickie goes wrong, there needs to already be a culture within LMG (this doesn't exist now) of saying "Ok, I failed, why did I fail?" because Riley, in this case, would have so much ownership of Techquickie that any failure would be his fault in 99% of cases. So when Riley asks "Ok Linus, I failed, how/why? What am I not seeing?" then you have a conversation as peers to troubleshoot what went wrong.

 

Similarly, when Riley really wins, he gets those rewards directly and divvies them out himself. Revenue up 30%? Then he gets to budget how that 30% gets spent. He has final say, not Linus. That's delegation, and it gives Riley the means and tools to not only succeed, but be personally invested in success. If Riley is greedy, and those funds could help other parts of LMG that are unbalanced, he can choose to do so, but he can also use it as a carrot on a stick to say "These problems are structural, fix them, and then I'll give you the money."

 

I don't want anyone to misunderstand, Linus is not 'evil'. He's pushed well beyond his limits. But he's beyond his limits because he created a cult of personality by hiring people with a personality fit first, and a talent fit second. Madison was the one time he had to bend that rule, and, well, he's never once acted positively about her outside of begrudgingly admitting her ROG reboot video was one of the best they've done in years. He's not acting, he actually dislikes her. And that's very telling, because she's a strong A-type personality, and he cannot stand being around another one of those.

 

Linus has to admit that the success of LMG is because he is a good strategic leader, and give up the tactical leadership to his direct reports. But doing that requires Linus to admit that someone else can take what he's built and make it better than he can. That's something Linus can't do right now for reasons I don't have the information to comprehend.

 

A knock-on effect of this is that he can't demand non-competes from ANYONE once he does this. If your on-screen talent is good and drives business by writing good scripts in a timely manner and running the ship on their own, then you can't simultaneously tell them that they are only able to work for you. Any sane person will say "uh, hell no" to that in a heartbeat. When I say Linus is his own worst enemy, I'm not kidding. It runs DEEP with him. He's been like this for decades, and for him to change will require a monumental change in his way of seeing the world.

[Ariolander]

6 hours ago, Luscious said:

I understand the method to the madness, but is there a reason? .. There comes a point where quality trumps quantity.

It is most definitely algorithm. The algorithm rewards people who keep a schedule, if you miss even a week of uploads you can stop appearing in the front page, sidebards, and subscription box. Getting on those recommendation boxes is important for a video to gain critical mass. 

 

Likewise the algorithm doesn't actually care about the "quality" of the video, in fact people who take a long time to produce single videos and long upload schedules are penalized by YouTube. For a long time YouTube has been incentivizing lower "quality" shorter form content and frequent uploads to always keep "fresh" content on people's front pages,

[starwarscity9]

Dang, that looks pretty chaotic and very crammed huge respect for all of them over at LMG.

 

Keep up the good effort!

 

(I wouldn't mind you guys cutting some videos on some of the smaller channels)

[crazzp]

7 hours ago, Egg-Roll said:

First the WAN show shouldn't be classified as a video, it's a talk show based on released tech news that has been covered over the past week and notes should be added/removed throughout the week. Simply put outside of the mild initial hassle of setting up at home live streaming across platforms, if you still can't get it right after all these years maybe stop doing it?

 

Carpool critics is also like the wan show, I've never watched it but if it's anything like others similar to it, it isn't really scripted and shot in one sitting.

So you are actually making only 15 videos not 17. At least you didn't count the clips from the WAN show as work...

 

Also Linus only comes in 4 days a week? I hope that's only due to the Pandemic... Anything else as the reason is why you're always behind schedule, esp if he has to be there for any aspect of the video or if the video requiring him could be done sooner. If you run the company and expect your workers to be there for 5 days 40 hours a week and not to see their kids till the weekend, I expect you to be there too doing the same. Like holly hell 1:30 in and that whole situation likely could have been avoided if Linus just came in on Mondays. Every place I've ever worked for owners literally F'd off on Fridays by noon (if they showed up), but always there Monday to endure the week got off on a good foot. 2 minutes in James literally stated anyone who worked in a functional company should have known. Linus needs to start leading by example.

 

I genuinely feel sorry for James and crew for actually having to put up with this crap. No wonder the 3080 Ti video ended so poorly, Linus is never around for last minute recordings.

 

Maybe the same time Linus started taking Mondays off  Seriously tho sad to see 4/6/8K cameras being wasted with the obnoxious wobble, it doesn't bug me as much as it bugs you but it's still annoying, even where the wobble shouldn't exist. Guess a tripod or 2 is too expensive for LTT for hallways while shooting these kinds of videos.

Lol look at you, so much hate and anger. Sitting behind the keyboard striking away videos like WAN show and Carpool Critics. WAN show and carpool critics sometimes can stretch as long as 1.5hours and that's not considered a video? So what is considered a video by your arbitrary definition. Are those unboxing of a purple iPhone video considered? 

Linus has work tirelessly without missing a single scheduled release since the channel started, tell me which other channel has done this. You think project management is easy and doesn't come with stress, then you must not have been in such a position before. He has three kids that he would like to spend more time on and honestly that's fair, his subordinates are there to take the responsibility and roles. 

