Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[nyanbinary]

Remember when Linus banned the talking of wages between employees and had anti-union sentiment?  Biggest red flag from Linus by far. Unions should be a right. An employer should encourage a union because it'll lead to a less toxic and stressful workplace and theoretically make both parties somewhat happy by the compromises they reach.

 

[ToboRobot]

2 minutes ago, RockerBug17 said:

This entire thread is full of mind readers. Mind readers that want blood, for some reason. LMG wronged Billet. They made good on that mistake to Billet's satisfaction. What more could LMG do?

No, this isn't all speculation and mind reading.

Some people are doing that.

 

But other people are discussing the public facts of the situation.  And seeking clarification for things.

[MindArlekin]

I'm sure, that nobody needs my opinion, but I will say it anyway)

I preface everything I want to say with this: I started watching LTT in 2013 and I still find it interesting and funny. I had worked in the RMA field, specifically with PCs for over 7 years, and currently working as a QA automation engineer. I want LTT and all its subsidiaries such as Labs to do better.

16 hours ago, LinusTech said:

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

If we talking about the Billet labs issue - I agree, but for everything about problems with accuracy and frequency of errors\corrections there was no need for Steve to contact you, because first of all, it's not started recently but rather ramped up since the start of inclusion of Labs data in videos year or so ago. Secondly, videos, mistakes in them, and how these mistakes were handled - all of this was in the public domain for a significant amount of time, free to see by everybody. And all of this can be considered as a statement by LTT, and there was no need for contacting you, Linus, or anybody else from your staff.

16 hours ago, LinusTech said:

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.

Open up any video that uses Labs data and is not specifically on the topic of Labs itself. In most of them, there will be no warning like "processes are a work in progress, viewer discretion is advised", and data from Labs is presented as valid by default. Somebody, who stumbles upon such a video while doing their research, will take info from this video at face value and might make a bad purchase decision.

If we talking about Labs as a source of valid info that will benefit all consumers AND at the same time using not completely correct Labs data for LTT videos - it lessens the trust of consumers with background knowledge about Labs, and at the same time can be directly detrimental for some amount of consumers who sees this videos\data the first time.

So, as I see it, it's either:

1) Labs data in LTT videos starts to be marked with a clear warning about "test processes are a work in progress, data can have mistakes\inconsistencies", Labs stop getting mentioned at all to preserve its brand until Labs processes and tools to generate data are finalized and validated for giving correct results in a specific amount of work time with big test samples. Additional focus is placed on QC measures for a production team to ensure that they will not screw up test data, provided by Labs.

2) Labs data stops to get used in LTT videos at all, all testing returns into the hands of writers until Labs processes and tools to generate data are finalized and validated for giving correct results in a specific amount of work time with big test samples. Additional focus is placed on QC measures for a production team to ensure that they will not screw up test data, provided by writers.

3) Amount of time spent on videos that specifically use Labs data is increased to give space for an additional level of QC; Amount of LTT videos that are not based on Labs data is increased to close the gap in LTT production schedule.

4) Amount of videos per week dropped from 6 to 5 or 4, freed time split between Labs and production team, existing QC measures are strengthened; Amount of non-LTT videos that are not based on Labs data is increased to close gaps in the overall production schedule.

17 hours ago, LinusTech 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

In my point of view, it's an accuracy issue, but from a different standpoint.
While yes, I agree with a metaphor about a supercar, it's not just that, not mainly.

In my opinion, by the inclusion of Labs as the objective, valid, and independent data source, you can't be not-objective and not-fare in other videos about niche, rare, experimental, or in any other way not-practical or not-valid for consumers products. It takes a lot of credibility that is given to your videos by the inclusion of Labs as source of a data.

17 hours ago, LinusTech said:

The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient. 

No, the reason not to ask you is because you can be very dismissive of a problem, not intentionally, but still. Go to any of your "hot takes" that put you in hot water from recent times and you will see, that your initial reaction is quite dismissive, only later, after giving it some thought, do you acknowledge that you were wrong. And you doing it now, in this post, a similar thing was with the Billet labs issue.

 

I can be wrong in places because English is not my first language, but I hope everything above is readable enough.

[kdawgmaster]

1 hour ago, fartmuncher69_420 said:

You also want to make sure that your video guy isn't working weekends and putting in 80 hour weeks because that's illegal.

So long as the employee is paid for their time its not illegal to work 80 hours a week. They just get OT for the extra time thats put in.

