LTT Company policy stuff

[kumicota]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If they apply, and they fit then sure (but it's up to them, not the company).  The only thing being is if they fit into a specialty position

I disagree with this, LTT has a lot of enterprise/datacenter level hardware in their facilities, this can lead you to hire someone who doesn't has experience on the hardware/software that they are working to not work with properly and then "damage" it after some time.

 

A recent example of that is the data loss of LTT where it happened because Jake, Anthony and Linus didn't configured ZFS properly leading them to lose a lot of data, I'm not denying that Anthony and Jake are very smart and capable people but the ZFS problem was a rookie mistake and while that was something that they caused unknowingly, this was a LTT hiring process fault, where they hired inexperienced people for the job.

 

Also about this data loss, the first time it happened a few years ago, a few people here commented that Linus should take more care and hire a specialist for the job or to buy a enterprise SAN because he can lose almost all data as all the time that they had to rebuilt their servers was commom mistakes but he scolded them and ignored them

[wanderingfool2]

14 minutes ago, kumicota said:

I disagree with this, LTT has a lot of enterprise/datacenter level hardware in their facilities, this can lead you to hire someone who doesn't has experience on the hardware/software that they are working to not work with properly and then "damage" it after some time.

 

A recent example of that is the data loss of LTT where it happened because Jake, Anthony and Linus didn't configured ZFS properly leading them to lose a lot of data, I'm not denying that Anthony and Jake are very smart and capable people but the ZFS problem was a rookie mistake and while that was something that they caused unknowingly, this was a LTT hiring process fault, where they hired inexperienced people for the job.

 

Also about this data loss, the first time it happened a few years ago, a few people here commented that Linus should take more care and hire a specialist for the job or to buy a enterprise SAN because he can lose almost all data as all the time that they had to rebuilt their servers was commom mistakes but he scolded them and ignored them

I'd argue that that video doesn't show that they need a specialist...more like they just need to hire an IT guy who can also do things such as monitor the equipment (and check for issues).  I've had a hired company who specialized in networking equipment (like as in the tech all had CCNA's) that actually put a DMZ server connected and communicating with the internal network [After they had done the job, I was just spot checking everything and I noticed it...I don't have a CCNA...and at that stage of my career I had only done networking stuff as a hobbyist].  So even the "pros" can make a mistake.

 

From everything that I've seen of Linus's videos, it's more like they try to do things a bit too quickly (or rather they aren't thinking about long-term management)...all of which would be corrected if they had a dedicated IT staffer that's actually in charge of that kind of stuff.  I don't think Linus needs a specialist, and I don't think it's because he's hiring "under qualified" people.  I think it's just because he and Jake decided to tackle the project and likely didn't spend nearly as much time as they should on it.

 

tl;dr I don't think that example is of bad hiring practices or even having inexperienced people for the job.  More to do that they don't really have anyone dedicated to the general maintenance; which leads to mistakes and assumptions being made.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Fun fact about Vancouver demographics...Asian decent makes up around 30% - 40%...so uhm yea in that department they pretty much have around the amount one would expect on average.

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

Which more or less matches the demographic of Vancouver. They should have at least 1 black employee once they reach 100 employee. 

See:

22 hours ago, LAwLz said:

You just have to look at the proportion of women employed to see that it is not an accurate reflection of the citizens of Vancouver. 5 out of the 42 employees are women, and if we go back like 2 months the ratio was even more stark. Pretty sure Vancouver has more than ~12% females living in it.

Another very obvious disparity is with age, as I mentioned earlier. I am pretty sure Vancouver has people over the age of 40 living in it, yet it seems like none of them are employed my LMG. Even if they happen to have like one or two people over the age of 40, it's still nowhere near the actual ratio of people over the age of 40 in Vancouver. 

 

I was just giving one out of many examples.

In any case, LTT is not diverse at all. They do not match the demographic of Vancouver, and even if they did, Vancouver is simply not a very diverse city. Most cities aren't.