 

Before you complain any more, show us your credentials, where is your 10+M subs channels, big family to feed and employees to pay. 

[asquirrel]

1 hour ago, Sakuriru said:

Except that's not the case, as you spent multiple paragraphs describing how Riley operates with autonomy to give yourself a counterexample for some reason and then stuck to your original thought. The fact you brought up Jocko Willink is interesting, to say the least.

First, everyone does answer to Linus because he's the owner of LMG. That's how it works.

 

Second, I don't think we were watching the same thing. James was clearly the one running the operations behind video scheduling, along with a team of other people, and it does him a great disservice to overlook. He pretty much decided the video schedule and then made it happen, that's the definition of ownership. At multiple points he told Linus what the schedule needed to be or where Linus needed to be. It's also seen with Taran and Brandon how things were organized and how respective departments interfaced, each taking ownership of their own section.

 

Similarly with writers, they have to come up with ideas and then do research and write up scripts. It's demonstrated that LMG relies pretty heavily on its team members being able to wear multiple hats and be competent at each of them.

 

Once again seen with Floatplane; it's explicitly mentioned that Linus is hands off.

 

His real oversight roles and main function seem to be creative direction, approval, quality, and business strategy, which are the actual things a business owner should be doing and is primarily responsible for. The fact that he appears in so many videos is because his personality is part of the success so he can't just step away from the day to day operations and run his business, he has to be part of those operations quite heavily. This is also probably why he's so stressed but hey, that's what it's like at the top.

Re-read. I spent multiple paragraphs talking about how Linus could start by giving Riley autonomy.

 

James is not managing anything. He's more of a secretary than a manager. A manager would make the videos happen without Linus's involvement and come to Linus with a plan "Ok, you show up at X for voice-over for Sarah's build." rather than coming to Linus with the most timid of attitudes to say "Linus sir, we have a problem that you must resolve, here are some options." This is not a demerit to James. He's made toothless by Linus being the final say on literally every non-trivial decision James could make.

 

Taran and Brandon both get autonomy because Linus can't do their jobs. Linus himself admits this. "We'd love to shoot in 60 FPS, but if I did I think half my shooters would quit." (or a quote from Linus VERY similar to this during the last WAN show). Linus can't approve their work because Linus doesn't understand their work. Not in the way he understands, for example, writing.

 

Floatplane answers to Linus. Luke is the closest thing to a manager LMG has as Linus actually trusts Luke to handle all Floatplane related day-to-day tasks. Linus still heads the strategic decisions and overall view, but Luke is still pretty neutered on what direction he can take Floatplane because of being bound to Linus. Think about how VMware moved away from supporting certain Dell/EMC software solutions even though VMware was owned by EMC and spun off as a separate company, can you see Luke ever doing that? No.

[Orian Pax]

12 hours ago, Streetguru said:

Why don't ya just make like 6 videos a week though...

they do just to be ahead of schedule they make extra 10 videos something i remembered from one the linus's videos. and that is from when he has only three channels ltt, techlinked,channel super fun.

[Video Beagle]

15 hours ago, Streetguru said:

Why don't ya just make like 6 videos a week though...

Well, the "17" number is a bit...misleading.. the WAN show clips on LMG Clips were counted in that...and while those certainly take time to put togther....choosing what to clip, getting it, making a thumbnail, uploading...they don't take anywhere near the amount of time the main LTT videos take.

 

Still, a lot of output (and this video was before the new Mac channel started).

 

---

One question I had though...they did another "how we do videos" a year or plus back, showcasing this software, iirc...but was then revealed "oh, we don't actually use that stuff...we use something similar, but not that one"...so while I like the behind the scenes look, I'm less then moved by the showcase of the software.

[crazzp]

1 hour ago, Video Beagle said:

Well, the "17" number is a bit...misleading.. the WAN show clips on LMG Clips were counted in that...and while those certainly take time to put togther....choosing what to clip, getting it, making a thumbnail, uploading...they don't take anywhere near the amount of time the main LTT videos take.

 

Still, a lot of output (and this video was before the new Mac channel started).

 

---

One question I had though...they did another "how we do videos" a year or plus back, showcasing this software, iirc...but was then revealed "oh, we don't actually use that stuff...we use something similar, but not that one"...so while I like the behind the scenes look, I'm less then moved by the showcase of the software.

17 is not misleading, they literally produce 17 videos per week. What you assume otherwise is entirely on you. Not sure why numerous people harping on the number 17, it's pretty irrelevant what is the exact number in this case. 

On the subject of showcasing the software they dont use, many influencers do the same. They may or may not use said product but shows up with them, were you equally less than moved. If not, why the double standard? LTT is just showing you what a use-case could be, heck maybe they really used it for that week. 
Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi both appear in KFC ad but I dont think you'd believe they eat KFC?
MKBHD is sponsored by dbrand sometimes and shows phones with Dbrand skins on them but doesnt actually use a dbrand skin for his personal phones.