An ex-employee of Linus Media Group has released a lengthy video explaining why he left the company after nearly a decade, citing stagnant pay, rising living costs, shifting workplace expectations, and growing dissatisfaction with how projects and teams were being managed.
The former staffer, Jake Tivy, said he resigned on August 6, 2025, after spending almost half his life at the Vancouver-based company behind channels including Linus Tech Tips, Short Circuit, and Techquickie.
In the video, Tivy outlined a progression from warehouse and general labor work to infrastructure IT, writing, supervising the LTT writing team, and managing logistics as the company scaled from roughly 10 employees to more than 100.
Pay concerns and shifting work expectations
Jake revealed in the video that the decision to leave ultimately came down to feeling undervalued, particularly financially.
“After 3 plus years of my total comp remaining effectively the same, while affordability was getting worse and worse, especially in Vancouver, one of the least affordable areas to live in the world, you kind of start thinking while you’re working on your boss’s third house, if you’re ever going to be able to buy a house,” he said.
He explained that he began evaluating the revenue generated by the videos he worked on and applied for other roles in infrastructure IT. According to the video, Linus Media Group declined to match or counter the figure he requested, leading him to resign.
“The job market is one that’s cutthroat by its very nature,” he added, noting that the company was within its rights to refuse the ask.
Beyond pay, Tivy said changes in company culture and workflow also played a role. He described projects increasingly being delegated and handed off, which he said left him feeling disconnected from the finished work.
“Combine that with the loss of team members you hope you work with forever. Things naturally getting more corporate as headcount increased, going through major controversies more than once… and slowly, the thing you signed up for changes into something completely different,” he said.
He also claimed that he and other staff members had raised concerns internally in the months leading up to his exit and presented management with a list of changes they felt were necessary.
“I’m far from the only person who felt that way,” he said, adding that while he believed some of the requests were heard, they were not enough to convince him to stay.
Tivy also addressed his emotional reaction to a later Linus Tech Tips video about company finances, which included clips of former staff members and a breakdown of average compensation and revenue use.
Linus Sebastian is the creator of Linus Media Group and the face of the Linus Tech Tips channel.
He said seeing himself and others included without being consulted upset him, particularly after what he described as long-running internal frustrations around compensation.
“It just felt kind of backhanded, and it did make me really upset,” he said, later apologizing to viewers for airing the reaction publicly and stating that he should have taken more time before responding.
Despite the criticism, Tivy emphasized that he was grateful for his time at the company and the opportunities it gave him, pointing to major builds, Guinness World Record projects, and collaborations with creators as career-defining experiences.
“Leaving LMG was probably the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make,” he said, adding that he hoped conditions for current and future employees would continue to improve.
He closed the video by saying that quitting had ultimately been the right move for him and that he is now focused on building his own projects and content.
“I am closing this LMG chapter of my life and turning the page back to what’s coming next,” he said.
