We are Linus Tech Tips, makers of YouTube tech videos - ask us anything!

When are you upgrading to RGB sandals?

It's a matter of time. We've actually reached out to the brand that makes the sandals I wear about doing an LTT edition sandal. They got back to us saying it "didn't align with their brand values" or something to that effect.

I was like "WHAT?? The ONLY person on EARTH who proudly rocks your dad sandals as a keystone of his image and supporting that is not part of your brand values?? What ARE your brand values??"

Hi Linus, what was Intel’s response to your video on the i9 and the X299 platform, seeing as you just had a sponsored video with them?

I've actually exchanged emails with them already and I have a call with some folks over there sometime this week to discuss my concerns. There was a lot of concern from members of our community that our criticism of Intel would negatively affect our relationship with them or our business moving forward..

But I think that's not giving Intel enough credit. They are big girls and boys and can absolutely take the constructive criticism with the praise.

And in response to the folks who didn't understand why our workstations are using Intel after that video.. Even if I don't agree with their strategy, I respect that they build world class technology and I'm not going to stop recommending their products just because we're having a bit of a spat at the moment.

When & how did dropping products become a habit?

Being in a huge hurry to blitz through booths and see all the coolest stuff then run off to the next one (our first year at CES we did over 50 videos with 3.5 people)

We had no time to do B roll a lot of the time so I would have to manhandle the product to show what I was talking about.

These days it's just part of the fun of doing shows. I love tech and if this "dropping stuff" persona lets me argue to a brand they should let me get up close and personal then I'll keep playing it up!

I'm not actually (usually) that clumsy. Just in a hurry :P

Who's the 0.5 of a person?

One of Luke's friends who wanted to meet folks in the industry and agreed to help us carry our tripods and stuff in exchange for tagging along

How is the adpocalypse affecting you and the broader tech YouTube community?

Since our videos are advertiser friendly, it hasn't hit us too hard directly.. but it was part of what prompted us to build Floatplane Club so that we and other creators would have ways to make money in the event that our adsense revenue got ripped away.. so it's definitely costing us money, but only because we're re-investing what we're making.

Do you see Floatplane expanding beyond LMG soon?

It will. That is absolutely the plan. Even though we haven't been affected we see the need to invest in a "backup plan" for ourselves and provide the same option to other creators.

Any recommendations for best cable management practices? Zipties? Velcroes? Twine?

Yes. I highly recommended Linus brand cable ties. They are available in any colour and style you want as long as you want orange with my face on it.

Hey Linus, what's probably the most exciting project that you've done on the channel (LTT)?

7 Gamers 1 CPU was one of the most exciting projects I've done. I'll always remember the moment it worked as one of the highlights of my career.

That's really where I get off - spending a TON of time on something, not being sure that it's going to work, and then seeing the end result be awesome.

Scrapyard Wars Season 1 will also hold a special place in my heart forever. That was where we began experimenting with the idea of being a "Tech Top Gear" rather than just a review channel and that path we took continues to shape our content (even our reviews which contain more personalities and funny stuff and more little sketches than ever) to this day.

That's awesome! Also, same question regarding Channel Super Fun.

Rocket League in Real Life was really exciting at the time. It hadn't really been done and we thought with some more production values Channel Super Fun had the opportunity to go viral.

But it didn't really work out that way.

Linus, did the "walking in the rain" video have the effect you wanted? Just curious as it's quite out of character from the rest of your content.

Yeah Dennis and I were both really pleased with it.

Not sure if you frequent reddit, but there has been huge support and want for a "tech talks with linus" sorta thing where it is just down to earth discussion

duly noted.. It's something we're considering, but we also don't want to force ourselves to create content because it's "popular". There's a fine line between engaging with the community and pandering.

Just trying to stay on the former side of it.

Linus, you helped me build my first computer while you were at NCIX so thanks for that!

Do you ever regret making a company with your name in it? Do you ever get grief for that from coworkers or random fans?

So when Luke, Linus, and I would drive from NCIX late at night on Fridays (we would carpool) the conversations ALWAYS went:

1) Are we friends? 2) Linus Media Group is a stupid company name.

This went on for a few months, without fail.

So... are you friends?

Linus' status was changed to: It's complicated

Hey Linus. Does Taran actually go to the gym or just tell his followers he does?

He does and we hear about it endlessly.

Any ideas when will it start to show?

Haha he's SOOOO much thiccer than he was when I met him.

How often do you work with other tech YouTubers like Kyle Jay, Paul, and them? Is it more a business relationship or do you all text and talk often?

Being up in Western Canada makes collaboration a little tougher.. and I'm pretty asocial by nature so I haven't generally gone out of my way to "collab" - especially because many collabs are just blatant subscriber swaps

"hey sub to me and sub to him/her and get a chance to win"

But I've also known a lot of the people in the tech tuber scene for YEARS and really enjoy spending time with them. So it's nice to have an excuse to hang out and make a video.

