Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Legitsu]

6 minutes ago, Twisted_FIEND said:

I think there should be a proper response, I mean this is big, probably the biggest controversy for this company, you can't pretend it doesn't exist to avoid drama

I'm not holding a pitchfork, I am still a huge fan, and that's why I wish you guys do better

and honestly, even as a huge fan of LTT, that was a very weak response... clarify any misunderstandings, own up to any mistakes in detail (you can't say "Guys I told you I make mistakes, you shouldn't call me out), and one thing most people agree on, is please Quality > Quantity

again you and the rest of the new people here are just jumping on the bandwangon

none of you are reading you are taking steve at his word and the mans near pathological at this point. 

 

you think steve is some good guy and looking out for the little guy

 

hes not hes a egotesitical douche nozzel that can't stand to see somebody other then him succed 

LTT isn't perfect. I have called linus out a few times (cough adblocking = piracy) 

 

but this is a very clear case of steve trying to use half truths and his audience as a weapon because hes got a boarderline god complex and gets off on telling people bigger then him 'they did wrong' 

 

this billetlabs thing is just the kind of half truth steve needed to write a "opinion piece" and thats what this is its an OPINION not a fact 

 

and honestly anybody with a brain can see that the billetlabs product just didn't live up to its promises. its not rocket surgery no ammount of retesting it is going to make it look any better.  just because you machine something out of metal doesn't fucking make it magic. nor does it justify the poor price to performance ratio

 

and psa: most waterblocks are machined out of billet. they aren't revinenting the wheel here. not even close they took a waterblock and scaled it up I can do that in 15M in cad and have it machined tomarrow at any machine shop 

 

 

 

[twixieshores]

18 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

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.  

 

They don't need to slow down to CGP Grey levels. Just cut a main channel video and a SC out and use the extra time to focus on quality. 5 videos a week on your main channel is plenty, especially since it's very clear that 120 staff members isn't enough to maintain their current schedule. Hell on an average week, only two of them even end up being worth watching. This company is slowly turning into the tech version of WatchMojo, and I'd prefer they do some course correction before it's nothing but hot garbage. 

[Faranox]

2 hours ago, LinusTech said:

We talk constantly about how we intend to move forward and make better content. It's just taking longer than any of us would like. If everything had gone according to plan, we'd have our camera range, theater room, and acoustic chamber done like 6 months ago. Instead our warehouse is torn apart right now because they had to reinforce our roof in order to support the heat pumps that we've been trying to get procured since last summer.

The real world is messy, and the more cooks you have in the kitchen, the more room there is for error.

Then slow things down and focus on quality. Right now you are willfully (and I don't really understand why, you don't have shareholders) prioritizing quantity over quality. You might find that most of us viewers aren't just sheep grazing on whatever LTT videos pops up in front of us, we are picky and prefer higher quality videos. If you make more polished videos, you would have higher retention, more views etc. The algorithm prioritizes average view percentage as well. You have proven that you would rather just rush a piece out instead of taking the time and due diligence needed to make a high quality video. There is no excuse for this. 

 

I'd argue instead of losing $100, $200, $300, $500!?!? in employee wages on that video, you lost $5000? $10000? $15000??!?! on losing the prototype? I don't even think you would have lost money. If the time/money was spent making a better video, there would have been more engagement, you would have gotten more views, and made more money. Nobody in your company likes the lack of quality and attention given to videos, listen to them.

 

You have nothing to lose by slowing things down. Literally nothing. You are a leader in the industry, don't lose all your good will from the community trying to keep up a high upload schedule waiting for the quality to improve. Slow things down until you can get things right, and then do it right faster. Right now you are just pushing as much junk out the door as possible, praying that junk to turn into gold.

[rubinos]

I agree that there should be a video. More than a response to Steve, an explanation to the community about some of the claims he made.

[AtotehZ]

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 don't want to get into the Billet Labs discussion, I consider that a series of unfortunate events that I know you want to fix and avoid in the future, however. My biggest issue with it is how obvious many of the test errors are.

 

They're errors I could've noticed just by glancing at them 20 years ago. I know you don't do the same thing every day at LMG, but you do actually do it for a living. Not catching these things makes me think Steve is right that you don't do your due diligence rather than these being sole hiccups. I don't think you do it maliciously, but that it's rushed over. Maybe to the point where you need to add a footnote of each test " Our testing practices 'are going through some growing pains' ".