 

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

It really depends on how you choose to pick what you mean as diversity

I am just basing this on what the word "diverse" actually means.

Define diverse:

Quote

The practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I just wanted to say that, because I do feel that saying a company doesn't have diversity can greatly lead people who are asking about hiring practices and such to come to the wrong conclusion.

Which is why I added this, and similar statements to my posts:

On 3/7/2022 at 7:49 AM, LAwLz said:

We can talk about how there aren't many 60 year old black woman applying for jobs there, and that LMG don't hire based on things like sex, ethnicity or age, but let's not pretend like their company is diverse because it isn't. 

There are legitimate reasons why it isn't diverse, but that does not mean it is diverse. 

22 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I don't think this is some intentional malice from LMG though. Like I said earlier, I don't think there are many 60 year old black women applying for jobs at a Youtube channel about consumer electronics. Their staff is probably a pretty good representation of their target demographic (if we remove all the children that aren't allowed to work). So like 90% white and Asian males in early adulthood.

 

I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not saying that LMG is giving preferential treatment to people based on factors such as race and gender. I don't have any evidence for nor against that and I quite frankly don't care.

I just don't think saying LMG is "diverse" is accurate because they clearly aren't. I am not making any comments about WHY they aren't diverse, I am just stating the quite obvious fact that they aren't diverse. 

Actually... I did comment on why they aren't diverse. My comment was that I don't think a diverse group of people have applied for jobs, so it is basically impossible for LMG to actually have a diverse crew.

 

A company that consists of roughly of ~80% young adult white or Asian males can not be said to be diverse though. Trying to claim it is, is just silly.

[LAwLz]

46 minutes ago, kumicota said:

Also about this data loss, the first time it happened a few years ago, a few people here commented that Linus should take more care and hire a specialist for the job or to buy a enterprise SAN because he can lose almost all data as all the time that they had to rebuilt their servers was commom mistakes but he scolded them and ignored them

Hey, that was me!

 

If you want a good laugh, check out Linus' braindead response:  

On 11/19/2021 at 8:50 AM, LinusTech said:

Edit: Oh yeah, and you claim in a separate post that we lost a lot of money due to our servers and network infrastructure. Citation needed lol. We've lost a couple of hours of productivity here and there, sure, but the cost of that compared to what it would have cost us to implement some of the dumb shit "pros" have recommended to us over the years (if I had a dollar for every time some wanna be consultant told us to buy an off-the-shelf SAN, I could use it to buy  one) is not even close.

 

Check your attitude, m8.

If Linus was responsible for the IT at your average company, he would probably cause them to go under.

 

 

 

24 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I've had a hired company who specialized in networking equipment (like as in the tech all had CCNA's) that actually put a DMZ server connected and communicating with the internal network [After they had done the job, I was just spot checking everything and I noticed it...I don't have a CCNA...and at that stage of my career I had only done networking stuff as a hobbyist].  So even the "pros" can make a mistake.

Small tangent, there is nothing wrong with letting a server in a DMZ talk to internal resources. Most DMZ servers would probably not even work if you cut off all communication to internal servers. The idea of a DMZ is that you restrict and tightly control which internal resources the DMZ server can access. Those consultants might have made a mistake, but nothing in your post indicates that they did to me.

 

30 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

tl;dr I don't think that example is of bad hiring practices or even having inexperienced people for the job.  More to do that they don't really have anyone dedicated to the general maintenance; which leads to mistakes and assumptions being made.

In the case of their multiple storage failures (how many have they had now, 3? 4?), they had nothing to do with maintenance. It was just poorly designed from the get to. It indicates a lack of basic understanding.

The thing is that LTT are not interested in doing things properly. Their jobs are to create videos, not build good and reliable infrastructure. If they can duct tape together some white box solution that barely works then that makes for a good video. If that server then breaks then that's just more content! These half-assed solutions are probably more entertaining to watch than proper solutions as well.

 

That's why I have repeated said that I hope nobody actually watches LTT videos for educational purposes, because you will be taught terrible practices. 

