Linus bothers me quite a bit and I’m fairly critical of him, but I don’t know if I would go as far as saying he is a sociopath. We would probably even be friends, but I would call him on his bull shit. This is my own observations but he strikes me as having pretty strong ADHD combined with getting lucky and big a bit faster than he could adjust to.
His company has a much lower turnover rate than the industry standard and it doesn’t seem like anyone that has been on screen couldn’t do well elsewhere. That implies to me that the working environment is at least pretty good. He also seems to want to do right by his employees and knows that he is the face of the company and ultimately their paycheck. That combined with an ego that is a little too big, and maybe some issues with reading the room associated with being on the spectrum (again supposition), makes some of his reactions to public push back understandable even if it’s not OK.
Also it depends on what you consider an IT guy. He doesn’t have experience coding or doing any low level stuff, he just really enjoys building computers and tech in general which can explain a lot of his poor or dumb decisions. What he appears to actually be very good at with tech is his knowledge of supply chains, interactions between companies, and knowing what consumers are likely to actually want.
That would be news to me.
People seem to take an all or nothing approach to how they view topics or judge people, especially when they are very far removed from it. I think my take is a bit more nuanced and has some value for that reason, since I am able to be critical of some of the things they do while enjoying others.