Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Lyre]

I don't think that LTT would have tested an EK 3090 cooler on a 4090 so why did Billet Labs get the short end of the stick here? The Video should never have been released and it should have been stopped the second that they figured out that it was the wrong GPU. Doubling down on it took it from in the moment oversight to incompetence and then auctioning the water block took it from incompetence to malice. LTT needs to make a system to ensure that this doesn't happen again and if they try to play the victim here there needs to be a fan protest of some sort because like Linus likes to say that we're his boss so lets leverage that against him.

[BaidDSB]

LMG should be sued to oblivion for the theft and unauthorized selling of that water block.

 

 

make Millionaire Linus, not the company LMG, pay the damages. Would cut his ego down to earth. i like to imagine what he has to say to his kids that he'd have to sell the house because hes a narcissistic jackass who committed a crime

 

 

[TheRandomSpectator]

2 hours ago, Dominik W said:

Hopefully, Linus and LTT will take a moment to reflect before rushing to any statements or any off-handed remarks on the WAN show on Friday. 

Didn't you hear, though? The Man himself said, "We never have time for retrospection. It's always just [go go go]."

[tkitch]

Just now, Slizzo said:

All the people saying that Steve should have notified Linus privately about his issues instead of posting a video:

 

The reason to post the video is to hold LTT/LMG publicly accountable for all the mistakes and issues that are presented in said video. Otherwise all these issues can be swept under the rug with nary another person being aware of the issues presented.

a lot of people have been critical of linus / ltt over a number of things, but individuals won't get traction.

 

Steve Will.  It requires someone like him to call out an issue and actually have something happen from it.

[Lyre]

2 minutes ago, BaidDSB said:

LMG should be sued to oblivion for the theft and unauthorized selling of that water block.

 

 

make Millionaire Linus, not the company LMG, pay the damages. Would cut his ego down to earth. i like to imagine what he has to say to his kids that he'd have to sell the house because hes a narcissistic jackass who committed a crime

 

 

Thats not how that would work, LMG the organization auctioned it off not Linus himself, the best that Billet would get is a few times the value of the water-block and a lot of lawyers fees.

[Kuromario]

I see a lot of comments are upset that Steve took this public however I agree with his choice. A lot of you dedicated folks will follow LTT on every possible platform, their yt coummnity page etc. Don't forget that there is a very large audience out there that plays these videos as "2nd monitor content". We don't have the time to go back and check if what they said was actually correct, monitor community and forum pages for video corrections etc. and LTT has clearly shown that they will not post videos like "Here's what we got wrong this month".  I didn't even notice half of the mistakes and corrections that Steve showed and damn that's a lot. Personally no matter the outcome of this I'll still be an ltt viewer because I learn a lot from the content and it's really enjoyable to watch but this video from Steve has shown with proof from LTT's own posts and corrections just how much inaccuracies their videos contain so it's increased the level of skepticism that I have when watching LTT videos, which I think is one of Steve's goals with this videos apart from it being a call to action for LTT.

The most important issue I'm watching to see how they handle is the Billet Labs situation as that is massively f*ed up. Given the size of the company I can see how it could happen without malice but that still doesn't excuse such a massive blunder and it needs to be rectified immediately. 

Edit: If anyone from LTT reads this comment I'd recommend that in the future, once per month at least to go over that months content, check for errors, and then make that process itself content by uploading them in a separate video. This way it makes sense to pay someone to specifically check for errors (a job made much easier post posting the video as there's often community feedback on videos) and you have a chance to also make some more money from the correction video.

[Cavalry Canuck]

1 minute ago, Slizzo said:

All the people saying that Steve should have notified Linus privately about his issues instead of posting a video:

 

The reason to post the video is to hold LTT/LMG publicly accountable for all the mistakes and issues that are presented in said video. Otherwise all these issues can be swept under the rug with nary another person being aware of the issues presented.

There is also the consideration that maybe the private discussions were already had? I still think it’s a little soon for an omnibus video like this after the new CEO took over last month. But that Billet issue certainly was worth bringing up immediately, regardless of the rest of the grievances.

[post_screen]

Let's be real, I watch LTT mostly for entertainment. I really enjoy most of the people they have hired over the years and they have brought me a lot of joy in some tough times, as silly as that may sound. Their data not being 100% correct never bothered me, since it encouraged me to research the things I found interesting by myself. That being said, I don't think that this will make me stop watching. The part I'm concerned about is the fact that things seem to be getting out of hand. Like I said in my previous comment, they value quantity too much. I know that might be because of the almighty algorithm, but it makes them look greedy at times. Specially when you consider that they are not the "breaking news" type of channel.

 

I would appreciate it way more if they could focus more on making sure that stuff like the situation with Billet Labs never happens again (and that whole thing goes against their whole mission of keeping their sponsors up to par in my head) and on the quality of the content they put out. It seemed like one thing that most of the crew in the "What's it like working at LMG" video wanted to change was the amount of time they had for each project. Not to go into how unhealthy that schedule seems to be, it looks as if nobody is totally happy with their work.

 

They are going to start diverging from their core values if they do not resolve this in a proper way.

[Kronoton]

3 minutes ago, jooroth18 said:

This response obviously misses some context, in linus's mind he sees someone purchasing this as also a person to buy a 4090 instead of a 3090ti, which does make sense, but his conclusion doesnt clarify this, nor does any further determination as to the future viability of a 4090 variant. He should have spent more time communicating with Billet and ensured the video gave all sides.

 

Only this wasn't a "product", just a prototype by a small and new company.

 

The 3090ti clearly was the best they could get when they started making it and thats what it should have been tested with (maybe with an asterix that a 4090 variant would need a new test).

 

Heck if the had done it for a 2080 that should have been used to validate the concept and nothing else.

 

As for Steve being envy.

LTT is 10x the viewership with 10x (or more) of the cost and if I had to choose I'd rather run GN than LTT (both of which should allow the the owner a comfortable live style with minimal compronise).

[Benji_w]

1 minute ago, Lyre said:

Thats not how that would work, LMG the organization auctioned it off not Linus himself, the best that Billet would get is a few times the value of the water-block and a lot of lawyers fees.

Exactly what will happen.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, jkh_ said:

If Steve took it to Linus and Linus reacted negatively or unprofessionally, then you can release a video and preface it with the fact that you tried to resolve this privately first.

2 hours ago, osgalaxy said:

Some other uninformed criticism is about alleged conflicts of interest when reviewing laptops while the company is an investor in Framework.

So you think it's okay for the owner of LMG to have a $200,000 stake in Framework; and still review laptops without disclosing that he has a financial interest.  Like in the video which essentially talks about differences soldered components vs non.

 

2 hours ago, Dominik W said:

However, in my personal opinion, part of the video, in regard to sponsorship, seemed a bit more personally driven, rather than fact-based. But besides that, LTT needs to ensure accurate data. I will 100% back that. 

I agree with Steve on this.  Look at the "Everyone said this was impossible - Backyard Fiber Run" video.  They were given free product and claimed the cost was under $1000.  To date they haven't corrected the fact that it actually cost $5000+; and even in the video Jake had talked about looking at the invoice.  That is out right blatantly illegal in Canada misrepresenting "facts" so wrongly.

 

Also to partner with Noctua on color scheme and such; and the general fanboy of Noctua (sponsor or not) they have injected non-partiality into their reporting.

 

2 hours ago, manikyath said:

steve ripping on the framework investment being conflict of interest for doing laptop reviews.. is also just unnecessary. linus is aware of the potential conflict of interest, it has been brought up to the community at the time of him considering it, and is mentioned in each laptop review he hosts.

also this:

2 hours ago, Skiiwee29 said:

Just for clarity and clarification, it is Linus's personal money invested in framework, not LTT or LMG. 

is a very important distinction. you cant talk about the budgets of a corporation, and then talk about someone's personal investment as if they are one and the same.

It is NOT mentioned in each laptop he hosts.

 

That's the whole problem with Linus' whole "trust me bro" mentality.  People just jump on it and assume because he made one video once disclosing it should be enough.

 

The most glaring offence that I found rubbed me entirely the wrong way for not disclosing was

"“Starting at” is the Biggest Lie in Tech"

 

In the comments you have people talking about how great Framework; or how Framework should have sponsored it because of the upgradability.

 

The simple fact is Linus I feel must be breaking some disclosure laws, and I think the one that applies here as a Canadian is Canadian Competition Act.

 

1 hour ago, schitzkrieg said:

If Steve just wanted to "help", he would have chosen a more private setting to tell these things to Linus/someone at LMG.

 

Edit: Not that I don't agree with a lot said here. Could have been handled better I guess. 

Linus was the one who did shots fired essentially on the WAN show.  This all started because a LMG employee made a public statement about GN as well.  Then it's also missing the general point of the GN video; that he's effectively calling out LMG because of their sloppiness.  It does no good to the public to have that kind of thing behind closed doors because it's clear that LMG doesn't really care about the integrity of their numbers they present.

