Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[redf5]

3 minutes ago, Glorthiar said:

The amount of pathetic bull-shit in this thread.
Its like watching a group of 8 year olds argue about batman and superman.
A bunch of whiny babies engaging in the worst faith argument possible and sticking staunchly to their side regardless of evidence.

Treating this shit like a fucking war

Acting like none of them have ever fucked up

This is the most pathetic horseshit I have ever seen

I'm sorry we're not as mature as you are

[VisibleXela]

4 minutes ago, Hezkezl said:

The way Linus's comment was written along with the implication, is that they offered to compensate Billet for the "mistake" before GN had anything to say about it.

Yeah, and it's pretty telling that people are taking that implication - not even a statement, an implication you read between the lines - and assuming it means there's some "other side of the story."

 

If the timeline was wrong, you'd expect literally anyone from LMG to dispute it, but all I've got are crickets.

 

4 minutes ago, Hezkezl said:

That's not what happened. It took Steve's video before Linus offered the reimbursement. Without that video, can you guarantee that Linus wouldn't have ignored

Billet's emails?

Nope, lmao, doubly so if Steve reached out to Linus beforehand.

 

4 minutes ago, Hezkezl said:

It had already been 4 days at that point...

Even worse - LTX was mid July. Allegedly, they got the prototype back in June. I know the Billet Labs email was 4 days ago, but it's definitely been more than 4 days at this point.

 

People are desperate for a reason that Linus and LMG are innocent here, and they're coming up with wild conspiracies in their heads to justify it.

[dimforest]

I think it's fair to say a lot of us are upset right now. I don't plan on bailing though; I'm still hopeful that this can be resolved and LMG decides to do the right thing instead of doubling/tripling down again. 

[Rsg_6100]

10 minutes ago, Glorthiar said:

1. The follow up seem particularly more hostile and just straight up fucking rude compared to the previous video
2. What in the fuck do you want linus to say/do? it seems like when people are criticized they are not allowed to stand up for themselves or explaiun any actions? what in the actual fuck do you want linus to do, fall to his fucking knees and beg forgiveness while flagellating himself? To give his fucking channel to GN and live in the mountain like a hermit?
No fucking matter what Linus did or said it was not going to be enough for people who are just fucking gung ho to ride the fucking hate train.

Why are you taking this personally? You should never make a company part of your identity, because that's what this response screams.

[Danko12321]

20 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.

There is not spite or anger when I say this, only disappointment and hope. Today I unsubscribed from LTT.

[harls]

Just now, LinusTechLies said:

Whoa there buddy a "hit job" would imply that Steve's video's were all filled with lies and half truth's and where carefully planned in advanced.

 

Journalistic integrity implies reporting on the truth no matter how many fee fees it hurts in the Linus Tech Tips circle jerk that's currently going on with the Linus defenders all out in full force defending a man THAT JUST LIED TO THEM RIGHT IN THEIR FACE.

 

Linus Media Group is a corporation and should be treated as one. The days of them being just some random YouTube Channel is long gone. IF THIS WAS ANY OTHER CORPORATION THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN RAKED OVER THE COALS.

I am not defending linus.  LMG clearly fucked up in at least some of these situations.  It is a hit job as Steve admits he feels LMG is wrong so he didn't have to reach out to them to see if they have any evidence to refute the claims.  They would have easily shown him the video of Linus stating the engineer was wrong and should not have made the comments he did.  They also may have had evidence to show that the spin Steve put on things may not be factual.  Or they may not have and we would know that the claims are true.  As is it is a one sided hit piece.  That said where there is smoke there is fire,  we just do not know the extent of it. 

[jooroth18]

5 minutes ago, K4shira said:

 

The videos containing the mistakes as well as Linus comments on these mistakes are public and do not require request for comment, as IPSO says here:

 

 

And the reason they didn't ask for comment regarding the Billet issue should be clear now that Billet has said that LTT had only offered compensation for the stolen prototype AFTER the release of the video. If GN had asked for comment then LTT would've just swept it under the rug. And IPSO again says this is perfectly correct under journalistic standards:

 

 

@LinusTech should know about this. GN is playing this game fairly.

