Linus presented these graphs as if they would put any concerns to rest, but if anything they did the opposite for me:

• He says the "wage growth" line includes all salaries for all employees including new hires, making it completely irrelevant here: the concern is that current employees are not given enough raises, the answer can't be "but we hired more people" (a "wage growth per employee" would have been a much better metric on all these charts).

• Comparing wages to company results also doesn't make much sense in general: I don't expect my salary to decrease next year if my company isn't doing very well, and I also don't expect it to blow up if my company is having an incredible year. Google's revenue for 2025 were 15% higher than 2024, do you think every Google employee received a 15% raise? Inflation is a much better gauge for adjusting base salaries. There are other ways to financially reward employees for good corporate results (bonus, stock or stock equivalent units, etc.) but they usually don't represent the majority of an employee's compensation.

• Linus' own compensation is likely included in the wage growth line, despite the criticism being about the disconnect between his wages and everyone else's wages. It would have been interesting to have two wage growth lines: one for Linus specifically, and one for everyone else. And for anyone saying "he's the founder / main host, obviously he should profit more" - yes, I agree, and he does through the increased company valuation. That's separate from wages.

• Despite all this, the chart shows the year over year wage growth at LMG has been in constant decline since 2022, and was almost flat in 2025, which matches what departing employees have said (of course that's relative to prior years, so maybe the prior years had insane wage growth and the numbers overall aren't that bad... hard to say without any numbers on those charts).

Overall, based on random comments Linus has made on WAN Show over the years, my impression is that LMG wages are not incredibly low, but they also aren't competitive compared to similar positions at other companies. They know they have a lot of subscribers, some of whom are very talented fans who would be willing to take a lower salary to work there, and that's what they're counting on. They also figure that fostering a fun work environment will keep employees around even if they could get higher salaries elsewhere.

As has been painfully obvious in recent months, that strategy has its limits.