 

I do apologise, but test results have a practical purpose and delivering the wrong ones when it could've been prevented is a shame. You've been dealing with running a business for more than a decade now, I don't have that knowledge. I don't know the consequence of delegating more time to double/triple checking. There's only so much time in a day and you wanna meet all the commitments you've set, both for Youtube, salaries and your employees time.

 

It's funny Steve among others highlighted the 3090 test, because I distinctly remember having read Nvidia's promo stuff and laughing at them using DLSS for their new product, but not the old ones. And at the time I questioned whether you'd done the same thing.

[Reclus]

Over a decade of watching you Linus. The amount of joy and passion that you shared and infected me with is really something beyond measurement now.

 

This thing however...

You are no longer a small youtuber. You are no longer a youtuber. Or any other kind of Tuber... You created a massive corporation that should take responsibility for it's actions. 

Why is this posted only here in your forum, when the mistakes your corp. has caused were made very public and you then doubled down on them publicly in a very poor way?

It really looks like you have chosen which path you are going to go.

Your statement really does have all the qualities of corpo talk. 

It' not us it's the journalists..

We have a relationship, very personal, despite being a 100 mil corp that flaunts that they won't spare 500 bucks on proper review?

We are learning still etc... 

Oh and we won't say what exactly happened but we threw money at it and don't care.

As I said you have chosen your way. Don't think there is a going back from it.

 

No longer Linus.

From now on LTT.

 

[Emperor Numerius]

I think that LMG is not for like serious GPU bench marking enthusiasts its for the everyday person who is kind of interested in tech, would like to keep up with news, and be entertained. You can see this by comparing the titles of their videos to those of like GN for example

vs

Clearly LTT videos are more fun?

correct me if I'm wrong but GN's vids don't seem as fun and seem more like benchmarking Computers on several Games more than LTT does

I don't actually play most of the games that LTTT uses for benchmarking but i still watch their GPU and CPU videos because they are fun not because I'm goanna buy the Creelander laptop.

 

LMG is a big company and i understand that they will have problems as do all companies but i think that we need to understand that at the end of the day Linus, Steve, and everyone else are just human we can't except them to never make a mistake. I appreciate Linus's disclosing his sponsorships and what not and really trying to protect customer from deceptive marketing.

 

Also, Linus has excellent integrity

TLDR Everyone is human, and we all make mistakes.

[divito]

Pasting my Youtube comment here:

I unsubscribed to GN in of August 2022 and this video highlights precisely the reason I stopped watching this channel.

While GN could be appreciated for being an enthusiast-level perspective and calling things as they saw them in the past, the majority of their content comes off as pedantic and it was increasingly hard to take them seriously. Their antics come off as disingenuous and holier-than-thou, and I simply don't have patience with that type of attitude and superiority complex, and why I've culled many tech channels in the past year.

Doing a GN impression:
- Steve calls yellow as orange, inaccurate.
- Criticizes it's "not proper to just blame the product because you don't want to control your test environment, and you don't want to use it the way it's designed." All one has to do is watch prior GN videos to see this in action.

I had more, but this post got large, and I can't even take myself seriously presenting them all.

I think the other problem is that people are conflating the LTT/ShortCircuit channels with Labs. I'm not sure how many people watching or commenting have experience in certain production environments with teams of people and specialist equipment, but things like that aren't just turn-key, especially when their application is quite customized and they're developing a personalized workflow with some brand new team members.

Labs' genesis and partial inclusion in LTT/SC videos as they refine things, before becoming what Linus seems to envision it will be as a compendium, is going to have warts. It's out of touch and naïve to think otherwise.

Ultimately, I am disappointed in this video, and again in this channel.

This video could have been a personal message between tech Youtubers, an outreach, a wellness check, if one was truly concerned; but instead, we have this wannabe-exposé that literally could have been a compilation of errors across all tech Youtube channels, as LMG is far from alone. GN itself has been the subject of methodology and conclusion issues in the past, outside of other errors that make it through editing. Jay has had errors in his videos, typos, misspeaking issues, as has Wendel, Paul, Hardware Unboxed, HardwareCanucks, Unbox Therapy, etc... Sometimes they're addressed in post or in future videos, and sometimes the errors persist into the Youtube ether. Presenting LMG singularly, while ignoring the host of errors with tech Youtube in general, speaks to a different psychological issue behind the posting of this video.

