this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
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Linus Tech Tips
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This is such a braindead comment. Even a company with an on-site HR team can't know about something unless someone tells them. What do you think they're like constantly reviewing cameras and recording all employee conversations or something? The first step is to speak up.
It absolutely does seem like they have a bad company culture. Even James comment was a little misguided. Once again not speaking on the allegations. But you have to remember this team grew from a very small personal relationship. There are going to be major oversights as a result of that. Especially when it comes to hr matters. It is absolutely horrible what happened and it's even worse that it did not seem to be properly addressed. I hope they properly address these issues and course correct.
But your comment started inherently flawed. They genuinely cannot know or address a problem if someone doesn't tell them.
There are quite a few steps to take before counting on people reporting sexual harassment. Train management properly and regularly. Make sure all layers of management are 100% aware of what kind of behavior is and isn't tolerated. Immediately take action on small, seemingly insignificant incidents. Remove or lower any barriers to reporting incidents, etc. I'm assuming here that those things didn't happen, as the company grew quickly and it was probably assumed by Linus that the chummy goofy atmosphere would just scale up and people would be decent to each other. That was a mistake. None of that is mentioned in this speech, nor is any future change in managing company culture. He's basically blaming people for not using the channels that are already in place.
If anyone in that room was experiencing any form of bullying or harassment by their manager, they would not feel reassured by this speech, quite to the contrary. That's a failure of management. Linus doesn't seem to understand what a huge risk people take by speaking out, and how it's not something you 'just do'.
It's good Linus stepped down as CEO since then, he is obviously not great at running a company this size day-to-day, but stamping out a bad culture is tougher than just switching out the CEO.