Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[OcDmn]

20 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.

i don't think them mentioning "this is $XXXX prototype" on their reply after you sold their item without their consent counts as "sending a quote"

[synceen]

honestly I'm very disappointed in both sides, much more so in LMG. I'm going to wait it out and see how LMG and Linus respond further, and how the company grows (hopefully) from this. I'm disappointed that GN didn't reach out and said "we don't have to reach out to corporations when we think there's a patterned behavior or that there may be a significant chance that they try cover things up or prepare a pre-written response that could twist the narrative" . It feels like admitting they purposefully blindsided LMG instead of reaching out as IMO there is near-0 situations where you shouldn't reach out. Dialogue is important for understanding and could've probably solved some of the minor issues quietly.

 

I hope that LMG and Linus grows from this situation, I don't hope they go bankrupt. This situation feels personally more like something internally has shook the company and that has caused errors (major and minor) to fall through the cracks.
TL;DR, this is messy as heck, but I'm hopeful that this will just be a blip on the LMG's record and not a continued pattern.

[WallacEngineering]

I'm sure somebody has posted the video already, linuses reaction and response to the GN video was absolutely atrocious and childish which was something I did not see coming at all.

 

If you missed it, GN Just commented on Linus's response about an hour ago at the beginning of his hardware news recap video.

 

It is extremely weird to see Linus behave this way and it kind of makes me question the ethics of the channel even more. This type of response was exactly the opposite of what he should have done.

[wANKER]

16 minutes ago, ImpliedSilence said:

I spent $1,800+ AUD on my custom water loop because it's my hobby and what I want to do with my free time/with my discretionary money, Billet's monoblock for sure has a place in the custom market.

I think the biggest shame of all this is that I genuinely think these guys have something legit and really could successfully cater to a niche market that would happily pay the money for what they're offering. If I ever go for a copper loop, I certainly will. Even their tubing looks like an interesting option.

Instead now they've been buried by LMG's coverage of them, and now what I think is largely disingenuous support for them (people leaving Google reviews on their business page referencing LMG drama etc....) which has kind of undermined the whole thing. 

[Dragonliger]

I do think that GamersNexus is on the right here with their opinions. I do agree that not reaching out to LTT for comment was not a good thing because it shows it less as concern for LTT and more of an expose. Yet the feedback still stands.

 

Also I don't think Linus should be the one replying to this at all directly, he's not the CEO anymore and it is not expected that he is the one to solve all of the problems presented.

 

The billet labs thing was quite mean for sure, but that says more about the organization of the company than the character of it.

[xg32]

22 minutes ago, rookie_eyes said:

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

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

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

i think once the labs employee made the statement on camera steve had to publish the video for the damaged reputation. No phonecall, half-assed public statement after will change the perception to some that Labs>GN/HUB. I'm surprised not many think those comments were a big deal, despite GN saying it didnt matter.

 

As long as LTT pays billet for the damages caused that's between them.

 

As for the bad benchmarks, i haven't finished a LTT benchmark video for years

 

I'm not gonna judge Linus' character cause frankly, most successful people didn't get to where they are by listening to others and/or apologizing

[swimtome]

5 minutes ago, VisibleXela said:

The GN video specifically says the block was sold at LTX through an auction for Extra Life (probably paraphrasing, I don't remember the exact way the sentence was structured). If you don't know what Extra Life is I can understand the confusion, but speaking for myself I understood perfectly fine what happened.

https://youtu.be/FGW3TPytTjc?t=2027  "Extra life auction event"  --- Fair enough, but yea I personally didn't understand that to be charity until later.  

[starsmine]

4 minutes ago, QuantumQuill said:

I don't understand how GN didn't go through proper journalistic practices for this conflict. Like all of the points presented in the original 44-minute video had corroborating evidence. As someone who loves LTT content the response made yesterday was difficult to read.

And ya, splitting hairs around selling versus auctioning was completely ridiculous. If a brand Linus was reviewing made the same semantic argument about a warranty claim that wasn't accepted, he would have ripped them to shreds, and rightfully so.

GN did go through proper journalistic practices for this conflict 

You dont understand how GN didnt, because you are correct.

[JorjXMcKie]

Linus' response calling out the difference between a sale and auction is even crazier when you realize at no point did GN accuse them of selling the block - they just accurately reported it was put up for auction.

 

It's sad to see this going down like this.

 

 

[Legitsu]

3 minutes ago, masiton said:

I’m some random software development PM in eastern Europe and the LTT response is just wtf. 
 

the GN video can be split into two major points:

 

• Billet labs cooler being incorrectly tested/reported on and then sold without owner’s approval
• Issues with product reviews, be it data from Labs or videos from other LMG channels.

Apologize for the first outright, there is no good way around it. Be transparent about reimbursing Billet. The focus here is not the dollar amount but the attitude towards them.

 

as for the criticism of data and review procedure, take time to analyze this, report back only when you have a report that confirms which errors came back as true and why, and then explain how you adjust SOPs moving forward.

 

It literally doesn’t matter if this is or isn’t hit piece, or if they were or were not supposed to consult you first. If it wasn’t GN today it would be someone else tomorrow. The response and process should be the same either way. 

billet was made aware of the accidental  auction of the cooler friday the 11th

lmg reached out to them MONDAY the 14th the first working buisness day and the day steves video dropped Coincidence? doubt that smells like a setup 

 

pay attention to the stuff written between the lines folks it matters 

[TheEugeneKam]

1 minute ago, fohatadri said:

Except that the guy made an account to specifically post this like Linus or anyone else actually cares about his opinion on the issue.

Says the guy with 17 posts on his account. 