[Avocado Diaboli]

3 hours ago, Zusafek said:

You've seen the answer, you just won't accept it. 

Point me towards where you actually answered my question on how you would solve a society-wide problem based on literal centuries of racist policy that continues to exist to this very day. You only told me that you happen to hire a lot of black people. Which is fine, but not an answer to my question.

 

3 hours ago, Zusafek said:

Which is why you have a problem with LTT diversity.

I don't have a problem with their diversity or lack thereof. You must be imagining things. Otherwise tell me where I commented on their hiring practices. I'll wait.

 

3 hours ago, Zusafek said:

Face it, diversity is by far one of the most racist things to exist today.  

You keep saying that, but repeating nonsense doesn't make it true. By that decree helping poor people by giving them an edge in the job market like in many places in the world, where you have to prove that you tried hiring someone without a job before giving it to someone actively seeking to change employers is classist.

[kumicota]

42 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

If you want a good laugh, check out Linus' braindead response:  

I saw and more than once I just didn't remembered who and where, Linus should take more care about what he says. A lot of time seems to me that when we criticize him, that he thinks we want to damage him or his business while is the other way around where we want to make him to harm LTT.

 

42 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The thing is that LTT are not interested in doing things properly.

I get this feeling too. He committed the same mistake more than 3 times and doesn't think that he's doing something wrong.

Edited March 14, 2022 by kumicota
Adding more info

[wanderingfool2]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Most DMZ servers would probably not even work if you cut off all communication to internal servers. The idea of a DMZ is that you restrict and tightly control which internal resources the DMZ server can access. Those consultants might have made a mistake, but nothing in your post indicates that they did to me.

Infer from the fact I was talking about DMZ's communicated with an internal server.  If you put a bit of thought into it, you could have realized it's not just "lets allow a bit of communication".  The server was in no way the way they set it up on a DMZ network.  So yea, they royally messed up, in that the server was allowed to initiate communication on all ports to any internal server.  Only essential ports between a DMZ server and internal network should ever be enabled.

 

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not saying that LMG is giving preferential treatment to people based on factors such as race and gender. I don't have any evidence for nor against that and I quite frankly don't care.

I just don't think saying LMG is "diverse" is accurate because they clearly aren't. I am not making any comments about WHY they aren't diverse, I am just stating the quite obvious fact that they aren't diverse. 

Actually... I did comment on why they aren't diverse. My comment was that I don't think a diverse group of people have applied for jobs, so it is basically impossible for LMG to actually have a diverse crew.

 

A company that consists of roughly of ~80% young adult white or Asian males can not be said to be diverse though. Trying to claim it is, is just silly.

Again, it's all about how you ask the question though.  There is also the issue that saying the opposite: A company is not diverse has a very negative connotation to it now and days.

 

Again, when comparing diversity, I think a lot of people consider local population diversity as a teller of what diversity within a company means.  Again, if you strictly go by the numbers, I can guarantee that nearly no company meets you definition of diversity then.  At which point it becomes just a meaningless thing that people toss around to attack companies for not being "diverse" enough.  It's why I'm defending saying that for myself, I wouldn't say that they are lacking diversity (as it creates more harm than good by stating that).

 

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

If Linus was responsible for the IT at your average company, he would probably cause them to go under.

I've worked at a company that "goes" with the industry consultants ask them, and one that also does penny pinching.  One of the companies is not in business anymore, care to guess which?

 

The fact is, Linus was right in that though, the cost of the solutions over the years likely would have cost a lot more than lost productivity.

I mean, the company bought a HPE SAN which cost like $40,000 and required swapping out the drives (based on the failure rate) about one every year...but required the enterprise grade drives (it was like $600 a pop I think once warranty expires...too long ago now for me to remember exact figures).  The "recommend" lifecycle by the industry consultants was 5 years.  So yea, in Linus' case (needing PetaBytes of storage) I wouldn't be surprised if the number hits close to a million for the "proper" solution.