[LinusCatTips-is-Dead]

2 minutes ago, fohatadri said:

This Isn't The Airport, You Don't Have To Announce Your Departure.

They are just trying to make a point. You don't have to be snarky because you feel the need to defend a centi-milionare who most likely does not care about you.

[WillHeard]

How can any of you find this acceptable?

 

"The good news is that it isn't just sitting on a shelf" WTF!

[smilingjackkk]

Yeah how about those Floatplane numbers, eh? They're tumbling down like your credibility @LinusTech

[Legend_Master]

When I first saw the first gamers nexus video I wanted to believe that this was a misunderstanding. I wanted to wait for a response from LMG as I was sure that there would be a good explanation and an apology to the community. To my dismay that is not what happened Instead of admitting that mistakes were made and trying to fix them we saw a non apology that doubled down and lied about what really happened. I am disappointed in this company I once trusted to admit when they were wrong and do the right thing.

I will watch the next WAN show but this needs to be properly addressed and if it is not I am unsure what I will do. At this point I have lost a lot of trust in LMG and it will take time to rebuild that trust. 

As Linus said "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."

[rookie_eyes]

I've been watching Linus since the day's of the house and the whole room water cooling project. I've got to say that the whole selling a prototype thing would kind of boil down to common sense. It's a prototype and no amount of "Miscommunication" would lead me to sell that product. There are elements of that whole thing that I don't think it's as cut and dry as either Steve or Linus are making out, if Billet didn't stress at the point of contract signing that they wanted the review product back after the fact then honestly, thats on them. However, I would want Linus to cover his arse a little and double check that there haven't been any industrial espionage act issues broken in the events that have occured.

In my eye's Linus has been brutally honest the whole time, throughout the time I've been watching, sometimes to his own detriment. But honest nonetheless. Steve from Gamers Nexus has made a career out of breaking huge stories and looking at the tech industry with a microscope. All the information that Steve presented was in the public domain however, and maybe this is the right time for a bit of a wake up call for the LTT upper management. That said whether Steve is profiting off this or not, the fact that he published this without a heads-up to Linus was not in anyway professional. Linus himself on the last WAN show said he dosne't want to create or endorse a them and us culture. Steve, just poured gasoline on that fire and added napalm for good measure. Its going to harm the industry that you've all have collectively created together. 

No one here is blameless, but this should have been a phone call off the record, not a youtube video that clearly has been published to invoke a reaction. Its hard to look at Steve stating he's wanting to uphold his journalistic integrity when his video comes off more like a jealous winge.

[coopa]

1 minute ago, HiTechLowSpec said:

Linus is moving into what Steve sees as his turf in the YouTube segment as a competitor. He could have reached out to Linus and said, "Dude, this is what I'm seeing, what the hell is going on over there?" Instead, he chose to publicly make his assertions in a YouTube video to do as much reputation damage as possible, whether it was accurate or not. Then he is not 'monetizing' the video to give the impression of being morally righteous with his unsubstantiated claims.

 

Without a doubt, but do you know what precipitated this? A video tour of LTT Labs, a public Youtube video, monetized and shared widely, where an LTT employee says this:

The difference between us like somebody like Gamers Nexus or Hardware unboxed is we test new components, new tests every time.

Which disparaged both GN and HU and was inaccurate (Steve shows proof that benchmarks are reused by LMG in his video, but said that was fine and ignored it at the time). Then, discussing that Hardware Unboxed replied on the WAN Show, Linus said this:

 

There is a fair number of people that are talking about the whole "trust me bro" situation and where there were some creators [sigh] it seems like you guys are - look - it's pretty clear that not everyone in the creator space handled that super professionally. I don't agree with some of the takes that are out there. I don't think it's particularly journalistic to ignore facts, to ignore personal relationships

 

Linus in the above quote basIcally expresses that he's hurt by any criticism, and that the criticism "ignore personal relationships" would be furthering LMG's interests by ignoring criticism. So it's fair for LMG employees (who, by virtue of working for Linus and being a public face in his video content, represent the views of his company) to disparage other hardware review/benchmarking outlets with completely inaccurate statements?

