Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Empyreal]

5 minutes ago, Middcore said:

So Linus gave the impression in his response yesterday that LTT and Billet had already worked out compensation, and that all that remained was to send the check (which will be sent, trust me bro), and that Steve would have found this out if he'd asked.

 

Yet Billet Labs tells GN that they heard nothing from LTT until after GN's first video dropped yesterday, when someone from LTT presumably reaches out in a sudden panic so that Linus can "truthfully" say "Yeah it's all been worked out."

This is so scummy, wtf.

[LostInferno]

5 minutes ago, RockerBug17 said:

Compensated Billet for prototype 

Acknowledge LMG shortcomings

Promise to do better in the future 

 

What more could they possibly do at this point?

Make these statements on the WAN show. I want LTT Labs to be successful and I want LTT to make quality reviews until Labs is a well-oiled machine. Posting mistakes on video is okay as long as they can post apologies on video as well. Why do I need to find the LTT forum to know Linus and LTT are taking these mistakes seriously?

 

Repeating to your audience how dedicated you are to producing quality content shouldn't be tiring, but exciting to prove the haters wrong. What do you think? 

[conscience]

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.

 

Well Linus that is besides the point. Sure making mistakes is human, but in every video is as not only sloppy rather against all what you try to achieve. In place video changes do not reach the hundreds of thousands of people who already watched the content. No one really on the internet reads comments (kind of ironic).

 

Here is my suggestion to you Linus: Get of your jaded high horse that you are doing the right thing and establishing a complete transparent process to correct errors your team made. Even if that would mean loosing money. Saving your bottom line here is what has to hurt you so much, that you establish so many checks and balances that it will never happen again. That is the only standpoint Stev from Gamers Nexus was arguing for. If you want to change the industry and be in the vanguard to proof them all wrong. Do it the only way, the right way: Ignore your bottom line. If it hurts you only then you will make enough changes. You can not really hide behind growing pains anymore. A 120+ company is no startup anymore.

 

To be honest I trusted LTT quite a bit, but even without Gamers Nexus video it has eroded over the years and turned to different outlets to get my actual facts from.

 

So LTT should ask them selves do you want to entertain or provide solid accurate data?

[DJ3thenew23]

28 minutes ago, King Podge said:

You assume my altitude, how dare you.

 

its only a conditional requirement in Brazil, regardless, its a fundamental journalistic practice and every major news organisation requires it, even if it’s just token.

 

you don’t have to do it, but in this context, it’s opinion and not journalism if you don’t… 

 

again, I don’t make the rules. Complain to the BBC. 

America is where GN is and Canada is where LTT is. I don't care about you at all, but nice of you to show your narcissism.

 

This isn't the BBC. This is YouTube, and again, if it's not a formal requirement then it's still journalism without it. You're clearly a troll or not smart enough to engage in discussions like this.

[bz16_]

18 hours ago, LinusTech said:

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

I'm concerned that Linus would dismiss an apparently serious management and documentation issue with "it's an outlier" and "there won't be a new SOP".

 

I understand that it only happened once, but essentially getting rid of someone else's property while their point of contact was reassured LMG would return the block seems to expose a loophole in how LMG keep track of things they don't own.

 

Even if no immediate change is warranted, surely taking a closer look at what could allow this to happen and identifying how to prevent it from happening again should be very helpful – we can already see the damaging fallout from this one mess-up this one time, and this is only one part of the criticism brought by GN. Yes, when Nvidia and Supermicro lend you their Expensive $hit™ that occupies a whole rack, you won't lose track of them; but the same level of diligence should have been applied on a two-person workshop's prototype or a private collector's decades-old GPU. The same kind of mistake can happen again by genuine human error, and strengthening the safeguard against these errors will only serve LMG well – I hope "tighten[ing] up some documentation" is enough.

 

And surely, LMG has grown so much in these tens of years that this issue cannot be averaged out like that – I think that everyone interacting with LMG is trusting it, behind the show and occasional tomfoolery Linus put on for us, has matured and would not make such an mistake dealing with other people's valuable properties.

 

Taking proper ownership of a colossal mistake like so and at least demonstrating an effort to prevent it from ever happening again should be at the very least helpful for your image.

 

I sincerely hope that LMG can recognize the failures they have let stand and actually address them. It will be a hard endeavor to regain the lost trust, but it is necessary for LTT Labs' and LMG's future as Linus envisioned it to be.