 

Unless you know the financials and the actual downtimes, you really can't call Linus' response braindead...since Linus has more of the facts regarding things such as finances than you do.  Companies that don't watch their costs are some of the ones that end up dying or barely get by.

 

Anyways, not going to derail this topic anymore.

 

[LinusTech]

7 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The fact is, Linus was right in that though, the cost of the solutions over the years likely would have cost a lot more than lost productivity.

I mean, the company bought a HPE SAN which cost like $40,000 and required swapping out the drives (based on the failure rate) about one every year...but required the enterprise grade drives (it was like $600 a pop I think once warranty expires...too long ago now for me to remember exact figures).  The "recommend" lifecycle by the industry consultants was 5 years.  So yea, in Linus' case (needing PetaBytes of storage) I wouldn't be surprised if the number hits close to a million for the "proper" solution.

 

Unless you know the financials and the actual downtimes, you really can't call Linus' response braindead...since Linus has more of the facts regarding things such as finances than you do.  Companies that don't watch their costs are some of the ones that end up dying or barely get by.

 

Anyways, not going to derail this topic anymore.

 

Someone who gets it.

 

SAN is and was a ridiculous suggestion for a company of our size and the amount of data we're hoarding for no real reason.

 

It's like the people who suggest we archive to a cloud backup solution. Ever priced out the storage/restoration fees for a petabyte of data?? I'm not paying for that. Lol. It's just old footage.

 

We only built petabyte project for content and 'because we could' in the first place. We don't actually need full quality archives of all of our footage.

 

But go ahead, y'all and let me how my business is bad and these mistakes are destroying it or smth. It's too bad I don't have actual numbers to prove otherwise or anything.

 

As for the OP (to bring this back on topic)

 

1. We subscribe to a single stream recycling service (residential is included in property taxes in Surrey, but not commercial. Go figure.) that comes in weekly to empty our garbage, organics, and recyclables. That was a James initiative, but the logistics department handles coordinating with the third party now.

 

2. Our policy is to never discriminate based on age/race/gender/etc. We only look at skill set, experience and work ethic. Everything else is irrelevant to me. It happens that a lot of techy people are young dudes and we live in an area where white/asian are the majority mix. I don't make the rules, I just live by them.

 

I *am* surprised we don't have more people of east indian descent, but I'm sure it'll happen at some point since we don't give two shits what colour someone's skin is.

 

3. We don't have one. Nothing legally prevents the staff from forming one, but doubt they'd ever bother. I'd consider it a personal failure if they needed one. which should give you some idea how our company is run.

 

4. Honestly I don't know other than that I have to report anything unsafe to someone on the Safety Patrol. It's Colton, Dennis, Yvonne, and Logistics, iirc. Also if you get hurt you have to fill out form. We have a bunch of more specific rules around the shop equipment and stuff like that but I don't really touch it since Rule #1 is "if you don't know how to use it, don't touch it"

[tkitch]

4 hours ago, LinusTech said:

1. We subscribe to a single stream recycling service (residential is included in property taxes in Surrey, but not commercial. Go figure.) that comes in weekly to empty our garbage, organics, and recyclables. That was a James initiative, but the logistics department handles coordinating with the third party now.

Additionally, as mentioned in the new Wish Watercooling video, you have separate e-waste disposal from your normal trash, or recycling.

[cmndr]

On 3/6/2022 at 2:12 PM, Nopesef said:

Hi there,

I have to write up an essay about the inner workings of Linus Media Group for an essay. So far, I've been able to find most of my questions on the LTT forums, discord and the internet, but a few questions remain unanswered.

 

Q1: How does LMG handle recycling and what are its policies on sustainability?

Q2: When it comes to employing new people, does LMG have any policies in place to deal with EEO (Equal Employment Opportunities)?

Q3: What sort of union represents the employees of LMG if there is any?

Q4: What policies does LMG have in place for WHS (Work Health and Safety) if any? If so, what safety measures / policies have been put in place for employees?