 

8 minutes ago, HiTechLowSpec said:

This includes getting to the bottom of what happened with Billet Labs, which could be entirely a miscommunication. Many companies send review samples that they never expect to have returned, and I'm rightly shocked that Billet would have sent their one and only design to LTT for "review". Did GN journalistically investigate the validity of Billet's claims vs. LMG's actions? No. Steve took advantage of this opportunity, with the immaturity of LMG Labs (including a clumsy statement by a non-PR person giving a tour) to pile on and make LMG look as bad as possible. Including using the transparency of a video with employees giving criticisms of Linus to reinforce his premise. This shows no consideration or empathy to how those employees will now feel about their statements being used like this.

Billet asked for the prototype back TWICE before LMG sold it (charity auction), and only offered reimbursement for doing so AFTER Steve published the above video, yet Linus used weasel words in his statement to imply that LMG/Billet had already amicably agreed to a compensation offer to make them whole for the loss of their prototype.
 

And Linus' employee statements are A VIDEO THEY PUBLISHED AND MONETIZED ON LMG'S OWN CHANNEL! If Linus did not want those employee statements, however frankly good or bad they are, he could have simply not had the video made, edited out comments he didn't like, or if the end result was not satisfactory - just don't publish the video.

LMG can't have it both ways. You can't put out statements and video to influence your community and attract views, and then be upset if someone uses those statements as a potential reason why there are many objective errors being made in LTT videos.

[E2C2]

I found Linus's response to be quite odd as he didn't mention GPU, CPU, or PSU errors at all. Not an explanation of what happened or why they were so inaccurate.  There was also the forgotten mention of a sponsored gpu review from Asus claiming that a 600$ "budget" 4070 is going to perform "great" simply because the card was manufactured by Asus. That's not objective in any sense of the word. There is no excuse for things like that when you could just measure the performance and base your final results on data, not how previous cards performed. 

 

I'm frankly disappointed in the whole company as LTT Labs has failed to change my opinion on why I should take them seriously when they keep blundering hardware.

[TimedPing]

4 minutes ago, Thepyrodex said:

to have insane reactions to forum comments like 99% of the people in this thread?

 

since you're here for the show, can I recommend some stove top popcorn?  get the no salt added as this thread is salty enough!

(for not fort the show lol)

Stove top popcorn is overrated, I'll prepare the BBQ grill real quick

[Gunpocket]

1 minute ago, Glorthiar said:

The amount of pathetic bull-shit in this thread.
Its like watching a group of 8 year olds argue about batman and superman.
A bunch of whiny babies engaging in the worst faith argument possible and sticking staunchly to their side regardless of evidence.

Treating this shit like a fucking war

Acting like none of them have ever fucked up

This is the most pathetic horseshit I have ever seen

Sounds like you need to relax, no offense. It sounds like you're also part of this, sticking to your side regardless of the evidence that LTT is very much in the wrong. To go off your previous post-people expected LTT to do the right thing in the first place, especially if they want to be treated seriously. They had several times to do the right thing but instead cared more about a few hundred bucks over their integrity. GN is not stirring the pot as much as Linus is doing himself, by clearly lying about the timeline of Billet labs. I doubt many people are expecting LTT to magically change for the better. But this isn't the first time this has happened. The same excuses have been made, but nothing has changed. People are expecting for there to be actual transparency (as they promised before) and for an actual response, at some point, and for Linus to actually admit the problems, rather than shifting the blame or saying that 'we're only human' which isn't an excuse for such a highly valued organization.