I'm not like sending them dick pics on snapchat or whatever though.

Do you ever envision yourself sitting in a chariot being carried by your slaves employees?

only if Brandon is leading the chariot.

Hi Linus! How much shit do you get for your footwear choice?

Well I'm getting some now, so that should give you some idea :p

What's the most expensive thing you have ever broken?

I think Berkel holds the record for most expensive stuff broken... He got out of his chair, which caused the air shock to spring up, knocking over a 34" LG Ultrawide back when they were brand new (about $1500US iirc).

I was also (somewhat) responsible for taking our Sony FS700 out for a shoot in the rain (Brandon LET me do it, so it's partly on him). It didn't work for a few days and we had to disassemble it to the greatest degree we could to dry it out.. Scary times. That was in the early days when we couldn't have afforded to replace it :p

Hi LTT, what's the progress on those 3 computers running behind the walls? Or is it super secret? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r58fGVaaDQ

STILL RUNNING!

will there be a short update video at all or just waiting until its been a year?

We're gonna wait the full year :)

When you created Linus Tech Tips and then Linus Media Group, is that what you envisioned from the beginning or did it take a lot different of a turn then you expected?

It's really different. I imagined that after 5 years we would have 4-5 people and that as long as we could afford to pay everyone a fair salary to do what we loved it would be awesome.

I also had in my mind that I wanted to be a "real company" with things like employee benefits and a dental plan and stuff.

Well if you want to do that you add some administrative overhead unless you want to do everything yourself.

Then you realize part of being a real company is giving people reasonable work/life balance and covering for them when they need vacation time.. so you hire some additional bodies..

Then you realize that now that you've got to manage these extra people and you have no time to work on sales deals with brands anymore.

So you hire a sales guy who manages to use all the extra time he has (because he's not making videos) to double your ad rates and find new buyers for them.

Then you've got more resources to build out the team further and make better videos than ever..

And it continues to snowball from there.

I had this realization at one point that if you're employing world class people they won't want to be in entry level positions making entry level pay forever. You have to give them opportunities to improve their craft and get promotions and raises if you want to retain them.

And the only way to do that is to keep growing and building out a support structure for them.

And I don't think there are many who would argue that we don't have a world class team of YTers here.

What a great way to describe how to grow a business. I love that you value the folks that are making your company succeed.

It's really important to me personally. I believe the wealth gap in 2017 is a big load of bullshit and I don't want anyone working here to feel so far removed from me that we can't relate to each other anymore. No one is so valuable that they should make 100x what their average staff does.

By the same token if someone isn't pulling his or her weight, I'm not slowing down the bus..

We believe in hard work and being rewarded for it.

So Linus, what video do you hate the most on all of your channels? And why?

Firetruck unboxing video. I wouldn't even hate it so much if it didn't have more views than all of the GOOD STUFF I've ever done.

If it didn't make so much money in adsense from 5 year olds just watching "the next suggested video about firetrucks" I'd pull it down. It's an embarrassment.

What upcoming product are you and the team most excited to get a review sample on?

Threadripper.

Super stoked.

Hey Linus! Thanks for doing the ama :)

What kind of video would you like to make which you still have not had the chance to make, because you lack resources or something related to the idea?

I also want to do a music video at some point.

What is the one video you regret making?

I don't regret making the video where we simulated Ryzen 5 performance, but I regret titling it in a deceptive manner..

Other than that the only video I've ever actually taken down was a detailed tour of my house. I was trying to show the reception issues with some early ASUS tablet and had inadvertently shown a lot of personal details that didn't belong on the Internet.

I'm also still not sure how I feel about some of the videos that feature my kids. They LOVE making videos with Daddy (especially my son) and they only appear once in a while so I don't think I'm going to be destroying their lives or anything, but they're also too young to really understand what it means to be on the Internet, so I don't know how they'll feel about that down the line.

It's gotta be the liquid cooled room, haha. So much work and effort, riddled with issues along the way, and it didn't even end up making a significant difference.

A common misconception. That series was a ton of fun to make and generated FAR more views and notoriety than we could have possible hoped for. Huge success.

Hey Linus, I'm a long time fan! I've got your Noctua fans in my system and I'm a floatplane pilot. It's been mesmerising seeing you jump from height to height, going from NCIX to where you are today and it's truly inspiring.

My question to you is, how do you unwind and relax at the end of the day after working so hard for so long?

reading positive, supportive comments like this one.

I also love spending time reading stories to my kids and playing with them and playing badminton.

Given unlimited Budget, what would be a video that you would like to shoot? Most interested in answers from Linus and Brandon.

I want to make a movie trailer.

Not a movie.

Just a trailer.

But with BADASS high production values so it would be a TON of fun to shoot. It'd be basically a bunch of sketches back to back without having to deal with the boring parts of making a movie like real dialogue and a story arc and character development.