[wanderingfool2]

5 hours ago, VeryScary said:

. The last time Framework was brought up (Vietnam if I'm remembering correctly) Linus himself pointed out the flaws in front of the owner of Framework. 

Doesn't matter if he "pointed out flaws", it doesn't change the fact that having a boss who owns a company will affect impartiality when reviewing similar products; whether greatly or not...and it's not up to LTT to magically decide that the viewers should or shouldn't know for a video that there is that relationship.

 

28 minutes ago, RockerBug17 said:

Let that sink in. Then remember Steve could have called Linus, got some inside information, and produced a video that would NOT have been as popular. Monetized or not, the video Steve and Gamers Nexus published will give them quiet a boost, a boost that will benefit them monetarily in the end.

Would not have changed the video.  Even per Linus' statement here, he focused on the word "sale" instead of "auction"...which has nothing to do with the argument it's just a deflection (and an auction is still a sale).  The money still hasn't been paid to Billet, Linus still trashed Billet in a way that GN found wrong (and as per peoples replies here Linus' rebuttal doesn't seem to change many peoples opinions), and auctioning something off that you already slagged when you don't have permission; the shear amount of utter incompetence that that requires or the level of "miscommunication" that has to happen is to a level that what LMG says about anything should never be trusted then.

 

LMG and only LMG themselves are to blame for this situation.  The views expressed by GN are views that many have expressed here, even in the interview video it's still a view expressed by the employees (in the sense of accuracy).  Linus doesn't get to go on his high horse talking as if GN should have afforded him a phone call to set the record straight; he literally had called Steve out on the Aug 4 WAN show for his lack of "journalistic integrity".  You don't get to insult someone very publicly and expect them to reach out to you for comments; especially when there is a documented trend of people trying to correct the issue and Linus essentially doing "we'll try better" and then effectively doing nothing.

 

It's an utter lack of integrity by Linus to act as thought he Billet is something that only happened once in 10 years, every mistake could be classified as being unique then.  The whole thing is Linus has been making very public statements that are contrary to what evidence is saying; and then calling out GN on the WAN show was likely the final straw where GN couldn't just sit idly by; the whole notion that Linus thinks being friends with someone means they should be given special treatment when it comes to being reported on is a farse (because that is effectively what Linus said in the WAN show, it doesn't matter if he didn't intend it that way it was a public statement).

 

[spellmanuk]

18 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.

 

Im sorry linus but this aint it chief. While data accuracy is forgivable (if you can fix the issues and prove the numbers are reliable once again) I don't think you have addressed the core issues here that Steve brought to the table.

 

First off Billet labs, they did not "loose" their prototype you sold it without permission and as a small business owner and boutique manufacturer if a review outlet did this to me first I would be outraged at the sheer gall to do that sure multi billion $ asus might not want their 4090 review unit back and even if they did they can absorb that cost (while it still wouldnt be right to not return it if they asked for it back) but for a small company that wasn't even incorporated a year ago like billet labs.

 

This would be crushing for my business and I'm sorry but money does not fix all problems compensating them is a start but that is likely a 1 of 1 unit worth way more than its weight in the copper its made from.

 

You yourself literally on this last week's WAN show brought up how you had an with the fact that a fan ended up with a prototype LTT backpack. So clearly you understand how important it is that prototypes when leant out ultimately belong to the original company unless explicitly stated otherwise.

 

This is aside from the total massacre of their product which was very clearly a statement piece that for some reason you reviewed like it was trying to compete with a hyper 212 rather. Like if you had made the pyramid case for the dbrand build sent it to a reviewer and they compared it to a nzxt h510 there not in the same league at all.

 

I don't think many people would have a problem with you running a 4090 in their cooler to test it on the bleeding edge if you had also taken the time to test the 3090 as well. Would you complain that an NHU12S is dumb and no one should buy it if you strapped it to a Xeon server chip and used colgate for thermal paste despite Noctua’s website stating compatible CPUs and thermal compound materials?

 

Next up, a post on the forum isn't good enough you have 10 million subscribers on youtube and wanshow gets upwards 600k to 1 mil views an episode for the vod along with thousands when your live this forum post feels to me like your trying to address it semi-publically to say you've responded so you can move on and pretend it didn't happen.

