Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[VisibleXela]

1 minute ago, harls said:

They do,  but we do not know the extent of them.  GN claims a lot but did not do due diligence to find out what was true or not.  

 

Just now, VisibleXela said:

We have comments from Billet, Steve, and Linus all confirming the timeline. Billet sent the prototype in June, they asked for it back repeatedly, LMG auctioned it off in July, and then suddenly Linus offered to pay it back 2 hours after the GN video went live. No "trust" required.

 

[JoshuaScholar]

I'm going to make this point once more.

 

Look, either Linus is wrong and LMG CAN afford to make videos on a schedule that allows them to be finished and high quality.

 

OR Linus is right and LMG grew so big that they can't afford to make high quality videos on youtube anymore.  In that case they're too big to survive and they better start selling off building space and firing people!

[Poinkachu]

1 minute ago, harls said:

In this video steve says I don't have to reach out if I think they are in the wrong.  This just means he is reporting his feelings.  There could easily be an explanation for the "lies" that Steve is claiming. Its also possible Steve is right.  But without trying to confirm anything its hard to trust him.   I have been saying they both have a lot to learn from this and hopefully they will and they can improve. 

 

So, if a con-artist caught red-handed conning someone, and there's a shit ton of witness as well, you have to reach out to the con-artist first ?
Wouldn't that con-artist know that he somehow got caught and start to concoct an escape plan then ?

[harls]

Just now, VisibleXela said:

We have comments from Billet, Steve, and Linus all confirming the timeline. Billet sent the prototype in June, they asked for it back repeatedly, LMG auctioned it off in July, and then suddenly offered to pay it back 2 hours after the GN video went live. No "trust" required.

Where did Linus confirm this timeline?  

[ScoggsUK]

I sense an extreme sense of schadenfreude from some of the comments on here.

 

I'd appeal to people to meter your comments, your not just throwing text into a vacuum, other people are on the end of another monitor and some need to bear this in mind. 

 

Have a word with yourself idlf your speculating on whether x person should resign because you watch their videos and think you know their working relationship.

 

Suggesting people should loose their jobs is a bit ridiculous.

[atxcyclist]

12 minutes ago, Hezkezl said:

What other companies have become as huge as LTT and that he'd had a personal relationship with before and after they got huge? How many other companies out there do you think he needs to change his methodology with before you realize it was the right thing to do? Why are you suggesting that personal feelings and friendships need to outweigh facts and letting the public know about something wrong that a major company is doing?

I'm not suggesting anything. Steve made his own standards but is ignoring them in this instance, you and others either don't see that or don't want to see that. However, it doesn't change that Steve praises himself as reaching-out to companies and having this level of dialogue before making a public video like this, and yet he didn't this time. He's a hypocrite, you're supporting hypocrisy.

[Cosmic Emotion]

1 minute ago, yobson said:

steve's next move will be to drop a diss track on linus

Lol. The line in Steve's second video:

 

Quote

This is nonsense. And it's very difficult to engage with nonsense.

 

is the closest we will get to a Diss track. But it should have been a thing. XD

[tarfeef101]

Just now, PsyAviah - Yves Schelpe said:

Whilst I agree that the focus should be on the side of, well, the core issue: quality & lack of checking/testing pipeline. The fact the focus is on Billet so much is that it shows a kind of "out of touch way", the whole video + WAN response. Where even Luke, to his credit, said "wouldn't it be better to test x, y and z in a proper way"?

What the Billet case tells us is
1. Input to Linus is very difficult, he ignores it, even from Luke. Saddens me.
2. Profit over quality. Whilst there's a balance to be struck, if you showcase a product, then either just don't do it, or do it properly. Don't treat a manufacturer like that. It treats the whole "review"-industry the wrong way.
3. The communication flow inside the company is bad. Billet wanted it back, Adam wanted more quality. Did Adam know it had to be sent back? How did it end up on an auction? And what it highlights most is that Linus's response to Steve is "you have my number, my e-mail, address it in private" clearly doesn't work it seems... No, because, Billet tried that. And still had their prototype on an auction.

I guess that's just why so much attention goes to Billet, because it highlights all the problems with LMG in one compact form.
Even to the "apology" (if I can even call it that, come on @LinusTech - do better than a rushed text like that) above here now. 

 

I mean yes, but also no. 

1. this is old news. but also, I don't have to care. I don't have a parasocial relationship with LMG. I feel as bad for them as anyone else w/ a boss that ignores them, but that's where it ends. In the end, I care about videos. At the very least, even if I do have some parasocial vibes, I'm trying to remove them from the equation here.
2. Yes. And this is highly coupled to my point.
3. Like #1, I don't really feel the need to care about their internal processes. I just want the end result. As consumers of the content, we should be focusing on the content, not focusing on giving free advice on "normal internal communication for a company"

[LinusCheapTricks]

Shameless, unapologetic and arrogant.

