Linus Sebastian Interview Highlights: Running a Creator Company

Linus Sebastian has made computer hardware videos since 2007. The company he co-founded with his wife, Yvonne Ho, now employs about 120 people, sells its own screwdrivers and backpacks, and runs a paid video site and a testing lab. He talks about the business more openly than most creators, down to revenue percentages and median salaries.

This post is for creators thinking about turning a channel into a company, marketers who want to know how a major tech channel handles sponsors, and curious viewers. It covers how he started, the businesses beyond AdSense, how videos get made, sponsorship rules, testing and the 2023 controversy, why he stepped down as CEO, his advice, and what he’s doing as of October 2026.

Most answers come from a December 2024 conversation on The Colin and Samir Show and two videos in which his company opened its books, in March 2025 and January 2026.

Who is Linus Sebastian?

Linus Sebastian is a Canadian YouTuber, the host of the technology channel Linus Tech Tips, and the co-founder and chief vision officer of Linus Media Group (LMG), the company behind it.

He began hosting product videos for the Canadian computer retailer NCIX in 2007, created Linus Tech Tips for the store in November 2008, and left at the end of 2012 to run it as his own business. LMG, based in Surrey, British Columbia, runs several YouTube channels, the weekly WAN Show podcast he hosts with Luke Lafreniere, the paid video platform Floatplane, the LTT Store and LTT Labs. Terren Tong replaced him as CEO in July 2023. In a January 2026 video about LMG’s spending, Sebastian put the headcount at 120.

How did Linus Sebastian get started?

“Unlike most creators that I meet, I was never a one-man show, not even for one day.”

— Linus Sebastian, The Colin and Samir Show (transcript), December 2024

He never set out to be a YouTuber. He was a product manager at NCIX when his boss told him competitors like TigerDirect had videos and he needed some. A colleague ran a camcorder the company president had bought for his son. Linus Tech Tips began as a cheaper, looser offshoot of the store’s NCIX Tech Tips channel, and the store owned it.

After a disagreement with the president over inventory, he quit and offered to buy Linus Tech Tips for one dollar in exchange for a non-compete and help building NCIX’s own video team. The channel had about 120,000 subscribers. LMG ran at a deficit for six months with no startup capital, and for about two years couldn’t get a credit card in its own name despite revenue, profits and growth.

Payroll from day one forced speed: at his first CES as an independent he shot roughly 10 videos a day under a one-take policy.

How did Linus Sebastian build Linus Media Group beyond AdSense?

“I feel like we develop products from ground up engineer things, design things, bring them to market. I don’t think we’re a merch company anymore.”

— Linus Sebastian, The Colin and Samir Show (transcript), December 2024

The numbers back him up. In LMG’s March 2025 revenue breakdown, the LTT Store, which sells tools, bags, apparel and other gear, made up 55% of 2024 revenue, up from 15% in 2020. Sponsorships were 21%, Floatplane 7% and affiliate links about 3%. AdSense, 26% of revenue in 2020, shrank as a share, which the video calls good news: LMG depends far less on Google.

Products are slow and risky. He said the store’s screwdriver took about three years to develop, and LMG commits to thousands of units before knowing they’ll sell. Floatplane, which he described as LMG’s own version of Patreon, had almost 41,000 paid subscribers at $5 or $10 a month in December 2024.

Not every bet worked. He said he started Techquickie as a place to publish paid ads, thinking commercials were LMG’s path to growth, until he realized nobody subscribes to a channel of ads. In November 2024 it and two other LMG channels went on hiatus. He said in January 2026 that LMG has never taken outside investors; for a very different model, compare our MrBeast interview.

How does Linus Tech Tips make a video?

“Like my canvas is a blank sheet of paper. I’m a writer.”

— Linus Sebastian, The Colin and Samir Show (transcript), December 2024

He still shapes ideas, key beats and final scripts, he said, but most writing is done by a team of eight who also test products and source props. Ideas are pitched at a weekly writers’ meeting, and he sometimes vetoes them.

The team works from ten written “laws”, among them control the scope, keep information density high, leave viewers with something they learned, and provide context. The concept, title, thumbnail and payoff are developed in parallel, and one intro rule requires paying off the title and thumbnail within roughly the first 10 to 13 seconds. He said he based it on a Mark Rober video; compare our Mark Rober interview.

In December 2024 the main channel aimed for four and a half videos a week plus one show, down from six, and LTT had committed to holding back videos that weren’t ready. The intro rule is the one to steal: whatever the title and thumbnail promise, show it fast.