 

On the same vein it seems like you have taken this way too personally, but it's not personal, it's aimed at LMG not Linus Sebastion. Which yes you are the owner of and now former CEO and while some of the criticism is at you the main piece is about the company. Why can LMG not take ownership of some of the mistakes and admit they messed up? Even if some of those mistakes are genuine human error, which happens to everyone from time to time, it does not excuse the fact that the mistake happened but apologising and stating how you'll fix your mistake goes a lot further than doubling down. Do you want to be an Innovelli or do you want to be an Anker?

 

I think you need to think about this over this week and take another shot at addressing this on wan show.

 

Finally, as much as I've loved having LTT content daily for a decade now I really do think Steve's, and your employees, point of maybe just cutting the upload schedule down to a few times a week + wan would help improve the quality and accuracy of videos.

 

Understand that i am not saying all of this as a hater or anything but as a fan that has been subscribed about 10 years now that wants to see LMG do great things and wants to see the LAB succeed and wants to see the badminton court/whale lan center, LTX 2024 and beyond ect.

 

Edited for spelling and grammar reasons.

[kdawgmaster]

2 minutes ago, nyanbinary said:

Remember when Linus banned the talking of wages between employees and had anti-union sentiment?  Biggest red flag from Linus by far. Unions should be a right. An employer should encourage a union because it'll lead to a less toxic and stressful workplace and theoretically make both parties somewhat happy by the compromises they reach.

 

Employers in Canada cant ban the disclosure of ones own income. i can talk to whom ever i want, withint or out of the company and say how much i get paid.

Edited August 15, 2023 by kdawgmaster

[Martyman]

9 minutes ago, ravagetalon said:

Linus, You don't have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to "proper journalistic practices" when a not insignificant portion of your organization's videos contain false and misleading information.

Sounds like normal journalistic practies if you ask me. Well, here in the UK, anyway

[xybre]

Disclaimer: While I've only lurked on the forums, I have been a Floatplane subscriber for years, own the screwdriver, backpack, deskmat, and have been a viewer for a decade. I am invested and want to see LMG succeed.

 

LMG deserves to be treated with the same skepticism as any other business. And the individuals within it deserve to be treated with the same respect as anyone else. That includes honest and constructive criticism.

 

I really want Linus personally to take Steve's comments to heart, no matter how much it hurts and causes cognitive dissonance. It literally doesn't matter if Steve has made mistakes himself, or how he handles them, his criticisms of LMG are still valid. We can talk about Steve later if people are in good faith and not just operating on whataboutism, until then let's focus on LMG.

 

Linus says he reads a lot of the comments. But here's the thing: under the comments of nearly every single video are viewers correcting the video. It's been like that for years. I think they're just numb to it and fail to see why they should care unless it translates into their bottom line. Incentives are not aligned.

 

"Growing pains" in a business are a constant, from founding through startup to what passes for maturity, growing pains can not be and are not an excuse. What you are experiencing are not growing pains, just basic and justified criticism. That is the price of success.

If a business is not willing to trade some (even all) of their bottom line for integrity no matter the industry - entertainment or not - then it is not a brand you can rely on.

 

To give an extreme example: there is a large well-known organization with "news" in the name that has often referred to itself as "fair and balanced" but when faced with criticism has often claimed they do not need to be accurate because they are actually an entertainment company - all while directly impacting millions of people that trust them.

 

Clearly, LMG does not have the same outsized reach or impact as such an organization. But it is a very similar mentality just applied to a different field.

 

And I am not particularly interested in having a new industry of reviewer reviewers pop up in order to individually test each review for quality.

 

Integrity is the most important part of any review, showcase, or comparison. And integrity does require sometimes an extra few minutes or hours. And I know that last 10% of polish is the most difficult part.

 

I really appreciate the stated goals of Labs and helping to bring reviews into the modern world. But I think LMG has a choice here. Either stop doing anything that resembles reviews and stick to making jank builds (which everyone loves) or actually do proper testing no matter what the cost. You can do both, but you can't mix and match.

 

Also pull down videos with egregious errors so that there is an incentive to not make such errors. Aligning incentives within an organization is so important that it cannot be overstated. And honestly revisiting those incentives and making sure they really align with your values is essential to making sure they do not accidentally diverge.

 

Anyway, I have canceled my upcoming Floatplane renewal because I understand that most businesses only take things seriously if it impacts their bottom line. It is just a tiny drop in the bucket, but I am voting with my wallet. If you are open to feedback and will act upon it (even if it does not come paired with a change to bottom line or engagement numbers) then I would much prefer to do that, but it doesn't seem that is possible right now. I know no one read all this lol but I meant every word.