 

Thanks for any answers guys

(Btw, yes I have already emailed them using the contact page on the LMG website but never heard back from them)

I'm going to take some random guesses at this. This is NOT the company line.

1. Responsibly. There's a staff member that handles that aspect of logistics
2. They consider all qualified applicants. If you do a quick check of their staff it resembles the college educated population of the general area. It also has more gender diversity than LTT's viewing audience (98% male) and is presumably 50% owned by a female
3. Why would you want to ruin a perfectly good company? Half the unions are influenced by the mafia anyway. Ever hear of the teamsters? LMG does pay competitively and offers perks on lightly used computer hardware.
4. LMG follows local rules of ordinances.
 

Quote

I *am* surprised we don't have more people of east indian descent, but I'm sure it'll happen at some point since we don't give two shits what colour someone's skin is.

Hardware Cannucks has a monopoly on Canadian Indians.

[LinusTech]

9 hours ago, tkitch said:

Additionally, as mentioned in the new Wish Watercooling video, you have separate e-waste disposal from your normal trash, or recycling.

Yeah we have a bin. We cart it to freegeek once in a while along with other random donated hardware.

[Zodiark1593]

14 hours ago, LinusTech said:

Someone who gets it.

 

SAN is and was a ridiculous suggestion for a company of our size and the amount of data we're hoarding for no real reason.

 

It's like the people who suggest we archive to a cloud backup solution. Ever priced out the storage/restoration fees for a petabyte of data?? I'm not paying for that. Lol. It's just old footage.

 

We only built petabyte project for content and 'because we could' in the first place. We don't actually need full quality archives of all of our footage.

 

But go ahead, y'all and let me how my business is bad and these mistakes are destroying it or smth. It's too bad I don't have actual numbers to prove otherwise or anything.

 

As for the OP (to bring this back on topic)

 

1. We subscribe to a single stream recycling service (residential is included in property taxes in Surrey, but not commercial. Go figure.) that comes in weekly to empty our garbage, organics, and recyclables. That was a James initiative, but the logistics department handles coordinating with the third party now.

 

2. Our policy is to never discriminate based on age/race/gender/etc. We only look at skill set, experience and work ethic. Everything else is irrelevant to me. It happens that a lot of techy people are young dudes and we live in an area where white/asian are the majority mix. I don't make the rules, I just live by them.

 

I *am* surprised we don't have more people of east indian descent, but I'm sure it'll happen at some point since we don't give two shits what colour someone's skin is.

 

 

Racism is a concept I don't really understand. Experience tells me that skin color is entirely irrelevant on what kind of person an individual is. I've dealt with bullies of multiple races during my school years, and I've met some really wonderful people of differing races, and everything in between. Unfortunately, it just seems that some people will hold onto whatever reason they can to be assholes to others, and I despise it, as the resulting rifts have persisted for centuries and continue to haunt us today.

 

I will say though, a SAN would make one heck of a "HOLY $H!T" episode.

[LAwLz]

9 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Racism is a concept I don't really understand. Experience tells me that skin color is entirely irrelevant on what kind of person an individual is. I've dealt with bullies of multiple races during my school years, and I've met some really wonderful people of differing races, and everything in between. Unfortunately, it just seems that some people will hold onto whatever reason they can to be assholes to others, and I despise it, as the resulting rifts have persisted for centuries and continue to haunt us today.

Whether we like it or not, believe it or not, everyone has prejudices and biases. Even if you think you are completely immune to racism, sexism, etc, you still are to some degree. It's an evolutionary trait that helped us survive. 

As soon as you see someone, you start subconsciously judging them. It might be how they look (skin color, dress, sex, dirty or not etc), or how they behave (how they walk, talk, move, etc). 

For example you said that you had been bullied during your school years. You most likely subconsciously judge people who remind you of those bullies more harshly than other people. It's completely natural.