[Wolta]

5 hours ago, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

Who did they contact within LMG through which channels? Communication screw ups are common in companies, and LMG has gotten to the size that you can't just email someone and they can go and grab something off a shelf and do something with it I suppose. All of this is pretty much why it was a good idea to get a separate CEO I think, it means you have someone who actually uniquely cares about avoiding this sort of fuck up.

 

Just for the sake of perspective: I work for a company pretty much exactly the size of LMG. We design and sell interior design products, and have outwards facing content and commercials produced in house and ship worldwide.

 

Communication fuck-ups are not common. If they happen, they are investigated between parties affected and immediately resolved with an action plan to avoid future issues. Each of us at times return from a couple weeks of vacation with over a hundred emails to go through, and we aren’t dealing with another company’s darling one-of-a-kind intellectual property. 
 

This is not to say that your words don’t hold water; slip-ups still happen, and issues can occur as a result of communication not reaching the other end as intended. However, these should be a rarity at this size and there should always be extra attention paid to projects including particularly valuable designs. This is purely evidence towards a lack of attention to mistakes and action plans to correct them in LMG.

 

 

27 minutes ago, Silveraga said:

If what Steve is saying here is true, that means that Linus is twisting the narrative with yesterdays answer... I REALLY hope that there's a PROPER answer this time. With a full timeline so we can understand properly the situation and that Linus brings a good answer with tangible solution to resolve the issues . 

 

Linus - and in extension this thread and its contributors - need to understand that we as humans make the worst decisions when we are in crisis mode. It’s a psychological state of mind that’s deeply characterised by poor decision making, where the primary persons affected need to very specifically not be the ones making core decisions or statements. If anyone remembers the on-pitch cardiac arrest of Eriksen during the Finland-Denmark Euro match, that was a prime time example of poor decision making by people in crisis mode not realizing they’ve entered that mode. It’s still important to deface Linus’ original untrue statements such that he realizes his internal justifications for deeply rooted mistakes are not just, but now that we’ve come so far, and Linus appears to (not that I know, nor any of you) be in crisis mode, he needs time away from screens and time to reflect. His mistakes are immense and his self-inflicting damage at this point is probably a lot greater than he assumes. I’m talking (and worrying) exclusively about person-Linus here, not professional-Linus, if that makes any sense. This is not justification nor defence, it’s coming from the person who happily ripped apart Linus’ original reply on page 20.
 

To put it into context, If each of you had your decade-long life work torn down and projected as a bastion of bad directions overnight, after many years of engagement, work, investments and risks, you would probably also be strongly in denial at the immediate blow. Lest you are superhuman or have the mental capacity of one. Same for me - I’ve had my projects torn apart, because they were incorrect and since have been publicly defaced, and made idiotic statements from then on. It was incredibly hard to accept, but a lash out by another content creator was what I needed to make less content and make more useful, meaningful, accurate content. This experience and subsequently learning this comes from interviewing, treatments by and writing a degree surrounding stress and depression and digital intervention means as mention in my earlier post. I’m open to providing citations if anyone would like, of course.

 

I’d like to repeat my previous disappointment not only in LMG’s continued decline in accuracy and quality, but since also towards apparent vague wording intended to justify completely indefensible actions. I still - even more so than last night - regret supporting this operation past its GTX 900/1000 days at best. I also understand why Linus might be continuously providing horrible takes, but borderline lying about the Billet compensation timeline was the final drop from my side. Inexcusable, disappointing and frustrating for everyone involved. 

[Zoneman]

I've said it for a long time, this show is all about YT money and selling his shill from his store.  I come for tech tips not to buy underwear or dildos.  I will never watch this crap again.  

[Darkpriest667]

Folks, Linus has always been an entertainer first and foremost. The LMG and LTT groups are extensions of that.

 

This is a company worth multi-millions of dollars that was using a WINDOWS OS as their server before it crashed and they lost PBs of data. That's not something technically proficient people do.

 

I work in a highly technical engineering role at a large OEM and we have never thought LTT or LMG good examples of technical proficiency.  When they do say things that we find technically accurate we can validate that they were word for word the same thing ODM and system design engineers have said in our private conversations (meaning they were repeating what they were told).

Steve at GN can come off as pretentious even turgid, but he's also right.  Also, anyone that has dealt with Linus personally in the last 5 or 6 years will tell you he's disconnected , cloistered, and monastic.  People with net worth's in the tens of millions rarely can maintain their ability to be representative of the common people and consumers in general.

