Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[rcarlos243]

3 hours ago, LinusTech said:

There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.

To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.

 

With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...

 

I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.

 

Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip.  I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.

 

Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).

 

With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient. 

 

We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.

 

Thanks for reading this.

 

So it is OK to slander a companys reputation due to your incompetence.

[jeo]

This whole thing seems a bit silly.

I feel bad for Billet labs, but honestly this whole thing is probably positive for them; they are getting a higher number of impressions with people who might purchase their products.

GN seems a bit scummy, it's pretty standard to ask for comment before publishing.

I also think Linus needs to back off, I am unable to see how this issue falls under the purview of the Chief Vision Officer.

Maybe LMG needs a someone whose sole responsibility is to deal with the community (would likely have to be a senior position), so the CVO can focus vision stuff.

 

I am betting no one cares about this in 3 weeks.

 

[Intoxicus]

4 minutes ago, xg32 said:

i'm talking hypotheticals with friends atm, most of them agree that steve shoulda reached out first (not my first reaction), really gets me thinking.

Yes, it's standard practice out of *respect*

 

And also *fact checking* is important.

 

Doing an ambush job like this was intentional. Steve knew what he was doing and how it would play out in public.

 

 

[Birblover12]

4 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

this video comes off as cherry picking at best and pure jeliously at worse

I would argue that if you look at Gamer Nexus's video by itself in it's own right, it's genuinely informative and important commentary on the largest tech channel on the planet. I could see how one could say that it's "cherry picking" on the Data front, though I think the rest of the video about the Billet issue is perfectly justified. LMG screwed up, and GN is commenting on it, simple.

 

Also, how on earth is he "jealous"? What would he be jealous of? LMG stealing a waterblock? Poor data collection? I really don't see where that falls into play.

[KieranHolroyd]

3 hours ago, LinusTech said:

Billet sent us a quote. I don't know or care how they arrived at the value. If they're good, I'm good.

As for what steps we're taking, you're talking about an outlier issue that has happened once in 10+ years of operation. There won't be a new SOP to ensure we don't accidentally auction stuff. We just need to tighten up some documentation.

This honestly is just not good enough

[Middcore]

14 minutes ago, IndustrialBananaBread said:

Jay puts his two cents in under GamerNexus' video.

 

When Jay comes off more humble than you, it's time for some self-examination.

[CradleGames]

7 minutes ago, Elizzy said:

Meanwhile, from the reality where he says exactly that they are trying to improve and that not everything is going to be instantly better: 

 

Do tell me how a "camera range, theater room, and acoustic chamber" will make things better?
Linus is out of touch, his in multi-million dollars home. He's not even listening to his own staff anymore.
You step down as CEO when you can't be bothered to care.

[jpsulisz]

3 hours ago, LinusTech said:

There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.

To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.

 

With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...

 

I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.

 

Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip.  I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.

 

Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).

 

With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient. 

 

We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.

 

Thanks for reading this.

I feel like someone from PR should be reviewing these before they are posted lol

[Intoxicus]

27 minutes ago, HaughtonBothered said:

LMG was already aware of every issue GN brought up and were already working to correct these things before his video. Steve would have known this if he had actually reached out to LMG and handled this privately. If his goal was truly to give constructive criticism, a private meeting is all that was needed. Instead, going public just raises suspicions that he is trying to discredit LTT Labs since it will be encroaching on his content. It's just a shame to see him tearing down LMG when LMG has been trying to build others in the space up.

Exactly.

 

Steve new what hew was doing and did it intentionally.

 

 

[leathco]

Oh geez, I spend the day after work assembling pieces of a build I am working on (still missing GPU and NVME but can at least assemble and verify the rest works) and come back to this.

 

Gonna start by saying I love the tech YouTube scene.  LTT, Gamers Nexus, Austin Evans, JayzTwoCents, all faves of mine.  But it's dangerous to follow any one religiously and to take every word as fact.  People make mistakes.  And sometimes people work for their own agenda (more often than not).  It's always best to do your own research, and if you can't, than get multiple opinions.  The internet is a big place, and chances are more than one person has tested that item you are checking out.

 

With that out of the way, a large chunk of the Gamers Nexus video can be taken as LTT just trying to push content out the door so fast that errors are made, and I'd agree I would rather have a delay in content if that means a higher quality product (in this case, a video).  I understand the need to serve the YouTube algorithm to get those views in, but at the end of the day ones reputation has to mean more than those views, otherwise they will lose that reputation and views will go down.  Even though I feel Gamers Nexus may have been aggressive in their video, facts are facts.

 

The handling of the Billet Labs situation is pretty horrific, and this must be publicly addressed.  LMG has prolly cost them a good chunk of money over this situation, and having the unit auctioned without being cleared to do so is a huge blunder.  It's gonna take a lot to make this one right.

 

Finally, regarding Linus and his post, yes Steve could have absolutely contacted LMG and gotten their side of the story, but honestly we know what LMG would have said.  Plus there have been many times where LMG posted a controversial take and never got the other side of the story presented by the other side, so they can't complain when the same thing happens to them.  It's kinda the pot calling the kettle black.

 

A lot of people are gonna be burned by this video and others yet to come.  However, I'll continue watching both LTT and GN, and take what both say with a grain of salt like I always do and treat both as entertainment first, informative second, and to look for a second opinion on certain products that catch my eye to verify what was said.

[charliebros]

4 minutes ago, xg32 said:

i'm talking hypotheticals with friends atm, most of them agree that steve shoulda reached out first (not my first reaction), really gets me thinking.

Maaaybe, but for example, they held back the time when they reported about the backpack warranty, and Nick went to lash out saying WHY DO YOU SAY OUR BACKPACK DOESN'T HAVE A WARRANTY... mate, your backpack, at that moment, didn't have a warranty, what's hard to grasp?

 

By going all out, GN was able to achieve what they wanted, for the community to go wild, and for LMG to actually take note, so while yeah, it would have been nice to contact Linus... it would have been the same result, and results are results, aren't they? Kinda like what Linus is arguing about the Billet Labs monoblock, interesting huh?

[Skiiwee29]

Just now, Middcore said:

 

When Jay comes off more humble than you, it's time for some self-examination.

Jay's response actually surprised me. Lately he seems to be on the bandwagon of promoting drama and jumping into it head deep. His approach definitely surprised me and I like it. 

[CradleGames]

1 minute ago, Intoxicus said:

Yes, it's standard practice out of *respect*

 

And also *fact checking* is important.

 

Doing an ambush job like this was intentional. Steve knew what he was doing and how it would play out in public.

 

 

Do Linus extend the same respect to any product before trashing it?

[imreloadin]

The downhill slide for all of this shit started when they started with the clickbait-y titles and thumbnails to "chase the algorithm". *That* was the point they started changing their strategy from relying on the rigor of their content to trying to game the algorithm. I'm not surprised at all that they're making 5+ mistakes a video now as they all struggle to churn out 25+ videos a WEEK. That's an absolutely insane amount of content and something had to give, I'm just sad to see that it was the actual content itself that took the hit.

 

I wish that Linus would see this for what it is as an eye opener for things that need changed on a cultural level at LMG but he is so deep down the rabbit hole now that all he sees is "moar content = moar algorithm = moar money". It really is sad to see how far LTT has fallen from its roots.

[Jakey1645]

Everyone who was predicting Linus's response was correct.

 

(quotes are used in summary of what linus said)

 

"We are sad how fast everyone turned on us" - yes, one of the most well-respected tech outlets known for their factual, pro-consumer, scientific approach to hard facts called you out on some pretty egregious acts and bad data. Once people notice that you have been feeding them misinformation or doing some shady business transactions they tend to get a little upset.

 

"We are a growing company that needs time to fix things and get everything in order" - then slow down and take your time with your labs team and data analysis. If you are not confident in your ability to immediately produce perfect results that's fine no one is expected to right off the bat but you have to slow down video production to allow the labs team time to carefully look over the data. Once they have everything figured out then go back to the rapid upload schedule.