 

I watched for over a decade, but I wont watch another video.

 

You actions and responses are disturbing.

[JorjXMcKie]

I can get over everything else (which really is a mountain out of a molehill) but you cannot possibly expect us to believe that you thought it WAS OK TO SELL THE BILLET PROTOTYPE. And for the answer to be it wasn't sold it was auctioned - that's basically a "fuck you". Well, message received.

[King Podge]

48 minutes ago, DJ3thenew23 said:

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.

I’m deeply hurt to hear you do not care about me. I don’t think I’ll ever recover. 

[Noodlefu]

6 minutes ago, Vidyagoblin said:

The Billet labs thing is so shady now that we know that LMG only reached out to them after the GN video.

 

We don't know that. We know that Billet told GN that, but we don't have LTT's side. One of the biggest issues I have with GN's video is the fact they haven't reached out to LTT for comment, and I don't abide by the statement that they don't have to - that's a poor excuse. Good journalistic practices ensure this is always done for a reason. Playing devils advocate, what if LTT is able to provide emails that show this in an entirely different light? All of a sudden GN falls pray to their own argument and they've brought misinformation to the masses.

 

All around this is a pretty poor showing from both LTT and GN - both should hold themselves to a higher standard.

[Hallcrash]

19 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.

Yeah, I think when linus is stressed out, he losses focus. Like when he was attempting to gain control over the youtube channel when it was hacked, people did tell him what probably happened. But, he ignored them. Here he is ignoring that in the Labs video, LMG shot across other creators in the same spaces bow... and in response to being ignored asking why LMG took shots at them, they returned fire. He's ignoring all their mistakes and LMG claim that the other creators are less reliable.

 

His just focusing on the big thing, the water block, which is an issue... But not the main problem.

[VisibleXela]

Just now, harls said:

Where did Linus confirm this timeline?  

19 hours ago, LinusTech said:

we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype.

He said in his response that they haven't paid it back but claim they offered to. Everything said fits squarely into the timeline with everything else. If that timeline is wrong it's awfully strange that neither Linus nor anyone from LMG has said otherwise. Posting receipts should be trivial, right? "Here's a screenshot our email from back in [June] where we offered to pay it back with all the private information blacked out."

[Yames]

2 minutes ago, harls said:

In this video steve says I don't have to reach out if I think they are in the wrong.  This just means he is reporting his feelings.  There could easily be an explanation for the "lies" that Steve is claiming. Its also possible Steve is right.  But without trying to confirm anything its hard to trust him.   I have been saying they both have a lot to learn from this and hopefully they will and they can improve. 

 

What does he have to confirm with Linus when he uses direct quotes from Linus (with video included) and slides and data directly from their video (that are very easily findable)?
There is no legal obligation to give warning to the target of your critism.  The current situation around Billet Labs just justifies this stance - really don't know how you can defend Linus on any of this until he actually accepts the criticism and agrees to improve.

[Hezkezl]

2 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

I'm not suggesting anything. Steve made his own standards but is ignoring them in this instance, you and others either don't see that or don't want to see that. However, it doesn't change that Steve praises himself as reaching-out to companies and having this level of dialogue before making a public video like this, and yet he didn't this time. He's a hypocrite, you're supporting hypocrisy.

You're supporting using personal connections to try to bury the wrong-doings of a major $100,000,000+ corporation because it makes them look bad and the owner's feelings got hurt that he's not being afforded special treatment anymore.

 

 

[Origami Cactus]

If you were a true fan you should have stopped watching when they moved to the new building lol.

But yeah, everyone has or had personal reasons for watching their content, these kinds of "I watched, now i dont" posts have been on this forum every single year, even I have made one after they made a big oopsie woopsie a few years ago. Linus has always been that arrogant man he still is, nothing changes, he just generates controversies every couple of years.

[xg32]

2 minutes ago, Thepyrodex said:

This is what rubbed me about mentioning the demonetized part.

 

It was a known calculation that it would bump the view on other videos and that stating this would help his clicks on other things they have made.  

 

LMG has issues but this whole situation just stinks of people having a shit throwing fight and claiming that they smell like roses.

 

I'm just grabbing the popcorn cause this thread and watching peoples insane hateful meltdowns is better than the mouse review with films left on for sure!!!

 

TLDR: the moment the comments were made by the labs guy, the video had to drop for GN and HUB's rep.

 

i think there was no other way to do it, GN either don't drop the video or go all-in, even if alot of the points/facts seemed minor.