I just can't figure out how to fund it other than stealing $100,000+ from the LMG coffers and putting it in a firepit...

Will LTX become a regular yearly thing? (PLEASE? :D)

Depends how the first one goes.

If we lose buckets of money, then no.

If we lose a little bit of money, then probably.

If we break even or make money, then GAME ON!

Can you make one more computer with your son?? The earlier one was really cute

Got a father-daughter build planned :)

hey Linus, where do you and the team see the company and the channel in the next few years, especially with all of YouTube's recent and coming policy changes?

It's really hard to say. Lots of serialized content is what we'd like to do.. but years man... We seem to reinvent every 12-18 months so... lordy who knows?

How do you balance your personal time with your wife and kid against work time?

I suck at it :p

But seriously, I have no social life, so it's just work/family, which makes it a bit easier. I get one night a week to go out and play badminton and other than that I go home and spend time wiht the kids. I've also SIGNIFICANTLY cut back on the time I spend working on the weekends. So it's not too bad at this point.

Hi Linus, how much of your time actually goes into making content nowadays, compared to how much of it is needed for managing the business?

It's not that I'm not spending time making content, it's just that I'm involved in OVERSEEING the process rather than actually DOING it.

Why do you always cheat at Scrapyard Wars?

Bending rules is a lot more fun than having a season finale that's just "we didn't have a system so there are no benchmarks, thanks for watching".

And the rules were BENT but not BROKEN on my side. Our deals were negotiated (to the best of our knowledge) before we were identified. And if you think about it.. we didn't get better deals on ANY of our hardware than the other team..

So did we really have to use our influence to get them?

As for using hardware from your own lab... THAT is in clear violation of the letter AND spirit of the law. I stand behind taking their trophy.

Another thing you need to understand as a viewer though is that Scrapyard Wars isn't a typical reality show where contestants are competing bitterly for a huge prize bucket or something.

We're just playing B Ball outside of the school when a couple guys who are up to no good come up and wanna throw down. It's only bragging rights on the line and it's between friends. No one participating in the competition disagrees with the outcome so I think people need to chillax a little :p

Oh man... Is there any reason not to make content "Linux" related? It would be such a good thing if you could just check how Linux works out of the box in all those laptops you review...

And thank you for such an amazing channel!!!

Yeah... you can't tell the Linux community this because they don't want to hear about it... but NO ONE CARES..

We've seen it time and time again. There's a little niche that is really amped about Linux, and then there's the rest of the world that needs plug and play inter-operability with all the other stuff in their home/office and for their applications to work.

Linux is great! I've never had a Windows system go 200+ days without a reboot like my unRAID box.. but it's NOT user friendly, and as Apple has shown us, the answer is NOT to educate the user (though I admire the optimism) but rather it is to simplify the experience enough that the user can understand it without having to think about it too much.

"Normies" have crap to do like go to work (away from a computer), mow their lawns (away from a computer), take their kids to soccer (away from a computer) and the list goes on and on. If they are only spending 30-45 minutes on the computer at night (not counting mobile) do you think they want to figure out sudo commands or see what their friends are up to on Facebook..

Someday Linux's time might come, but it's not today, it's not soon, and it's not something that we have the power to change. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

What are the reasons for sock and sandals?

they're the ulltimate.

Is Luke getting his own space for Floatplane Club, and how separated is he going to be from the rest of the crew?

Eventually, and completely. It will be it's own building.

This makes me feel as if you two are breaking up :(

I more see it as I'm moving away from home but still visiting my dad a lot.

LOL

Hi Linus, would you ever take your ear piercings out/get any more?

one of them is literally fused in there.. I"d have to cut it off. So... no...

Hey there Linus, why do look so depressed taking that picture for the ama?

I thought it was funny.

Is there something that you have always wanted to do on YouTube (maybe as a fun challenge) but didn't really fit on any of your channels so you decided against it?

LOTS of things... If I ever stop making tech videos, you'll see them.

Yo Linus, watched your videos for ages (even during my exams >:( ) have you ever tried/ thought about doing a video on drawing tablets? like display tablets would be really good

Haven't really given it much thought. I suck at drawing so I wouldn't be able to speak intelligently about the product's capabilities. I tend to try to avoid categories like that.

Hi Linus,

In what year will you finally admit that spiky gel hair is a relic of the past?

I'll admit it today. Still gonna rock it.

What was your first job ever?

I was a lifeguard and swimming teacher

Hey guys! Are you ever going to do another PC build in mineral oil? The last one was very captivating to watch.

No plans. Trying to recreate the magic of an earlier video by making it again is rarely a successful formula.

When can we get more Vlog type videos?

As a general rule I don't really like vlogs. I see them (mostlyl) as low-effort, contrived or boring.. Sometimes all three.

There are times when they make sense and we DO do them from time to time, but I've found a great strategy for our content over the years is to only make videos when we feel compelled to make them. If we're bored by them, then we shouldn't make them.