What does Linus Sebastian say works on YouTube now?

“We always relied on just like slow and steady wins the race. Just make a decent video every day a little more decenter than the last one and keep going.”

— Linus Sebastian, The Colin and Samir Show (transcript), December 2024

For years, if every upload settled at around 100 views a day for good, total channel views kept climbing. He showed on LTT’s lifetime views graph where that stopped working, a point the conversation placed around 2023, as cheaper equipment let far more people compete.

“we’re off our exponential path. I’ll tell you guys that much. … we’ve been linear slash flat for a few years now.”

— Linus Sebastian, The Colin and Samir Show (transcript), December 2024

A host’s relevance can’t rise forever, he added. Shorts haven’t filled the gap: LMG’s most-viewed Short of 2024 drew 13 million views and earned $1,300, according to its March 2025 breakdown. Volume alone no longer compounds, so each video has to earn its place.

What does Linus Sebastian say about working with brands?

“anything that is sponsored and we do our due diligence when it comes to disclosures cannot by definition be a review because that video was reviewed by the brand whose entire reason for existing is to sell you that product”

— Linus Sebastian, The Colin and Samir Show (transcript), December 2024

To him there’s no such thing as a “sponsored review”: there are sponsored videos, and there are reviews, which need editorial independence. He said LMG doesn’t do undisclosed paid partnerships and walks away from sponsors who want him to say something untrue, such as claiming he uses a product every day. Our guide to spotting an honest AI tool review shows what good disclosure looks like.

“we very intentionally have for years … made our sponsor spots very skippable.”

— Linus Sebastian, The Colin and Samir Show (transcript), December 2024

LTT runs a short read near the start and a longer one at the end, and he said he has resisted sponsors’ requests to move reads toward the middle. More money now comes from sponsored projects that build a product into a video LMG wanted to make anyway, such as cleaning an old water-cooling loop with an ultrasonic toothbrush. The March 2025 video put dedicated sponsored videos at 12% of 2024 revenue and in-video reads at 9%, across more than 150 partners. It said a sponsor can buy airtime but never LMG’s opinion.

He applies the same standard to criticism. On the 2024 debate over Marques Brownlee’s Humane and Fisker reviews, he said Brownlee would only have done wrong by saying something untrue, and as far as he could tell, he had simply explained why bad products were bad; compare our Marques Brownlee interview. However you integrate a sponsor, disclose it clearly; our guide to disclosing affiliate links and sponsorships covers how.

How does Linus Sebastian handle testing and mistakes?

LTT Labs is his answer to accuracy at scale. He announced it in November 2021 to test manufacturers’ claims.

In August 2023, a Gamers Nexus video questioned LTT’s accuracy and its handling of a prototype Billet Labs water block, which LTT had tested on a graphics card it wasn’t designed for and then auctioned for charity, and a former employee alleged a toxic work environment and harassment, which the company denied; LMG paused production, according to CBC News and PC Gamer. In a summary published in May 2024, LMG said an outside investigation it commissioned from the Vancouver employment law firm Roper Greyell found the bullying and harassment claims unsubstantiated and the allegations largely unfounded, according to PC Gamer.

“I was the one at the head of the company for each and every mistake that our community has rightly brought to our attention”

— Linus Sebastian, in an LTT video, as quoted by CBC News, August 2023

In December 2024 he said he had loosened his grip on final video reviews and had to take the reins back. His notes now become training documents; one says every on-screen graphic must reinforce, supplement or entertain.

“Part of the problem, guys, is that like, I don’t have formal training. … This is just something that I intuited from doing this for 17 years or however long it’s been.”

— Linus Sebastian, The Colin and Samir Show (transcript), December 2024

That’s the useful admission. If your standards live only in your head, every new editor will repeat mistakes you fixed years ago. When you give the same note twice, write it down.

Why did Linus Sebastian step down as CEO?

“I wasn’t built for this, and I’m tired. … And if I try to drag myself through another ten years of business administration I know I’m gonna destroy myself, and probably end up killing the company and the community that I love so much in the process.”

— Linus Sebastian, in his “I’m Stepping Down” video, as quoted by TechSpot, May 2023

The change took effect July 1, according to TechSpot and TheWrap. Terren Tong, a former Corsair and Dell executive who had been his boss at NCIX, became CEO, and Sebastian became chief vision officer. He also said LMG had turned down a buyout offer of about $100 million, and that he and Ho would remain its sole shareholders.