LMG's production timelines and schedules are definitely an issue, and the staff is likely overextended, this has been said for awhile. But this video is a cold, impersonal, inhumane perspective that seems intent on being the antithesis to community-driven; it's divisive and pompous, rather than inclusive and collaborative. Behind every channel are real people, with real struggles, doing real things and putting it out there for the world in the best way they can in their job.

Videos are so much more entertaining when there are collaborations, crossovers, where specialties and personalities merge to create something fresh and new. We are stronger as a community; I'm sure viewers and readers alike have seen the levels that tech enthusiasts, gamers, 'the internet' can reach when we're all working together. My hope is that GN can learn to share this outlook in the future, and shake this adversarial outlook that has morphed into a compulsion to be seen as always correct or superior.

[VicBar]

4 hours ago, Athan Immortal said:

Can't help but agree with Steve's points. I already had a concern watching the "working for lmg" videos where the overwhelming feedback was "I wish we didn't have to go so fast".

True and remember y'all that this is smth we admire about LTT and LMG. That they are open and vulnerable with us, it proves we should trust them when we can.

 

Thus being this open and truthful can lead to us realizing when they are being off their path. What GN's video did was put a mirror up to them so they could take another look at what they themselves are saying. I don't see it as shoving it back in their face but rather answer the call for help that videos seemed like with an amplified echo.

 

Since long long ago I've loved the openness and transparency that LMG has had, with the Frameworks thing, the sponsors thing, the revenue stuff... all super informative and awesome. This tho is a natural consequence of that and I'm sure it's smth that will be a net-positive in the end.

[jpsulisz]

47 minutes ago, HaughtonBothered said:

I agree it was in poor taste, and does not reflect LMG as a whole, or Linus's own feelings on the matter. It was explained in the WAN show that Tim's comment was made in a "I'm proud of my team for doing things better than the competition" sort of way rather than a "these other guys aren't any good" sort of way.

Fair enough, with context that's okay. However, most people who watched that probably didn't see what you're referring to on the WAN show. So to most, it probably looks like a diss - although I doubt the amount of audience who watch both and perceive it as such is minuscule.

 

'does not reflect LMG as a whole', while I am sure this is true - many people must've combed through this video before they released it. Maybe not enough people reviewed it as seen with stringent workloads?   Thought this was from LMG but is from a fan from LTX, MurfsGaming.

I think you are right though, Steve is discrediting LMG but not in a way to help himself mainly, but rather to help LMG out. I imagine the people that get hooked on LMG may eventually hit GN at some point, so there is some incentive to help each other out. The response from Linus earlier in this thread reminds me greatly of the backpack thing, which shows that he is too rash to write a response and takes the criticism personally and didn't, at least at this moment, take this as a way to help LMG look better.

[Coatesy]

I think Steve's take is fair and balance although GN could have done a better job at communicating with LMG prior to the release of the video to ensure their article was truly complete. I also respect the bulk of Linus' response but he is not serving himself or LMG well by interpreting the GN video as an attack - it simply isn't, this is the industry holding itself to account.

LMG went into developing the Lab knowing full well that their performance was going to be scrutinized by other technical reviewers and it should be no shock that this feedback is coming through given the apparent quality omissions.

LMG needs to take this opportunity to pull up their socks, take the feedback onboard and work towards setting an industry standard in fair and unbiased technical reviews. 

At the commercial scale Labs are aiming for, there will always be gaps and errors, but until your systems are bedded down, I would caution you to stay humble and avoid throwing stones at other reviewers and their testing approaches in this space.

You have a fantastic team, an honorable goal and produce great content.
Take this feedback, adapt and move forward.

From a long time view - first time commenter.

[tarfeef101]

I hope this gets read and isn't just lost in a huge thread.

