Linus Sebastian, the YouTube mogul behind the LinusMediaGroup, went live yesterday for a sincere and very emotional talk about wanting to retire.
After over a decade in the business and nearly 4 billion views across his channels, his main and first independent channel LinusTechTips hit 10 million subscribers. During the livestream, he expressed great anxiety and pressure surrounding the milestone and ended up deciding to do an honest, unscripted livestream to address it.
He shared stories from his childhood and how he's accomplished everything he ever wanted. “I went from being the weird kid to finding 10 million of you that are weird in exactly the same way that I am. But I guess the flipside of that is ‘Well, I guess I'm done then.' I'm at a stage where if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, my company would probably survive. My wife wouldn't have to work another day in her life and my kids would all go to whatever college they want.”
He expressed gratitude to his wife, team, and fans, to which he attributed the credit of having “the best life in the world” that he wouldn't trade with anyone else.
He brought up starving children, environmental effects of over-plastification and climate change as was seen when “a literal continent got burnt to a crisp”, and how these things put into perspective complaints about “a couple of FPS” that might be lost by some gamers.
He addressed a recent “life-changing” experience he had when he was approached by a Leukemia-ridden child asking for a personalized video through the Make-A-Wish foundation. The situation reminded him of the imminence of death, and how his “legacy” contributes to mass consumerism, which he doesn't support in his personal life because he hates waste.
He acknowledged that, despite his initial claims of doing this to support his family, the long hours are becoming more difficult to justify as his kids get older. He admits that he does it for the love of tech and even though he will not retire at this time, he will take “a different approach and see how it goes.”
