The founder and CEO of esports organisation Team SoloMid, Andy ‘Reginald’ Dinh, is under investigation by both Riot Games and TSM following allegations of bullying employees, a new report has revealed.
As reported by Wired, which has spoken to a number of current and former TSM employees, Reginald is being investigated by both his own org and Riot for his behaviour. According to those who spoke to Wired, this includes “mental abuse”, berating employees in front of other workers, and making players on TSM’s esports teams cry as a result of his “tirades”. Employees also claim that Reginald’s behaviour caused a lot of staff turnover and a lack of confidence that they could progress within the organisation. They also say that due to his connections with other esports team owners, they feared reporting Reginald or speaking out about his behaviour.
Both Riot Games and TSM have confirmed that Reginald is under investigation. Riot, which last year fined Reginald $5,000 for a distasteful tweet targeted at League of Legends pro Philippe ‘Vulcan’ Laflamme, says in a statement that a third-party law firm is leading its investigation. TSM’s investigation also involves an “independent subcommittee”.
Wired claims that both investigations began late last year following the remarks of the now retired League of Legends star Yiliang ‘Doublelift’ Peng, who played for TSM in two separate spells during his career. During a livestream and on Twitter, Doublelift criticised Reginald’s behaviour.
Reading peoples’ anecdotes that Andy was nice to them and thus downplay the fact that he harassed and abused people at TSM as their boss is just so disgusting. No wonder people don’t feel good about speaking up about their abusers
— Yiliang Peng (@Doublelift1) November 12, 2021
Reginald has both acknowledged his shortcomings and defended his character in a statement provided to Wired. While he states he has “zero tolerance for underperformance” and is “intense, passionate, driven, and relentless in the pursuit of winning”, he admits that he “needs to work on his delivery” and that his vocabulary has sometimes been “too harsh and ineffective.”
He also claims to be fully supporting and cooperating with both Riot and TSM’s investigations. TSM says it expects the results of its investigation to be announced later this month.