 

I do think having a lab employee taking uncalled shots at GN/HUB added fuel to the fire, reputations were damaged at that point.

 

Steve could have contacted LTT before dropping the video, but that would be weak. 

 

All the stuff about not monetizing the vid is just PR imho

[redf5]

I'm completely baffled and disappointed by Linus's response. It's the biggest instance of not walking the talk I've ever seen. To me he's LMG's biggest liability today when it comes to PR and quality. The staff must be given a proper chance to improve this situation, and he's not helping at all. Let's hope they turn this around.

[HiTechLowSpec]

Signed up just to reply to this. Knew this was going to eventually come up when Linus announced his intention to create LMG Labs.

 

What you have to keep in mind is that Steve @ GN is not impartial and is as subject to cognitive bias as anyone. For Steve to take on the tone that he's laying out these issues in an unbiased and journalistically open way is the fallacy of argument from authority.

 

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.

 

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.
 

Linus has even floated an idea in the WAN show recently about some way of open sourcing technical review of their content. This would be used to catch many of the little errors that Steve was noting. Many of the writers/editors do not have the wealth of technical knowledge to catch those mistakes. They openly know there's a problem and are searching for answers, publicly, before Steve's video.

 

Linus is an energetic 'idea guy', which is probably why he is where he is. But having ideas and actually making them reality is difficult. But, to his credit, that hasn't kept him from moving forward. LMG has grown incredibly rapidly as a result. Linus has openly admitted that they are making mistakes and is working to correct them. Linus making the decision to bring in a CEO to actually run what his small enterprise has quickly become is evidence of that.

 

Steve taking this opportunity to publicly wound LMG is probably not the best course of action, even for the continued success of GN. I don't know of anyone that uses a single video to make their purchasing decisions. I think most of us get our information from multiple sources, not limited to YouTube. There are many personalities on the Internet, and I know what I'm now seeing from Steve in this situation is not something I value.

[joaopt]

@LinusTech

 

what the hell man say something, this is not going away in any way shape or form. And if you don't massively apologise (sincerely) you're going down hard and taking your company with you. Oh and no lying this time

[Glorthiar]

20 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Soo.. reporting a follow up regarding what sounds like a lie based on their(GN) research is utterly pathetic shit pot stirring ?

If so... what do you call not saying anything about it ?

If Linus' response was good, pretty sure the follow up video would be him (Steve) telling people that the reply seems promising.

I mean, quite a bunch of companies got bashed by GN for craps they did, and depending on the said company response, GN's follow up can either be highlighting the good response or bashing it further for the poor response.

Gigabyte, NZXT, Fractal, Artesian-effing-Build (The Noah Katz side of Artesian Builds ofc), what else ?

 

Well, Honestly, I am glad they did.
Always thought they could use some boost. But then again, most people prefer entertaining vids instead of a jumble of datas and charts.
Because at the very least now I know He (Steve GN) meant it when he said he'd be treating LMG like any other corporation out there.

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.

[Gunpocket]

One thing as well regarding that Billet case imo; if Linus had put in a bit more money and time and effort into re-testing the product, this whole thing wouldn't have even happened. They might not have sold/auctioned off the prototype if they had spent that extra time with it. This also might not have happened if they did it properly the first time. They didn't read the manual, or look into anything. They just came in, seemingly without a script, and with a lot of premade judgement, and screwed it all up. It would be 'okay' if this wasn't a prototype, and it is just for entertainment purposes; but Linus himself said that he wanted to form people about this product, and for them to not buy it. This is a case of being penny-wise and pound-foolish. They have a lot more to lose now, especially if this keeps developing. I used to watch LTT for their more informational videos (I could care less about them building a 100k$ minecraft computer, speaking of wastes of money) but thats down the drain.

[VisibleXela]

2 minutes ago, Noodlefu said:

We don't know that. We know that Billet told GN that, but we don't have LTT's side.

Linus has responded 4 or 5 times in this thread, and nothing he's said contradicts that timeline. If that timeline was wrong, why has Linus been so cagey about it? What's stopping him from going "we offered on [date] to pay it back, here's screenshots to prove it?"

[ramp]

If this video is true and Billet Labs is truthful, Linus basically just lied in his apology and didn’t even respond to Billet UNTIL Gamers Nexus created his video, making matters look worse than initially thought.

 

Description of the video:

In HW News this week, we start with a discussion about Linus Sebastian's recent reply to our commentary about Linus Tech Tips' issues with accuracy, data, corrections, ethics, and conflicts. We are baffled and disappointed by the hastily, angrily-written, and at times inaccurate statement posted.

 

-----

 

Go to this other thread for context:

 

View Linus' earlier response: