Linus Media Group CEO Terren Tong also responded via email, saying he was “shocked at the allegations and the company described” in Reeve’s posts. He went on to note that “as part of this process, beyond an internal review we will also be hiring an outside investigator to look into the allegations and will commit to publish the findings and implementing any corrective actions that may arise because of this.”
This is exactly the reason corporations that are serious have external anonymous reporting channels. Because now there’s a paper trail from your third party, that’s undeniable, so you have to investigate. The process has to be triggered, and if the good old boy network decides to do nothing, there is now an auditable external paper trail that this was reported.
The reason this is a good indicator for an organization is it forces them maybe not to be transparent but to be accountable
The key here is external. HR workers often have an incentive to quiet down such cases.
HR protects the company, not the employee. That’s just a fact. When company culture is great, that can be fine, but when it’s bad, it absolutely sucks. When there’s a culture of misogyny and sexual harassment, HR helps to cover it up to “protect” the company, and it’s awful to see.
All jokes aside, if these allegations are validated by an external source, heads have to roll. A slap on the wrist is disheartening to everyone who may have been belittled and goes further to discourage interest and diversity in tech.
I have worked in IT R&D for a decade, and this is something I have had to address multiple times with my team. Everything from sexually charged comments to just general patronizing. The key is that you can’t let something slip through or that’s the new standard. You have to address it quickly, in the moment, and be decisive about what is acceptable and what is not.
This is why I actually like the new CEO’s response, especially since he’s on the “good ol’ boy network”. Let’s rope in a third party that’s impartial. I’m glad he’s not just going the “we investigated ourselves and didn’t find ourselves at fault” route. Let’s hope the report does come out and does make sense for the situation. But there is always the risk of the third party not finding anything because LMG is paying them. I hope whoever they use has a good track record and the reports that come are clear (and most importantly that actual actions are taken to right the wrongs found/identified). That’s the problem with implementing stuff reactionarily, you never really know. But considering the CEO stepped in… what? 7 weeks ago? This is a really good step for him. There might be hope for LMG… but only if Linus stops with the petty shit and stops driving everything into the ground.
If it takes an extra 500$ to test something properly… he should do it. He should know this innately because he’s spend hundreds of thousands on “The Labs”, but this mentality still shows when he talks candidly on WAN show and other spots. Makes it hard to believe him and his responses contradicting Madison’s story when we see this type of mentality elsewhere.
I don’t think the external investigator will find anything that will satisfy the public. It’s just been too long.
Linus is suffering from the classic " what got you here won’t get you there " problem. And there’s going to be an adjustment as the new CEO puts in practices and standards that have been eschewed for a long time.
But this is just part of being human, that’s why in science things need to be reproducible, so that we can hopefully isolate the ego variable across multiple people.
I agree, but it’s the best, most transparent answer we’ve gotten so far out of all of this. And I think it’s worth validating the choice that the new guy made. It’s the one glimmer of hope that the company will move forward positively…