[ChrisVyse]

1 hour ago, Neroon said:

you don't get it, do you? they'd probably make another blunder trying to butter up GN or try to hide the whole thing and made the whole thing worse... come on, use your tiny fanboy brain

[joaopt]

4 minutes ago, nyanbinary said:

Remember when Linus banned the talking of wages between employees and had anti-union sentiment?  Biggest red flag from Linus by far. Unions should be a right. An employer should encourage a union because it'll lead to a less toxic and stressful workplace and theoretically make both parties somewhat happy by the compromises they reach.

 

 

or the warranty trust me bro BS.

 

he showed us more then once that he is not a good guy

[nyanbinary]

2 minutes ago, kdawgmaster said:

Employers in Canada cant ban the disclosure of ones own income. i can talk to whom ever i want, withint or out of the company and say how much i get paid.

Tell that to Linus not me lol :3

[BlackSmokeDMax]

14 minutes ago, RockerBug17 said:

We know why he didn't. LMG recognizes their mistake, reached out to Billet, and both parties came to an agreement they both deemed satisfactory.

 

The story is much more compelling when you let people's minds to run wild by not doing your due diligence. 

 

Actually I think the Billet thing is not the biggest problem being exposed. I think it is the inline corrections being made after possibly millions of views without any other form of notification. No one who has already watched those videos will ever know they have bad info they may be using to try and make an informed decision.

 

This quality is where Linus' stated goal for the Labs is supposed to be aiming, The fact that there are LMG employees calling out other creators is a problem. And I agree with Linus that the employee wasn't likely supposed to be doing something like that, but I also didn't see LMG as a company offering up an official apology, or a retraction of that statement. Let's face it, at this point in time LTT Labs doesn't hold a candle to many other sites doing testing. Will they in the future, I'm sure they will. But we don't need them trying to claim superiority at a time when they obviously are not. And that's not even getting into the issue where even if the Labs data was great, the fact that they can't seem to get factual data into a video is a real issue.

 

[filpo]

1 minute ago, ChrisVyse said:

you don't get it, do you? they'd probably make another blunder trying to butter up GN or try to hide the whole thing and made the whole thing worse... come on, use your tiny fanboy brain

bro really got angry at a meme 

[kdawgmaster]

Just now, nyanbinary said:

Tell that to Linus not me lol :3

Linus likely knows this. He can say its frowned upon but he would have no recourse. 

[Poinkachu]

Here comes the response from HUB I guess ?.

 

edit reason : Better grammar, maybe ? XD

[moxieJ]

17 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 personally love that Steve called you out; yes, you're popular and yes LTT has a huge following; but your ego got in the way and you're not the Linus we all loved years back. You f'd up. Own your sh*t.

[joaopt]

Just now, Poinkachu said:

Here comes the HUB version I guess.

 

this is going to be good

[poochyena]

11 minutes ago, joeygreco1985 said:

 

I will say that I figured that was standard Youtube creator practice since I see other YouTube channels doing the asterisk thing a lot too (Cathode Ray Dude as an example off the top of my head). But the difference with LMG is they have the resources to go back and fix the errors relatively quick, and they should be doing it. 

 

eh, I rarely see others do that to correct major errors. Its usually done to add context. "*This was filmed during a thunderstorm, so audio quality may be bad during some parts of the video", something like that. Not "*What is currently being spoken is entirely false"

[gwz46g746wz]

Imagine being a multi-millionaire and not be able the be sincerely sorry, but immediately start defending yourself. Such a nonpology.

[kdawgmaster]

9 minutes ago, joaopt said:

 

or the warranty trust me bro BS.

 

he showed us more then once that he is not a good guy

I think the Warranty thing shows that "hes a bad guy" but more rather that he thinks his clout with the community extends past things where they dont need to be put down. I can see where his head space was at but i dont agree with it. Warranties should ALWAYS be put down in writing.

[TubsAlwaysWins]

Watching the video now, 

Something ive noticed which linus brings up at 5:15 - tl:dr They tried a product on a GPU it wasnt meant for, didnt work, Adam asked for more testing time, linus said no.