 

I'm a looong time viewer and supporter. I was a vessel subscriber all the way back then (and am a proud OG tier on FP to this day). I definitely am broadly "a fan and supporter" of LTT. I have also bought GN merch, and have watched them for a long time as well, and would say the same about myself there. But I do believe I'm pretty able to separate myself from either side and be objective, so here goes:

 

- I think they had a lot of good points. This is a conclusion I reached before they made those points, because I noticed those things myself. I frankly don't want LTT for educational/informative content. I mainly watch for entertainment, and for consumer electronics like phones/laptops on SC, insights into high level usage stuff. You guys do make a lot of mistakes. That's just the truth.

- Those mistakes are often things I believe can and should be fixed by a reshoot, voice-over, etc. Something that cannot be missed. It definitely seems to me like presenters/hosts are not intimately familiar with scripts before shooting, and have limited takes, as most info errors don't seem to be wrong consistently, but in specific takes, or were mentioned once incorrectly but the conclusion seems derived from correct info. 1000% that screams "you're shipping too fast to take care". I don't mind that for Alex's latest jenk cooling project. I do for a product review. And I agree that many people like myself primarily listen, don't watch intensively. So I think you should do better there.

- You do also just make errors in testing, research, etc (not just slipping up words when presenting). The skates on that mouse, I think were inexcusable. If my mouse was surprisingly rough/slow, the first thing I would do is explicitly check for plastic. How that wasn't considered is beyond me. The testing errors with game settings are pretty bad too. Data that erroneous/dissimilar should merit follow-up and be caught. I speak from experience, I did GPU validation for a living at Intel for some time. I also just generally see a lot of random errors about things like misstatements about a given specification, etc. You brought this up on a recent wan. You're aware, but haven't yet fixed it. This is frustrating for me. Getting basics wrong and telling consumers those things is what turned me off of jayztwocents in a large manner. He did that a lot and I got tired of watching someone shove out incorrect info to those who wouldn't know better.

- when it comes to billet labs, I'm mostly on your side. I interpreted that video as "hey let's play with bespoke fancy cooling". I agree your conclusion wouldn't have changed. I DO think you should have just "done it right", and I recall wishing for as much. But I don't think you will have burned them down because you didn't. It reflects worse on you than them, in my opinion. I do think not sending the item back is bad though. Even if you offered money (weeks/months later), that doesn't mean they don't lose valuable time as a startup with limited funding burning overhead costs. You should do better in that regard.

 

I'm not gonna stop watching LTT, or GN. I hope you do listen to your pace feedback from your team, because I do believe that is the cause of basically all these issues. I'd love for a day when I see an LTT review and I can just take it at face value. Right now, I don't. Some testing where methodology is public and I can tell it is done right, I'll use as info. But LTT has for a long time been primarily entertainment and about "discovering tech to research myself". If you want labs to change that to "the place I go for reliable reviews and data", then I agree with Steve overall, you do need to do better.

 

I only skimmed ur post here (maybe 74% attention), but I recall seeing references to you justifying errors as growing pains and "it's okay because you're transparent". I hope you change that attitude. It doesn't have to be like that. Y job is helping software companies be reliable and scale. Many will use same excuse (growing pains). But I've proven you can grow reliably. It just takes more time/care, which you hadn't prioritized. Again, if you're talking "meme cooling vlog" content, those errors don't matter much. But if you're positioning as informational and data driven, they do. I think you should take that time/cost to do it right. Telling me you know your priorities are different (transparency) doesn't make me agreed with them. That's the fundamental issue here.

[Uttamattamakin]

3 minutes ago, twixieshores said:

 

They don't need to slow down to CGP Grey levels. Just cut a main channel video and a SC out and use the extra time to focus on quality. 5 videos a week on your main channel is plenty, especially since it's very clear that 120 staff members isn't enough to maintain their current schedule. Hell on an average week, only two of them even end up being worth watching. This company is slowly turning into the tech version of WatchMojo, and I'd prefer they do some course correction before it's nothing but hot garbage. 

That is a matter of opinion.  A video that you might think is worthless someone else might think is gold.  LTT vidoes are ... irreverent fun with technology.  They make cool things, they provide high tech porn with components the rest of us will never FIND much less buy... and when key components are out they do reviews.   Trying to be more rigorous is going to be a transition period.  

To me FWIW I call their selling of the prototype as being the one true wrong.  That's not only not cool ... uhm... technically that might have been a crime. 

