Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan is Reportedly an Enormous Jerk

Kotaku did another one its world-famous exposes the other day, thus validating their existence for another precious few months before they have to do it again.

Whereas former big-ticket Kotaku articles focused on game developers and studios who were caught doing terrible things, this one is taking a slightly different approach and highlighting out gaming’s number one peripheral maker, Razer, is run by a tyrannical, egotistical, and abusive CEO who routinely threatens employees, shouts inappropriately, and fires people who don’t cater to his every want and whim.

A brief summary (although you should read the whole, long article yourself): in speaking with fourteen anonymous former employees, Kotaku paints a picture of CEO Min-Liang Tan as an abusive tyrant. One example shared very early in the article details how Tan fired the head of Razer’s marketing division because they were unable to secure him a spot in Fast Company’s 2014 list of “Most Innovative Companies”, and he didn’t like the marketing head’s suggestions on how they could secure that spot in the future.

Another story suggests that he did not respect employees personal lives very much: he fire people because they didn’t want to work during their honeymoon or demanded they go back to work immediately after learning their children were hospitalized.

There were also numerous reports of throwing objects, threatening physical violence, shouting at people so loudly the whole office could hear, and being asked to work extremely late hours, or even overnight, all because the promise of going public and “cashing out” was dangled over their heads like a carrot on a stick.

The article does include a number of responses from both Razer, as a company, and Min-Liang Tang himself, and both obviously argue that these stories are nothing but slander being thrown around by disgruntled former employees.

I don’t believe them, but I’m also not sure what can be done about it, either, other than adding another company to the list of studios not to buy from.

Life sucks.