Company Retreat from Hell
Prime riffs on the Daily Beast piece about Plex's legendary Survivor-themed corporate offsite in Honduras. The CEO LARPed as Jeff Probst, got E. coli, employees ate tarantulas and scorpions, an ex-Navy Seal ran them ragged on a beach, and someone landed on a fire ant hill mid-pushup. Twist: the actual Plex employees say it was awesome and would do it again.
- CEO Keith Valerie arrived a day early to prep his Jeff Probst persona ("you've never played, do you belong out here?"), then got E. coli before guests arrived. IV bag nailed to bedpost.
- Survivor challenges: scorpion eating, tarantula eating. Sean Eldridge, 55, head of BD, volunteered for the tarantula — "I just grabbed it and did it. Pretty horrible. Not gonna lie, those hairs."
- Co-founder Olakowski openly admitted the group "was not a super fit group". Ex-Navy Seal drills in 100°F humidity, employees passing out on the beach. Seal said he'd never seen a less fit group.
- Greta Schlendler, 41, dropped on Seal's command, landed on a fire ant hill. Medical area had no antihistamines, only a "shoot some into your butt cheek" option.
- Day trip to Útila island — planes failed to return, group stranded overnight. Greta's antihistamines wore off; a woman in a hot-pink shirt put a line in her hand of uncertain medical credentials.
- Reddit r/LinusTechTips: Plex is remote-only, gathers once a year with a theme. Employees say negatives are "massively overblown", Útila castaways had the best stories and were posting to Slack all night.
- Greta despite everything called it "one of the most fun trips ever".
- Prime's takeaway: 2010s tech offsites were peak; corporate culture now too risk-averse to plan trips like this. He wants in on the hellish-descent survivor trip.