[Arvids]

Just now, harls said:

The thing is Steve didn't get all the facts.  He got one side of the story.  Now could this be accurate, maybe, but typically not completly when getting one side of a story.  He decided LMG was operating in bad faith so he could say whatever he wanted. 

Look, it always can be better. But considering how many mistakes have been made over the recent months, I also not giving LMG any space for a manoeuvre. 

I've wrote this about a year ago and I will re-iterate it right now: Linus is overworked, in over his head and takes on too much work to the point he lost sight of the errors and doubles down instead of pulling back and re-evaluating.

Frankly, it's a common mistake. This is fixed by 2 things: Dropping everything and focusing only on fixing the problems - forget all the plans he has, he has no plans as of this moment for next 1-2 weeks.

Two - after the situation is stabilized - he needs to take a 2-3 week vacation. And when I mean vacation, he should not be allowed to be anywhere near the office and the only person allowed to call him in an emergency is the CEO of the LMG. 

He is burning a multi-dimentional candle in 6 dimensions right now.

 

This whole thing reminded me of his Stargate Atlantis scene: 

 

Quote

McKay: I can bring it back under control! Just give me a second!
Sheppard: No, you can't!
McKay: Just one second!
Sheppard: I've seen this before, Rodney: pilots who wouldn't eject when something went wrong - trying to fix their planes right until it hit the ground.

The only difference is Linus is not gonna blow up a solar system and things are not as dire. Yet.

[Legitsu]

14 minutes ago, __Dreamer__ said:

Well, Linus literally throw in the garbage years of research of 2 guys trying to start a company without even say "sorry"

years of research?

you gn guys sure like pulling numbers out of your ass

13 minutes ago, ImpliedSilence said:

 

 

might want to link the accual reddit thread and not some youtube reacts video

and the communtiys reaction is mesured and just .... for once  the post reads like a rant by somebody with a axe to grind 

beeteadubs: linus mentioned on one of the wan shows prior to this post that he had some probates that where likely not going to be seen again. 

 

coincidence you tel me. 

 

 

stop cherry picking folks stop googleing for things to throw on the pile for the sake of throwing them on the pile it doesn't help your case it makes you look desperate 

[swimtome]

19 hours ago, insanityclown said:

Show me where GN was inaccurate. Linus was using weasel words to try to get around the fact that even if it was a charity auction, it wasn’t his to auction. 

 

20 hours ago, Billetlabsauction said:

You just said that they misrepresented it for money and then auctioned it off for money. That sure sounds like you're trying to say they auctioned it off after misrepresenting it in a more convoluted way!

 

18 hours ago, IndustrialBananaBread said:

Yeah, it seems like the "auctioned off" wording is a subtle attempt to not say "we sold someone's R&D"

 

 

15 hours ago, Texbobcat said:

Most gas lighting apology I've read from a youtuber.
We DiDn'T SelL It BuT AucTioned It FoR CharITY - What's the damn difference either way you gave it away for money when you weren't supposed to.

 

1 hour ago, coopa said:

Steve is correctly calling out Linus for the word salad here ("sell" vs "accidentally auctioned", an auction is a type of sale) a

 

2 minutes ago, QChoumont said:

People are calling it theft because it is technically theft. 
Billet sent the product out for review and then requested it back, it's the property of Billet, and whether intentional or not the property was never returned and instead sold to a third party. It's theft regardless of what tool you cut it with.

If I were to borrow your PS5 then request it back and I agreed to give it back but then I sold it to someone else, whether I intended to steal from you doesn't matter, I stole from you.

20 hours ago, Spotty said:

To clarify; all proceeds of the auction at LTX were donated to charity (Extra Life I believe). I am not saying this excuses what happened, but it's not fair to say that the reason it happened was greed.   [TLDR: THIS]

 

I think this word treading is a perfect example where Linus's way of talking causes easy shots.

 

If I watched Steve's video without any other context, I would think Linus was selling the block for his own monetary gains.  As in an evil greedy get cash for everything!  Linus obviously gets defensive about that and wants to clarify it was sold for charity.  He isn't trying to deny wrongdoing, just wants to be specific about whoa I didn't do THAT.