 

"The billet labs thing was a miscommunication and I pretty much stand by our review of the product" - that's a pretty bad miscommunication that may cause these guys to lose their company and their dream. Even if it wasn't your fault, why would you flame a startup company for charging a ton for a (as of now) one-of-a-kind product? You treated them like they were a multi-million dollar company and scrutinized them as such. Of course, they can't make it affordable they have almost no financial support besides what's in their pockets. It's like if your children handed you a crumby piece of art they made and you crumpled it up and threw it in the trash while calling them a bad artist. They are just starting out and need time to develop, maybe one day they'll be a great artist. They don't have fancy big-time large-scale producer benefits like you do.

 

Linus, we all realize that this is some pretty harsh feedback coming in all at once but please keep in mind that as GN said, we aren't raising our pitchforks to try and take you down, we are doing it to point out some glaring issues that are not being addressed. We definitely don't want to see you disappear from the internet but do want to see you get better. And from someone who is in the psychology world and sees patient cases all the time, sometimes a little tough love is needed to get back on track.

[JohnMcBane]

unfortunately Linus doesn't address the that fact, that many senior writers criticize the frequency and consequently quality of their own videos. "not being proud of any of the recent videos" is some damning statement that may reflect in the writers moral and certainly doesn't fit the self-stated goal of producing "evergreen content". don't think free snacks are gonna fix that.

 

maybe not watching those employee videos wasn't such a good idea.

[Inception9269]

3 minutes ago, Intoxicus said:

It can be possible for Steve to use valid criticisms as a basis for an attack piece.

 

It's a classic play where you take a partial truth, or even a full truth, and reframe it into an ad hominem attack.

 

Steve has been taking an increasingly adversarial and overly critical stance over the past few years. And it seems like he has the bias of "big equals bad."

 

I saw the early brewing of this with the "Trust Me Bro" video he did.

 

He feels threatened by Linus and Labs and this is his way of trying to level the playing field.

 

Linus is correct. It's a dick move to not fact check this properly and blindside Linus like this.

 

Steve knows this. And he did it intentionally.

 

Steve wants drama and division. It's literally strait out of the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. You attack a larger entity to gain attention and social leverage. It's an old power play tactic, you see it all the time.

 

Linus fucked up. Yeah.

 

But Steve is going out of his way to blow it out proportion to effectively sabotage LMG and Labs.

 

Labs is a massive threat to GN in Steve's mind. Which is toxic competition. He's brewing unnecessary drama out of fears and insecurity.

 

If it really truly was about the high horse ethical considerations he would have approached this very differently. And much more respectfully.

 

 

Do you get paid to shill for LMG?

 

Me personally I've been seeing Linus for who he really is for the past few years now, and this here with Steve is very much so overdue. I watched every second of Steve's video and everything he brought up is completely valid.

 

As someone that used to be something of an LMG fan boy, and have been watching since 2013, and supported them many times by buying their merch, and through vessel and then FP, I truly believe that company has become too big for it's own good, and refuse to give it another penny of my money.

[Uttamattamakin]

10 minutes ago, Thiumpa214 said:

Linus will take this personally as time and time again shows; he does not take well to criticism. Look at his first response. It tells it all.

 

The company needs to slow down, release less content that has way more quality. You can see this during the video of employee interviews.

 

LISTEN TO YOUR EMPLOYEES MAN! THEY ARE TELLING YOU HOW TO FIX THE PROBLEM

Here is the thing about the "slow down" advice.  If LTT can slow down a lot then LTT can do without some number of employees.   It does not take 120 people to make videos at the pace that CGP Grey does.    LTT cannot do videos that way, taking weeks to do an indepth even scientific review of a product.  Time is of the essence in their area of media.  

Instead @LinusTech I offer a humble suggestion.  Make discussion of errors or issues in a given weeks videos a weekly program of its own. That or this could be a part of the WAN show.  Discussion of errors can be content for the mill.  This channel called extra history does exactly that.  

 Just a thought. Monetize the mistakes. 

