Linus Gabriel Sebastian (born August 20, 1986) is a Canadian YouTube personality. He is the founder of Linus Media Group and has served as its CEO since 2013.
Sebastian is best known for creating and hosting four technology YouTube channels, Linus Tech Tips (LTT), Techquickie, TechLinked, and ShortCircuit, which have a combined subscriber base of over 19 million. From 2007 to 2015, he was also a regular presenter of technology videos for the now defunct Canadian computer retailer NCIX. He is also the owner of Floatplane Media.
As of March 2021, Linus Tech Tips is ranked the most-watched technology channel on YouTube. In 2014, Tubefilter named the channel as being within the “top 1% of Google’s preferred advertising channels” on YouTube for the technology category. In 2015, Inc. magazine ranked Sebastian fourth in a list of the “Top 30 Power Players in Tech”.
Career
NCIX and Linus Tech Tips
The Linus Tech Tips logo as of 2018
Sebastian was working as a product manager for the now defunct Canadian online computer store NCIX. He was asked by the company to be the host for its technology channel, which was created to help demonstrate products. Sebastian was assisted by an unidentified cameraman and editor, and worked with limited resources, shooting videos with a camera borrowed from the son of the company’s president. His first video was a demonstration for a Sunbeam processor heatsink.
Due to high costs and low viewership during the early days of the channel, Sebastian was instructed to create the Linus Tech Tips channel as a cheaper offshoot of the NCIX channel, to allow for lower production values without impacting the NCIX brand. He described TigerDirect and Newegg as competitors. Linus Tech Tips was created on November 24, 2008.
Sebastian did not develop videos full-time at NCIX. During his time at the company, he worked as a full-time sales representative, high-end systems designer, product manager, and category manager. He eventually left NCIX following a dispute regarding company inventory, negotiating an agreement in which he could keep the channel as long as he signed a non-compete clause.
Linus Media Group
Sebastian founded Linus Media Group (LMG) in January 2013 out of a garage. Luke Lafreniere, Edzel Yago, and Brandon Lee were early employees. The group developed the Linus Tech Tips channel as an independent venture. Between 2017 and 2019 LMG hosted an annual event known as the LTX Expo, a “convention featuring tech-focused content creators and personalities”. This was cancelled in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Notable projects
On January 2, 2016, Linus Tech Tips released a video demonstrating a computer capable of supporting seven individual users at once, with an estimated total cost of $30,000. The video made technology news on a number of websites. The computer had eight modules of 32 GB ECC DDR4 RAM, eight 1 TB Kingston SSDs, two Intel Xeon 14-core E5 2697 v3 processors, seven AMD R9 Nano GPUs, an EVGA T2 1600W PSU, and was housed in a Caselabs Mercury S8 with an Asus Z10PE-D8 WS motherboard. The project was sponsored by Kingston Technology.
In August 2017, the Linus Tech Tips channel uploaded a two part video where they were able to game at 16K Resolution (15360 by 8640 pixels) using 16 4K Acer Predator XB1 monitors in a 4 by 4 configuration. The system running the display was equipped with 4 Nvidia Quadro P5000 graphics cards.
In April 2018, the Linus Tech Tips channel uploaded a video claiming that Apple refused to repair his iMac Pro (paid, non-warranty repairs) after they damaged it in a product teardown, an act (refusal to repair) that has been speculated by VentureBeat to be illegal.
In December 2018, Linus Tech Tips released a four-part series detailing their experience buying a gaming PC from 6 systems integrators representing 3 different market tiers: two major manufacturers (HP and Alienware), two high-volume systems integrators (iBuyPower and CyberPowerPC), and two upscale boutique systems integrators (Origin PC and Maingear) to see what they would offer to an average customer. Linus Media Group accountant Agent Janice went undercover with sales and tech support representatives from each systems integrator to determine which were the best, and which were the worst. The experiences were varied. Some systems integrators were very helpful and respectful, while others were the exact opposite. The series has gained over 12 million views and was covered in PC Gamer.
In 2021, Linus Tech Tips released a three-part series showing the process of making a 18 karat gold Xbox controller. The first video showed the prototyping, the second showed the making of the gold shells, and the third showing the reactions of employees at their headquarters.
Personal life
Sebastian has been married to Yvonne Ho since May 20, 2011. They have one son and two daughters.
In an interview with technology startup website Tech.co, Sebastian said that his favourite YouTubers were TotalBiscuit, Marques Brownlee, and Austin Evans. In February 2014, Sebastian was among the group of YouTubers who contributed funds and support to Evans, who lost his possessions and home in a 2014 house fire.
In January 2020, Sebastian said he was thinking about retiring. However, he followed this up by stating that he is not going to retire at this time.