“This is a big part of the reason that I hired a CEO back in early 2023 and have asked the rest of the leadership team to step up. My strength is being a bottomless pit of creativity”

— Linus Sebastian, Linus Tech Tips (transcript), March 2025

In practice, he told Colin and Samir, he acts as editor-in-chief of Linus Tech Tips, hosts, and sets direction for the executives. The biggest benefit, he said, is having someone handle administration, from skip-level lunches to management training. By March 2025 he no longer sat in LMG’s annual business reviews. If you’re the face of your channel, note his reasoning: the job he was good at and the job the company needed had become two different jobs.

What advice does Linus Sebastian give new creators?

“when you’re presenting to the camera, it captures a fraction of your energy. It captures a fraction of your emotion. So you have to overdo it. If you don’t overdo it, you end up just flat and boring.”

— Linus Sebastian, The Colin and Samir Show (transcript), December 2024

He tells every inexperienced host this, and it pairs with his tenth law: have fun, because viewers can tell when you don’t care. Starting out is hard in any era, he said: equipment used to be expensive, while today anyone with a smartphone competes with millions of others.

His other rule is about who you work for. He asks LMG staff who their boss is, and the answer isn’t him, Tong or Ho; it’s the audience, whose noisy feedback you have to sift for the truth. And in January 2026 he said that after more than a decade of self-employment, he has learned there’s nothing wrong with choosing employment either.

What is Linus Sebastian working on now?

As of October 2026, Sebastian is still LTT’s main host and LMG’s chief vision officer, and LMG’s website says the WAN Show streams live every Friday. His January 2026 video put payroll at about 25% of expenses and said the median salary rose from about C$73,500 in 2024 to just over C$80,000 in 2025, even though revenue was flat. Profits, he said, fund projects such as buying and renovating a “tech house”.

That series is running: LTT’s May and June 2026 uploads included Tech House episodes and a month-plus challenge using Linux daily. He also demonstrated CES gadgets on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in January 2025 and January 2026, according to Wikipedia.

“recently I’ve begun to think that maybe my greatest legacy could end up being the incredible pipeline that we’ve built for developing talent and then the future success of ex LMGers.”

— Linus Sebastian, Linus Tech Tips (transcript), January 2026

He said LMG has relaxed its rules on staff side projects and has sponsored former team members.

“I think that gracefully bowing out when everything’s going great and when the team’s ready to carry the torch is the ideal exit.”

— Linus Sebastian, The Yard (transcript), May 2024

He said it after attending MatPat’s retirement party, adding that he still has work to do. In December 2024 he said he keeps going for the team, because people still need help with tech decisions, and because he doesn’t know who he’d be without being a YouTuber.

What creators can learn from Linus Sebastian

Sources

• Linus Sebastian is stepping down as CEO of Linus Media Group, rejects $100 million takeover offer, TechSpot, May 2023
• ‘Tech Tips’ Youtuber Linus Sebastian Steps Down as CEO of Linus Media Group, TheWrap, May 2023
• The recent criticism of Linus Tech Tips, explained, PC Gamer, August 2023
• Why a B.C. YouTube empire suddenly became mired in controversy, CBC News, August 2023
• Ep. 146: We Try Podcasting w/ LinusTechTips, The Yard, May 2024 (transcript via Podscripts)
• Alleged harassment and bullying at Linus Tech Tips ‘not substantiated’ and ‘false’ according to third-party investigation organised by tech channel, PC Gamer, May 2024
• An Unfiltered Conversation with Linus Tech Tips, The Colin and Samir Show, December 2024 (copyedited transcript via The Transcript Desk)
• The TRUTH About How LTT Makes Money, Linus Tech Tips, March 2025 (caption transcript via Rosetta)
• The TRUTH about How LTT SPENDS Money, Linus Tech Tips, January 2026 (caption transcript via Rosetta)
• Linus Tech Tips upload listings, Rosetta, June 2026
• Linus Media Group, company website, October 2026
• Linus Sebastian and Linus Media Group, Wikipedia, October 2026

What to do next

If Sebastian’s line between sponsored videos and reviews matters to you, use it when you choose who to watch; our list of AI tool reviewers on YouTube is a starting point. Brands can use our checklist on how to vet a YouTube creator before signing a sponsorship.

For other creators’ answers to the same questions, browse the series on the Topfluencers blog.