 

1 hour ago, jkh_ said:

If Steve took it to Linus and Linus reacted negatively or unprofessionally, then you can release a video and preface it with the fact that you tried to resolve this privately first.

See above, but generally if calling out consistently inaccurate statements made publicly is a good thing.  The whole thing about labs and creating videos about testing, and having an employee call out GN very much should be meet with a public response as a large audience is likely to take those statements as assume GN's numbers are the worse compared to LMG's.  It's essentially a reactive way to say that your numbers are correct; and not to believe a company like LMG in regards to all their stats when they can't be bothered to properly fix them.

 

1 hour ago, Skiiwee29 said:

This is also why they do disclose, something they're not obligated to do, at some point in any laptop review that Linus is an investor for transparency. 

Why aren't they obligated?  It's the same discussion that I've been having over on the Toyota one (where I'm trying to argue that they legally have to disclose the connections with Toyota).  The Canadian Competition Act pretty much says that they have to have transparency when there is any material connections in relation to statements made about products.

 

It doesn't matter if it's Linus' "own money", he owns LMG/has direct say in what occurs at the company.  There is a conflict of interest at that stage, and the ones where he hosts the videos is even more of a conflict of interest.

[Skipple]

4 minutes ago, Slizzo said:

All the people saying that Steve should have notified Linus privately about his issues instead of posting a video

Unless I'm mistaken and there are people who asking again, this is in reference to the "trust me bro" fiasco and subsequent video(s)? 

[jamaniek]

3 minutes ago, Dutch_Master said:

Assuming the Billet Labs story is true (I wasn't there and so were 99,99999999999% of you either) LMG should rectify this TODAY.

 

• The buyer of the block is known, that person should have the decency of returning the block directly to Billet Labs pronto. On confirmation of receipt by Billet Labs, LMG should refund the buyer in full. Some reasonable timeframe should be allotted for the buyer to do so, but if the buyer chooses to not return the prototype (s)he should be called out publicly.
• If the buyer turns out to be a competing manufacturer, or even an employee of a competing manufacturer, said manufacturer should be called out publicly outright for knowingly buying this prototype of a (potential) competitor.
• They should also never use anything they learned from owning this prototype in their own designs.
• LMG must put safeguards in place that no prototype (of any kind) in future will ever be let out into the public and must always be returned to the owner/inventor.

Unfortunately that's not going to happen. Whoever bought it bought it fair and square. Even if it's a competitor I'm not sure whether it's allowed to publicize such information without permission. The fault falls solely on LMG in this case.

[Slizzo]

Just now, Cavalry Canuck said:

There is also the consideration that maybe the private discussions were already had? I still think it’s a little soon for an omnibus video like this after the new CEO took over last month. But that Billet issue certainly was worth bringing up immediately, regardless of the rest of the grievances.

Terren isn't full time at LMG yet either though. He's still working remotely I believe and not in person at the office. As much as Linus tries to deflect the D2D stuff, he's still definitely on the hook for quite a bit of what's been presented.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

51 minutes ago, Ultraforce said:

Given that LTT hasn't yet released a video today it's very possible that over the weekend prior to releasing the video Steve spoke privately to Linus or other executives at LMG about the video.

Steve does literally have Linus's number and called Linus about the LTT hack so he very well could have asked them privately first. Also technically what we've been calling theft of the billet labs is probably not criminal theft there likely was no contract about what is to be done just "here's this cool thing and how we've tested it, do you want to showcase it?" and "hey can we have it back, you didn't test it with our supported set up and would like it back please"

Speaking from a purely legal perspective, disclosure is required in the video.

 

LMG is a company not a individual, while new CEO is unlikely to, legal action for reputational damage is actually poasible.

 

Steve hasnt really covered himself in that regard.

[Lyre]

1 minute ago, post_screen said:

Let's be real, I watch LTT mostly for entertainment. I really enjoy most of the people they have hired over the years and they have brought me a lot of joy in some tough times, as silly as that may sound. Their data not being 100% correct never bothered me, since it encouraged me to research the things I found interesting by myself. That being said, I don't think that this will make me stop watching. The part I'm concerned about is the fact that things seem to be getting out of hand. Like I said in my previous comment, they value quantity too much. I know that might be because of the almighty algorithm, but it makes them look greedy at times. Specially when you consider that they are not the "breaking news" type of channel.

 

I would appreciate it way more if they could focus more on making sure that stuff like the situation with Billet Labs never happens again (and that whole thing goes against their whole mission of keeping their sponsors up to par in my head) and on the quality of the content they put out. It seemed like one thing that most of the crew in the "What's it like working at LMG" video wanted to change was the amount of time they had for each project. Not to go into how unhealthy that schedule seems to be, it looks as if nobody is totally happy with their work.