 

My partner works as an employment consultant and have countless of tales of people being subconsciously biased. For example men applying for positions as a kindergarten teacher are more harshly judged than females applying for the same position, possibly because of subconscious associations with pedophiles. The people making those associations are usually not even aware that they are doing it until it gets pointed out to them. They just feel like an adult man wanting to work with children is weird without reflecting on why and if those feelings are even true.

 

As with things like "work culture". Sometimes people do not get employed because "they don't fit the work culture", which can basically translate to "we only employ people who are similar to us".

 

Just to be 100% clear because people tend to get super defensive about these things. I am not saying it is right or wrong to do these things. I am not accusing someone of doing these things either. All I am saying is that racism is not really a strange concept when you think about it. We humans tend to categorize things, a lot. Hell, just look at AMD vs Intel and how many just summarize large product ranges into "Intel bad, AMD good" or "AMD = budget, Intel = premium" when it might only be true for like 1/3 of the products they both release.

 

 

24 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

I will say though, a SAN would make one heck of a "HOLY $H!T" episode.

Just to be clear, I never said LMG should get a SAN. I think a SAN would be overkill for the things they do, which are pretty simple.

A properly configured NAS would be better. And when I said "properly configured" I mean, not configured like the previous 3 NASes they have had that broke down because of bad design and configuration choices.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Just to be clear, I never said LMG should get a SAN. I think a SAN would be overkill for the things they do, which are pretty simple.

A properly configured NAS would be better. And when I said "properly configured" I mean, not configured like the previous 3 NASes they have had that broke down because of bad design and configuration choices.

Unless I'm mistaking, they only had 2 failures...and one of them was caused by a hardware failure.  You talk about how they hire people who don't know what they are talking about, but the thing is I do believe most of them do...just they don't have the time to always do everything properly.  The "experts" or companies who do setups like this likely would also have quoted a butt ton more for a system than is actually worth it.

 

I mean, could always go with Jellyfish but hat comes out to $198k (for 5 years support), or building your own 45drives at $50k.  I mean really this recent one that they had it was preventable if they had someone that was a dedicated IT staffer [even admitted in the video].  The only reason they realized they had an issue was because Jake had done effectively what an IT staffer would be tasked with...maintenance and checking the backup solution.

 

Like I also said as well, those "experts" that people hire make mistakes as well...except in cases where you rely on someone else, if they do things that are out of your scope of knowledge (or rather you don't want to poke around at their work in fear of messing with someone) then you could be putting yourself at a bigger risk.

 

Again, I'm going with my example of CCNA people who left the communication with the DMZ to the internal network.  Other examples, from a friend who works at a MSP, situations where backups weren't setup correctly, the warning emails weren't being checked and the company had a failure that was non-recoverable [all done by a "professional" company].

[Bluebull]

On 3/14/2022 at 2:38 PM, LAwLz said:

That's why I have repeated said that I hope nobody actually watches LTT videos for educational purposes, because you will be taught terrible practices. 

I have watched LTT for over 7 years for educational purposes. Its not always the best, but LTT as a whole is one of the main reasons I have a job in tech right now. His videos arent necessarily teaching you "how-to", but more-so showing that its fun and educational to experiment in tech. 

[Jaesop]

On 3/14/2022 at 10:58 AM, Zusafek said:

Sorry but diversity is a joke.  I would much rather hire the people with the right education and knowledge base for the job than worry about what sex, race, blah blah blah....

 

Tell me, would you rather hire a truck driver with 20 years experience with a clean driving record or a driver because she is of a certain race with zero experience and has multiple traffic violations on her record.

Why are you saying diversity but clearly talking about affirmative action? You may be surprised to learn that there are qualified candidates of all different backgrounds.

[LogicalDrm]

*** Thread locked ***

 

@Nopesef, you've got reply from Linus (marked as Best Answer by me). This thread seems to have strong tendency to derail into discussion about equality of employment in general which has its place, but not in this thread. Hence the lock. If you @Nopesef want thread to continue, even with derailing, please contact me or report the thread.