[MiltownClowns]

1 minute ago, Legitsu said:

again you and the rest of the new people here are just jumping on the bandwangon

none of you are reading you are taking steve at his word and the mans near pathological at this point. 

 

you think steve is some good guy and looking out for the little guy

 

hes not hes a egotesitical douche nozzel that can't stand to see somebody other then him succed 

LTT isn't perfect. I have called linus out a few times (cough adblocking = piracy) 

 

but this is a very clear case of steve trying to use half truths and his audience as a weapon because hes got a boarderline god complex and gets off on telling people bigger then him 'they did wrong' 

 

this billetlabs thing is just the kind of half truth steve needed to write a "opinion piece" and thats what this is its an OPINION not a fact 

 

Your name calling undercuts any point you might think you have. Focus on the message and not the messenger. The animosity is damaging the overall discussion others are attempting to have and damaging the perception of people defending linus as anything other than sycophants.

[Legitsu]

13 minutes ago, Drazil100 said:

This is a baseless accusation. There is nothing clear about Steve's intentions. None of us are Steve, and he hasn't said anything in the past to indicate the reason he posts drama is for views.

I just reread Linus's response, while he disagrees with Steve not reaching out, there was nothing in Steve's video he didn't own up to messing up on. Regardless of Steve's intent, we shouldn't get mad at someone for reporting on facts. It's a GOOD THING that he made that video and brought this to the community's attention. We WANT Linus to do better, and if they agree with Steve that they need to do better, then I don't see a reason to get mad.

Nonsense. It's very clear, given Steve's recent posting history, that all he cares about is finger-wagging at corporations bigger than him.

It's become a pattern for him: find something to be mad about, and then whip it into a storm and sic his audience on whoever he doesn't like or thinks has done something wrong.

You want proof of this? Why didn't he reach out to LTT? Oh, that's right, because Linus would have handled it professionally and not given him anything to whip into a storm.

Ethics and integrity? Where are Steve's? Nobody with either of those traits would post such a highly opinionated and charged video without reaching out.

I guess Steve thinks he's above practicing what he preaches.

He's come right out and said he's not interested in being a journalist (I cannot, for the life of me, find the video in question, but I will find it later).

[jitteryzeitgeist]

My distaste for this started when Linus had a little tantrum on the WAN show when a Twitch chatter dared to suggest the 6000 and 7000 series AMD cards are pretty good.  Not even great, just pretty good.

 

This place is nothing but a shamshow, the curtains been pulled and the mans been revealed.

[stayupthetree]

Did the video have valid points? Yes. However I feel that GN undermines these points by basically saying "disagreements will just be the LTT community defending him" as if there couldn't possibly be any valid criticism of the video. As others have pointed out, and Linus himself, basic journalistic practices weren't met. Through all this at certain points it felt like GN was trying to convince people that he was the only one you could trust to never make a mistake.

[McCarthy]

I'm new to the forum and would like to add a new perspective to this issue.

 

It is mainly YouTube's fault.

 

YouTube is stalling out on the amount of total viewer time, all while the amount of creators keep increasing. Supply is now much higher than demand, so they adjusted the algo in order to get rid of excess supply (creators).

 

Based on the current algo, only creators that keep pushing out massive amounts of content, stay relevant and will be supported. Infrequent content creators or those that just maintain a video or two a week, are doomed and fall through the cracks.

 

Linus is now highly invested with over 100 employees and a big facility.

 

If he doesn't crank out daily content, the algo will de-rank him, and his entire business will fail.

 

With increasing quantity comes a certain lack of quality, and that is the issue at hand.

 

In order to maintain or regain quality while pushing out so much content, he would have to hire even more employees, and he will end up in a downward spiral with increasing costs.

 

In my eyes, YouTube has failed long-standing creators in recent years, by changing the algo.

 

All those blaming Linus should try to run a company with a staff of 10, let alone 100. You will be the fire extinguisher one every level while not having much time left to deliver quality. Most would fail in this position.

 

 

 

[Kothnaaken]

If Steve took a few minutes to make sure his own video would be error free and maybe getting some context about things he called out then maybe his side would be easier to side with. I only watched GN for their prebuilt reviews for when I had to recommend some to friends. Guess I'll need to find somewhere else to get those now.