 

Does it change the result - that a serious lack of ownership caused them to lose something that didn't belong to them?  No, of course not.  And I don't think Linus would deny that.

 

 But when you're getting attacked it's very easy (and human) to focus on the extremes. So I minorly disagree with Steve's recent hardware news response treating Linus's response as if he said "I didn't do anything wrong, I AUCTIONED IT FOR CHARITY, noT sOLd it" when Linus is really saying "Whoa what the hell no I didn't sell it for my own gain. But I did fuck up so..."

 

I'm not trying to get into but Linus/Steve this/that... just trying to say that Linus (for better or worse) speaks without a PR person so I find a slightly unfair when pitchforkers will act like he's an evil CEO lying about everything when I think we can all agree it's at least a little more nuanced then that.  Like everywhere in life, when you talk in extremes, you're probably being at least a little inaccurate.

[Thepyrodex]

5 minutes ago, Glorthiar said:

The amount of pathetic bull-shit in this thread.
Its like watching a group of 8 year olds argue about batman and superman.
A bunch of whiny babies engaging in the worst faith argument possible and sticking staunchly to their side regardless of evidence.

Treating this shit like a fucking war

Acting like none of them have ever fucked up

This is the most pathetic horseshit I have ever seen

Just grab the popcorn and join those watching from the sidelines.  It’ll work itself out one way or another in a few days when more info is availible

[AlienALX]

7 minutes ago, Thepyrodex said:

THANK YOU!  I was actually and literally asking for the information I don't know what the other person was on about "not wanting to get involved in a deformation suit" 

 

Because I am not 100% sure it is true. Like many things in life, you may never have all of the facts or, critically, BOTH sides of the story. However, that doesn't mean you should avoid it.

 

I don't want to stick my neck out and start saying what I think in other words. I know how the law works for the most part too, so just being careful is all. 

[QChoumont]

19 hours ago, Moortu said:

Not returning the Billet waterblock and auctioning it.

So many people are calling it theft for some reason.

While occams razor would probably point to a HUGE fuckup but not intentional.

People are calling it theft because it is technically theft. 
Billet sent the product out for review and then requested it back, it's the property of Billet, and whether intentional or not the property was never returned and instead sold to a third party. It's theft regardless of what tool you cut it with.

If I were to borrow your PS5 then request it back and I agreed to give it back but then I sold it to someone else, whether I intended to steal from you doesn't matter, I stole from you.

[plurus]

3 minutes ago, Vishera said:

This one was inserted manually into the video by a human.

Changing the captions to the automatic option and it behaved normally.

From a check, the English CC is fine. Setting it to "Auto-translate, English" dumps the whole caption into one screen. 

[JoshuaScholar]

Billet isn't the problem, it's only the example that made it clear that your priorities are messed up.

 

You're making videos too fast!  

 

If you can't afford to correct mistakes anymore, then your company has just gotten too big to be supported by your journalism anymore and you better make it smaller.  Or maybe you got too greedy to please the algorithm and you CAN still afford to do your job.

 

If you CAN afford to make higher quality videos that lack mistakes (and deliberate omissions!) Then you better get to it!

 

Your own employees were quoted as saying that they can't be proud of their work anymore!  Don't punish them, FIX YOUR PRIORITIES!

[LinusTechLies]

5 minutes ago, Glorthiar said:

The amount of pathetic bull-shit in this thread.
Its like watching a group of 8 year olds argue about batman and superman.
A bunch of whiny babies engaging in the worst faith argument possible and sticking staunchly to their side regardless of evidence.

Treating this shit like a fucking war

Acting like none of them have ever fucked up

This is the most pathetic horseshit I have ever seen

You mean pathetic like lying about the timeline not talking responsibility for your own actions and that OF THE COMPANY YOU CREATED? And straight up lying to your own community and making yourself out to be the victim.