My personal anecdotal opinions of Linus aside, GN is right and if LMG and LTT want to stay on top they should correct it, but their haughty attitude towards this indicates they will not.

[BigToeGhost]

2 minutes ago, Godiwa said:

Lets see:
1. get their prototype BACK...I don't care what he has to pay the buyer and if the buyer resist then kindly remind them that it is stolen goods so if they don't deliver it back they are also a criminal so offering double what they paid for their trouble would be alright... then get a courier to pick it up and hand deliver to Billet Labs ASAP...

2. Fine they acknowledge it... Are they actually gonna do something about it?

3. Like they have done before and changed nothing? Not good enough... There must be REAL change...

Can you imagine if a competitor bought it and could basically re-engineer it?  I have no idea if the block is good at all but they thought they had a good enough version to send to LTT.

[wanderingfool2]

13 minutes ago, phje said:

And so, there it is. This WAS for drama and an attempt to hurt a competitor. Most of the criticisms Steve presents in the original video are valid, actually, probably all of them. Steve SHOULD have reached out to LMG for comment on the Billet Labs situation. They reported on it with half the story (the half that fit their narrative) Even IF LMG would have tried to spin the narrative back towards showing them in a good light. This is how it works, you let the audience decide, poor reporting.

Actually, Steve expressed a good reason not to; when they have shown a systemic issue there isn't as much of a point (especially after Linus already called out GN)

 

Given how Linus had also twisted it, and knowing that they have a working relationship before this, GN could have easily have thought Linus might try covering things  up or might have suspected things might be twisted.  Imagine GN contacts LMG; then Linus does the whole quick contacting Billet.  Linus' statement now has more weight as people view it as though the it happened before the video was published; and without the prompt from GN.

[corhen]

In the end, the most important thing is how LTT responds in the long term. I hope they take a minute, maybe slow down their pace of videos (to 5 a week instead of 7?), and address these concerns.

I've noticed this myself watching them, that the number of videos felt like an avalanche and that there seemed to be some errors.

Genuinely loved LTT, and watched since NCIX days.

[dwkekciej]

24 minutes ago, MartyS said:

t's odd that they are willing to spend a lot of money and time to correct the issues with the backpack

As a wave 3 backpack owner, did they correct any issues? I'm still waiting on zipper pulls that won't break.

[Silveraga]

19 minutes ago, YZF-RX said:

Compensated Billet for prototype - Check the updated GN post, they only said they would after they got called out 3 hours AFTER GN posted the original video

Acknowledge LMG shortcomings - Still feels like an empty promise as according to the video they stopped responding to Billet and instead doubled down on hating in the WAN show.

Promise to do better in the future - Yet another empty platitude, just wait till money gets involved again and corners will be cut.

Yeah , my main issue with ''promise to do better'' is linus is only saying ''we promise to do better'' but is not saying what will be done to solve the issues . He's only saying in the future it's gonna be solved and we gotta wait. No, tell us a plan. Explain yourself. 

[Madpaatch]

9 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

The rest is just an honest mistake here and there.

The amount of mistakes qualifies them as remissness not an honest mistake here and there

[goodtofufriday]

6 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

He has people.  Is it possible his people didn't tell him the full truth? 

 

 

In my 10 years in a very corporate environment this is what I think happened. 

 

Lower level employee didn't have enough training to be VERY specific about the language used as it changes context and causes misrepresentation. 

 

In my company someone would be losing their job right now. 

[Guest]

Linus has become his forum avatar.

[VisibleXela]

14 hours ago, VisibleXela said:

It doesn't matter what Linus was trying to do, I couldn't possibly care less. What he (or his company, rather) did do was misuse a product, publicly drag it, keep their prototype, refuse to give it back, auction it off for charity, and only pay them back for it after a giant stink was made about it.

 

Oh, and then he complained that there was a giant stink made about it instead of coming to him quietly. Y'know, because when everyone was quiet they were so keen on paying Billet back for it.

Very sad to see the new Gamers Nexus update confirms my suspicions - LMG was absolutely not intending to pay Billet back for the prototype until after shit blew up.

Not only is it shameful, it makes the "you should have come to me, first" comment look so much worse.

[ajmorin369]

19 hours ago, xzvf said:

Data issues aside; @LinusTech Regarding the Billet Labs situation, could you please publicly state and justify the monetary compensation paid out to Billet Labs for the “loss” of their prototype? What steps are you taking to prevent such issues in the future?