[Nodachi]

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 appreciate you taking ownership of some of your mistakes, but you failed to address the primary concern of GN's video. Which was you're sacrificing accuracy for volume.

I watch because I trust LMG to do their due diligence BEFORE posting, and make quick corrections when they discover errors. However, if the frequency and scope of errors becomes too much; then I as the consumer have no reason to stay. Quite a few of the mistakes he mentioned were just blatant negligence. Expansion is exciting. The end goal is amazing, but it's all pointless if the people you're building all of this for can't trust your content. slow down. We can go a day or two without a video if it means what we are watching remains accurate. I also BEG you to dedicate a good chunk of the WAN Show to this. Because the defensiveness of your response to this has left me completely unconvinced that we'll be seeing any meaningful change.

[Leksi T]

I fear that because the LMG team/Linus are still dealing with time issues, self-imposed or not, they won't have the time to sort through read all the relevant feedback here.  Many of the people who are trying to be constructive have posts like mine, multi-paragraph essays.  And then they have to sort through all the posts saying "U suk" or "They suk" or "I'm leaving, you should care about that"

 

EDIT: At least it's not too bad here compared to other places.  But then, some of the non-constructive posts aren't exactly short either.

[hishnash]

27 minutes ago, Middcore said:

You seem to be implying the whole labs project is a charade. I think his desire to make more data-driven, consumer-beneficial content is sincere.

I believe he thinks it is sincere but I do not believe he will allow it to do what it could do as that would result in much less compelling, entertaining content possibly (likely) resulting in less $$ leading to not being able to pay the salaries of the labs team.   In the end LMG is an entertainment company not a data-sci technical ansaysie company, the real painful point here is whatever good the labs team do create if the creatives who are tasked with presenting this are not given enough time and there is not enough time (or ability) for the labs to review the vides and push back before publishing then we will continue to see these issues, possibly more issues in quality.  

In the past the writers were doing the testing but now it is a detached process so while it might appear to be easier for the writers in some ways it is quite a bit harder as they no longer have the hands on expirance and thus are no longer in a position to spot issues as they used to be. 

[Ca0123]

IDK, I take particular issue with the doubling down on the Billet Labs situation.

 

I felt weird with the video where the conclusion was 'Hey here's an expensive product, watch us use it with incompatible components, then dunk on them for not being a good value'.

 

Like yes, maybe not a good value to LTT, but when has top tier enthusiast hardware always been a good value? Majority of the time, enthusiast watercooling in a consumer PC is not a good value, but people enjoy it!

There would of been a small group of enthusiasts out there who had there ears perk up about this product, even with the cost. But coming to the conclusion, a percentage may of been turned away purely based on your words and flawed testing.

 

This is in conflict to the 7950X3D video, where you saw it was not performing correctly so you contacted AMD to confirm. Why do big companies like AMD get your extra '$500 of other peoples time', where LTT's influence over potential customers is an order of magnitude smaller than it is compared to a startup like Billet Labs? Why do they not get the same courtesy?

 

May be an 'L' take, and happy to take it on the chin if others don't agree.

[jitteryzeitgeist]

1 minute ago, Kothnaaken said:

If Steve took a few minutes to make sure his own video would be error free and maybe getting some context about things he called out then maybe his side would be easier to side with. I only watched GN for their prebuilt reviews for when I had to recommend some to friends. Guess I'll need to find somewhere else to get those now.

How many prototypes has Steve stolen after using it incorrectly and dragged the company for it?

[VicBar]

4 hours ago, Jazmodo said:

It's the undertones & snide comments, it's unnecessary. I've watch a lot of GN. This isn't an isolated incident, nor just with LTT. It just happens to be the most egregious example. 

 

Yes, GN have done some great investigative work, but that doesn't justify the crusader attitude. I enjoy GN when it's extreme OC & in-depth case testing, or similar. This garbage, less so. 

This is NOT the most egregious example of GN being snide and snarky when posting criticism, what?? This hurt to watch and you can tell it hurt to make as well. He is snarky but visibly less so than he would be. Remember the million "back to you, Steve" against Intel, or how he loves to take down bad designs in cards, or cases.

 

This was comparatively tame. It just actually hurt this time instead of being funny. For me and many of us at least..