 

But seriously data accuracy is fine by me, they have had a blunder with everything. My airport departure isn't because of the inaccuracy, it's more related to how the Billet Labs was treated and the follow-up response to this. In tough times, this is where it was make-it-or-break-it for viewers. Seeing as how Linus personally grilled so many creators for doing literally the same thing he did, that breaks my "TrustMeBro" opinion that I had of him where no matter what it is, he would make it right. 

[kw10001]

7 minutes ago, WillHeard said:

How can any of you find this acceptable?

 

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

You're right. It's pretty wild. I know there are often jokes about Linus' narcissistic tendencies; Dan even mentioned the, "L is for Narcissist" in the last WAN show. However the screenshot there is a perfect example of textbook narcissistic behavior.

[VisibleXela]

Just now, swimtome said:

https://youtu.be/FGW3TPytTjc?t=2027  "Extra life auction event"  --- Fair enough, but yea I didn't understand that to be charity until later.  

Yup, I stealth edited the subtitles into my post. But yeah, while I can understand why people missed it I'm not convinced it's Steve or GN's fault and I absolutely don't think it was done maliciously.

[Thaldor]

8 minutes ago, WillHeard said:

How can any of you find this acceptable?

 

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

Because now it's in AS"shit customer sertvice"US's lab being taken apart and copied and LMG can go and claim the good karma for pretty good donation to charity. Win-win for Linus.

[joaopt]

Just now, xg32 said:

i think once the labs employee made the statement on camera steve had to publish the video for the damaged reputation. No phonecall, half-assed public statement after will change the perception to some that Labs>GN/HUB.

 

As long as LTT pays billet for the damages cause that's between them.

 

I'm not gonna judge Linus' character cause frankly, most successful people didn't get to where they are by listening to others.

 

or speaking the truth apparently, or taking accountability, or being respectful of others, or apologising, etc... just your ordinary average clueless out of touch millionaire really

[Error 52]

2 minutes ago, ImaginTK421 said:

I know Linus has said he won't bring this up in the WAN show but I'm pretty sure if he doesn't Dan is going to really struggle to curate the merch messages this week. The chats across all platforms is going to be a mess. Every chat will be about this and I can just see Linus digging a bigger whole if he just starts reading the chat and then gets emotionally set off.

WAN Show is probably a bad idea, both because Linus has a pretty bad case of foot in mouth syndrome in there and I think it would be quite tacky to handle this controversy in a big podcast with sponsors and merch messages. He should do a video addressing it though, clear some of the air.

[harls]

5 minutes ago, ImpliedSilence said:

Not lying would be a good start.....

We do not know that he lied.  GN says he did however that is one interpretation of the limited facts.  

[Leetween]

Maybe it’s time to let the CEO respond to stuff like this. 

[atxcyclist]

12 minutes ago, Hezkezl said:

I'm not seeking drama. I just don't pop around these forums very often. Unlike you, who apparently has to live here and defend Linus against perfectly valid criticisms because you think he's incapable of doing it himself.

 

I do disagree about GN going back on their own standards. With that, we're done here \o so have a good one!

I've stated many times in this thread that Steve's points are not without merit, I'm not defending Linus.

[zeroality]

Just now, harls said:

We do not know that he lied.  GN says he did however that is one interpretation of the limited facts.  

We do* know he lied. Billet also made a reddit post echoing GN and affirming the chain of events and talk about the email chain.

[DoRullings]

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.

I've watched Linus Tech Tips for many years, but this is the first time I'm on this forum.
I think this is almost the worse way you could've replied to Gamers Nexus' video. As I've seen it LTT have always been a influencer channel for light entertainment for us who is interested in gaming and for hobbyist pc-builders, etc. and in that way you have done a great job. Small errors doesn't matter so much for that audience.
Now that you are shifting towards being hard core technical channel with, among other things, hardware testing with a dedicated lab you can't do that. You can of course make mistakes, but correcting them is very important. If someone is calling you out, owning your mistakes is the only way to respond. If you want to be taken seriously, that is.

When it comes to Billet Labs there are no excuses. You f-ed up and continue to f-up.

What is going on, Linus? This doesn't sound like the Linus I used to 'know'. This post looks like it's written by a PR-person at a huge company who is large enough to don't give a damn.

[VisibleXela]

Just now, Error 52 said:

WAN Show is probably a bad idea, both because Linus has a pretty bad case of foot in mouth syndrome in there and I think it would be quite tacky to handle this controversy in a big podcast with sponsors and merch messages. He should do a video addressing it though, clear some of the air.

So, you're right, anyway. When this kind of thing happens the correct answer tends to be "keep your head down, keep your nose clean, and shut up until it blows over."

 

But how can they even have a WAN show otherwise? Every third comment, every other merch message, all of Floatplane chat is all gonna be filled with "RESPONSE PLS." Well, assuming we don't get an apology video like you said, anyway.

[vong]

3 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

Not sure where vong is getting their numbers (20k vs 21k ???)

 

 

Yeah my bad. LTT's latest microphone video.

[Agall]

Yay, more tech Youtuber drama.

 

GN: Quality > quantity

 

LTT: Quantity > quality

 

It's been this way since I've been watching tech Youtube videos for decades. GN is just pointing out the obvious.

 

 

Even if the video in question is actively demonetized, it's still publicity for their channel and website. Especially considering LTT/LMG is a major competitor in the space of hardware testing.

[atxcyclist]

10 minutes ago, sgsrrhreneat said:

i wasn't talking about the merits of steves claims, i was merely pointing out the fact u called out steve to be a hypocrite  while overlooking the hypocrisy on the part of the organization you are defending.

 

 

 

And Steve is a hypocrite, for setting his own journalistic standards and then ignoring them. Stop trying to lump every facet of this discussion into one broad 'someone good/someone bad' take-away. You're oversimplifying multiple things into one decision, and then getting upset and accusatory when someone else doesn't look at it that way.