 

They are going to start diverging from their core values if they do not resolve this in a proper way.

The point isn't that they're not entertainment the point is that they're selling themselves as the next big 3rd Party auditor and having obviously wrong info

[Rysters Tech]

4 minutes ago, BaidDSB said:

LMG should be sued to oblivion for the theft and unauthorized selling of that water block.

 

 

make Millionaire Linus, not the company LMG, pay the damages. Would cut his ego down to earth. i like to imagine what he has to say to his kids that he'd have to sell the house because hes a narcissistic jackass who committed a crime

 

 

Geez, i agree with GN but my god is that extreme. Could you imagine how scarring that would be for his children, how that would affect them, especially at their age? Good god have you gone too far.

[BaidDSB]

3 minutes ago, Lyre said:

Thats not how that would work, LMG the organization auctioned it off not Linus himself, the best that Billet would get is a few times the value of the water-block and a lot of lawyers fees.

DOesnt matter really. Linus owns the company. he will and should lose money regardless

[Alexeygridnev1993]

3 minutes ago, Middcore said:

The thing is this forum is not the LTT core audience. It's a tiny fraction of LTT's audience at best, and some portion of it is vocal about not even watching any of LTT's videos. 

It very much is. Would you register on a random forum of a random youtuber and make a bunch of comments there unless you are a regular viewer? I would think not, especially given that fora in general is not really a thing anymore

 

For sure it is tiny but it very likely has a disproportional financial impact on LMG because, if you're a forum member, you're also very likely a Floatplane subscriber, a Youtube sponsor, a regular viewer etc.

[Spotty]

7 minutes ago, jooroth18 said:

Its not that they auctioned it off after misrepresenting it. Its that they misrepresented it, knew that they were and chose money over quality, then were asked to send it back and chose to make more money then sending it back.

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.

[Skipple]

7 minutes ago, BaidDSB said:

I like to imagine what he has to say to his kids that he'd have to sell the house because hes a narcissistic jackass who committed a crime

What is actually wrong with you?

[dragonuck76]

I spent 5mins on Steves video then stopped...I don't use just one source for anything I intend to buy or review just to know about that item of interest.  LTT even state viewers to do so.  I enjoy LTT videos for info as it is done with a bit of fun...to add if I am interested in what ever it is in that video, i review the site of the manufacturer and other reviews.  Yes maybe some fixes at LTT are needed and even Linus and others there state this is needed.  So what was the point of the video bar an attack.  I believe as LTT are spending as they are on the lab as being the reasoning and for me that is poor on GN part.  That for me is disturbing as it's against the approach of having more than one source for such things, so the LTT Lab should be welcomed by GN, not a reason to attack. GN need to retract the video and approach differently or they lose credibility for me.  

[xg32]

10 minutes ago, tkitch said:

a lot of people have been critical of linus / ltt over a number of things, but individuals won't get traction.

 

Steve Will.  It requires someone like him to call out an issue and actually have something happen from it.

Havent taken a LTT hardware benchmark seriously for at least 2 years, the monitor reviews are worse than basic marketing material. I assume most ppl know that the videos were bad, but just avoided talking about it cause Linus had a long leash, though looks like the leash is used up when random shots were fired for no reason by an employee.

 

The waterblock part was very hard to watch (and luke knows but he's not linus)

 

The lab so far just feels incompetent and a waste of resources.

 

Everything else i can kinda fanboy over, ordered a screwdriver and a backpack last year

 

Please up the video quality, and please make things right for the water block guys and the mouse guys.

 

 

[Slizzo]

2 minutes ago, Skipple said:

Unless I'm mistaken and there are people who asking again, this is in reference to the "trust me bro" fiasco and subsequent video(s)? 

No, many here are saying there should have been private notification about this current video. I specifically made sure to read all comments on all 9 pages (at the time) before commenting.

[sof006]

2 hours ago, hassam222 said:

The part where it is alleged LTT auctioned off a prototype water block they promised to return is troubling. That requires an official response.

Out of all the things, this is the thing I am most concerned with, I am still concerned about all of the other points made in the video. However what LMG/LTT did here, its not right, with all the horrible things he said about the product (even though it was his fault for not following their explicit instructions), then doubling down and not apologising when called out for making these blatent errors, to then auction something that was not there's to auction. He's not only verbally discredited this company which has likely ruined them, but also gotten rid of their only known working prototype which he had absolutely zero right to do.