 

I feel like this is a recurring theme I see. Especially with alot of the more custom projects. They just get half-assed together and im assuming its a time thing. I myself enjoy just "making things work" but they just put enough effort in for 30 minutes of results. Like dont do things that are in theory very cool experiments or projects, such as a custom watercooling thingine, and then do it just enough so you can benchmark while water is pouring out. 

 

Do it right or dont do it at all. Its better to Whole-ass one thing than Half-ass multiple things. Just miss the old House LTT in the kitchen. Disappointing. 

 

Edit: at 5:37 he cant justify spending another $100-500 in time. It takes money to make money. You wanted growth, accept the inefficiency's of scale and bite the bullet. You want all these super skilled people for the lab, let them and other employees do their due-diligence. 

[LickyLickyBumBum]

1 hour ago, Srius1 said:

Says the dude who made an account here just to flame the people running it…echo Chamber is you fake fans coming out with pitchforks acting holier than thou. IT MAKES ME SICK . Talk about bandwagon and echo chamber…take a look in the mirror.

My account is older than yours, buddy, and I've asked stuff here 

 

Stop dick riding your favorite celebrities, parasocial parasite. Nobody is above criticism.

 

Cope. Seethe. Sneed. Chuck.

You can't HANDLE criticism.

[King Podge]

9 minutes ago, coopa said:

Many have pointed this out, including Linus himself, but honest question - what would it have changed? All it would have changed is that Linus' statement made here would have been included in the video, and honestly, given how feeble and corporate-speak Linus' reply was here, I don't believe it would have changed anyone's mind.

The only substantive point addressed in Linus' post here is that he disputes that they did not "sell" the prototype, they "accidentally auctioned" it. Firstly, Steve from GN stated MULTIPLE times that LMG auctioned the Billet labs prototype. Secondly, that is a distinction without any real difference - they were given a review sample (a prototype), and instead of returning it as agreed, they sold it. The fact that the money went to charity instead of LMG's corporate coffers is irrelevant - they sold something that they did not own.

Further on Billet, Linus improperly tested the product having been told that it was for a 3090 Ti not a 4090, and when this was pointed out, they said it wasn't worth the time/money to re-review it. Testing a monoblock on a GPU it was not designed to be used on is a completely invalid test, so Linus' conclusion that it wasn't worth retesting because it didn't cool a 4090 well was completely invalid because it wasn't designed to be used on a 4090. His conclusion that it wasn't worth retesting based on performance was based either on ineptitude, laziness, or malice by LMG to install and test the product properly.

 

The rest of Linus' post is all corporate speak in the vein of "we try hard, we make mistakes, we're trying to do better" without any real addressing of GN's other points or substantive commitment acknowledging the quality errors/mistakes in LMG videos and trying to improve on them. It's word salad.

 

One can say that GN should have given LMG the chance to reply before publication, and I agree with that - but it doesn't make anything that Steve said incorrect or wrong. And based on Linus' responses here where he is completely dismissive of criticism rather than honestly acknowledging it, it wouldn't have mattered anyways.

Linus and LMG need to take some reflection and take an honest and hard look at what GN said, and work as a team to form a cohesive, meaningful reply. Instead of a rushed one that was clearly not based on watching the video (example: Linus' statement that GN said that LMG "sold" the prototype is wrong. Steve said they mistakenly put it up for auction multiple times.)

Because context and right of reply is a very basic fundamental tenant of journalism. Otherwise it’s an opinion piece, not journalism. 

 

i don’t make the rules, i just comment on 2000 page forum threads about them. 

[RichardBirch]

14 minutes ago, joeygreco1985 said:

 

I will say that I figured that was standard Youtube creator practice since I see other YouTube channels doing the asterisk thing a lot too (Cathode Ray Dude as an example off the top of my head). But the difference with LMG is they have the resources to go back and fix the errors relatively quick, and they should be doing it. 

 

Currently they don't have the resources - a number of staff members have gone on record saying that they do not have enough time to get videos right. That isn't good enough.

 

LMG are influencers for current products. The can cause (or deny) hundreds of thousands or potentially millions of dollars in sales based on their content. This is why they do what they do, and why they are as big as they are; it's why they need to have accurate unbiased information. This in turn feeds back to the issues of being dismissive of a product without testing it properly, using incorrect test results, or not taking the time to correct factually incorrect content. Any one of these can have a marked impact on the sales of a product.

 

Regarding CRD, they're not trying to sell you a 5x CD changer from 1994 ^{(even if you do end up looking on eBay for one because why not...)}