Linus has already responded to the vicious attacks by Steve, who clearly could have handled this in a more professional manner by calling Linus or someone on his team that he already knows and has worked with before and has contact information for. But if you can’t find Linus's response then look here. 
 

 

 

 

https://linustechtips.com/topic/1526180-gamers-nexus-alleges-lmg-has-insufficient-ethics-and-integrity/page/16/#comment-16078641

 

[slash-proc]

4 minutes ago, RockerBug17 said:

If that's the case then vote with your feet and leave. No one's keeping you here.

This is the kind of narrow-minded fan-boy stuff that Linus actually preaches against. I signed up just to voice my support for GN's message and the fact that I genuinely like LMG and want them to succeed. I love LMG and GN and actually watch LMG stuff much more than GN stuff but Steve is right! Because I love the people and content here, I want things to get better.

Linus: For the sake of your fans, employees and especially yourself: relearn how to be humble. You've accomplished so much and if you don't change your attitude, you'll lose your community. Trust me bro© thinking is not gonna fly anymore.

Steven said it well here: https://youtu.be/X3byz3txpso?t=472

 

[DJ3thenew23]

9 minutes ago, japers said:

Yes it is...Youre very wrong on this.
 

https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

 

"Diligently seek subjects of news coverage to allow them to respond to criticism or allegations of wrongdoing."

From the SPJ themselves:

It is not a set of rules, rather a guide that encourages all who engage in journalism to take responsibility for the information they provide, regardless of medium. The code should be read as a whole; individual principles should not be taken out of context. It is not, nor can it be under the First Amendment, legally enforceable.

[m6_is_me]

18 hours ago, LinusTech said:

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

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

 

Re: Gamers Nexus: "Billet emphasized us that it had NOT sent Linus Media Group a quote. It noted that it had expressed a possible value of the block in frustration before GN's video on it. AFTER they learned that it had been auctioned. It wasn't any quote or invoice."

 

 Billet: "I said: 'do you plan to reimburse us for this?' And we heard nothing, we didn't get a response until [GN's] video"

 

Why do you continue to lie when there's such objective proof that instantly invalidates your lies? Seems VERY silly and this ordeal has 100% had an effect on my opinion of you and LTT as a whole. 

[Tanaz]

Damn the fact that Linus alleged Billet had already given him a quote and it turned out that they didn't until GN's video was live and he asked  is quite the reputation hit IMO. That's by far the worst part of this whole situation.

[harls]

3 minutes ago, Empyreal said:

This is so scummy, wtf.

This is potentially scummy.  It could also be that LMG has agreed that they are going to pay what they need to to make it right.  That could have happened before reaching out to Billet.  LMG has made plenty of mistakes highlighted in GN video Linus is right that Steve is not doing his journalistic duty by reaching out to get comment and finding out if there is more to the story.  

 

[coopa]

3 minutes ago, japers said:

Yes it is...Youre very wrong on this.
 

https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

 

"Diligently seek subjects of news coverage to allow them to respond to criticism or allegations of wrongdoing."

In the response video from Steve:

We don't have to reach out to corporations when we think there is a pattern of behavior or we think that there is a significant chance that they cover things up, or prepare a pre-written response that can twist the narrative and in this case manipulate the audience. Linus willfully ignoring our valid criticisms of data accuracy and some of the ethical concerns while then trying to manipulate the audience into viewing him as the victim - not just LMG - is very - is bizarre.

This is why we don't reach out every time. I want to be very clear. We don't have to reach out to corporations prior to reporting on them, period. For big corporations we don't reach out if the issue already harms consumers or if their view is irrelevant. The Walmart PC, the Alienware PC, any number of products we buy, we don't need to reach out because the damage is being done actively. And we don't need Linus' input or permission to make that video. LMG's videos are already affecting millions of consumers and they have objective errors that we covered objectively and they involved serious ethical concerns that we raised and rather than addressing those, he's choosing to try and distract viewers by whining about us not allowing him to comment first.


And they've already commented anyways, they did it in all of these WAN shows, we know what their comment is, we know what they think. And when there's an objective, factual issue, we don't need to reach out. The risk is to the consumer, and these are not unreleased products, these are public videos, with a lot of views.

[SimplyUnknown]

It appears that Floatplane is now under 40k subscribers losing over 1,000 in the last day.