[JoostinOnline]

13 minutes ago, VoidX said:

Allocating more time for videos is a double loss in this case: you have to pay more for it, so you will have less views, less revenue from said views, sponsors, reach...

This is the crux of the problem.  LMG is 100% putting its own corporate profits over factual information for the consumer.  Even as a consumer, you seem to be okay with that.  Many of us are not.  Making less money won't put them out of business.  They haven't always been like this.

[Elizzy]

1 minute ago, CradleGames said:

Do tell me how a "camera range, theater room, and acoustic chamber" will make things better?
Linus is out of touch, his in multi-million dollars home. He's not even listening to his own staff anymore.
You step down as CEO when you can't be bothered to care.

By reading the other half of that quote: 

 

Quote

With that said, if all you want is a non-ambiguous statement that we're going to keep trying to get better, then here it is. We're going to keep trying to get better. Gary did a wonderful 'state-of-the-union' update for the company this morning about recent milestones and what we have in store. Those investments will keep flowing, and I promise that they will be a win for consumers and the tech industry.

For now, it's hard to do because I'm frustrated by the timelines too, but all I can do is say, "Stay tuned. it's upward from here and we're really excited."

 

[Middcore]

4 minutes ago, Tugmaster said:

Steve is tech Jesus and Linus tries to be an entertainer. 

 

But Linus wants to move into the "serious, data-driven, tech journalism" space with the whole labs thing. Which is admirable from a certain perspective, but it invites a different level of scrutiny of what you produce and you have to have the chops to back it up.

 

It's seemed to me for some time like LTT is caught in a dilemma of trying to serve two masters. The intent of the labs project is good, in theory, but it costs a lot of money. That means that to make the "serious" content happen, they need to produce ever more, ever more profitable "entertainment" content. And that results in the quality of the "entertainment" content declining, and undermines the credibility they need for the "serious" content. 

 

 

[hishnash]

1 minute ago, Birblover12 said:

I could see how one could say that it's "cherry picking" on the Data front,

Not at all, infact in almost all videos I expect LMG has mistakes, if they were a small outlet with just a few people that could be excusable but at the size they are and the image they want to project of quality it is just not at all.    

While im not knoldegable enough in all the topics they do videos on to spot them in the topics were I am it is blatant clear when they screw up, commonly they do not even due basic research even reading the product page of a product incorrectly let along looking at the product.  In videos were I have the knowledge I would say it is typically 2+ errors per videos. 

[Leksi T]

As far as the whole Billet/Auction thing...

 

Linus/LMG owes us nothing here.  He/they have already admitted the f-up to us. The rest is between the two companies.

 

If Billet wants the community to raise pitchforks, they can ask for it, and there's enough eyes on them that they'd be heard.  But they haven't. So put that thing down before you poke your own eye out.

[jpsulisz]

30 minutes ago, HaughtonBothered said:

LMG was already aware of every issue GN brought up and were already working to correct these things before his video. Steve would have known this if he had actually reached out to LMG and handled this privately. If his goal was truly to give constructive criticism, a private meeting is all that was needed. Instead, going public just raises suspicions that he is trying to discredit LTT Labs since it will be encroaching on his content. It's just a shame to see him tearing down LMG when LMG has been trying to build others in the space up.

Couldn't you say that his  LABS employees making comments about GN and HU with their testing strategies was in, at least, poor taste? It feels like they attempted to discredit them by saying they run 'new tests, every time [unlike GN and HU]'

[Birblover12]

Just now, hishnash said:

Not at all, infact in almost all videos I expect LMG has mistakes, if they were a small outlet with just a few people that could be excusable but at the size they are and the image they want to project of quality it is just not at all.    

While im not knoldegable enough in all the topics they do videos on to spot them in the topics were I am it is blatant clear when they screw up, commonly they do not even due basic research even reading the product page of a product incorrectly let along looking at the product.  In videos were I have the knowledge I would say it is typically 2+ errors per videos. 

Oh I absolutely agree, I was just saying I could see how someone could have the perspective that GN was cherry picking, not that I personally agree that it's the case.