Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[TennSeven]

8 minutes ago, kdawgmaster said:

I think it was just overzealous passion and it caused him to say what he did. Since they are working on the automated process for benchmarks and stuff. I think it was more of a slip of the tongue than anything.

Seemed to me more like he went out of his way to bash a couple of sites without really knowing what he was talking about, but perhaps I should give him the benefit of the doubt.

[jeo]

Just now, Lagonas said:

Pleas elaborate why not?

Because we spending precious moments of our limited time on earth complaining and arguing about something which will have zero impact on our day to day lives

[Goodevil]

Wow... so many pages for this topic hahahahaha

 

Guys, LMG is a company now... this is not your friendly YouTuber without BIAS anymore... they are a company. The main focus is MONEY, period.

 

I stopped watching LMG videos not because of BIAS but because of how they are handling things:

 

• A company does not comment on another's company's work like this.
• You can compare hardware but with data that can make it reproducible.
• Whenever an employee does something wrong then you say "Sorry, we will try not to make that mistake again."
• Linus behaves like a kid that thinks that he is right no matter what and goes into a tantrum while Luke asks him to be reasonable in the WAN show (This happened with the backpack and now it's happening with what his employee said.)

 

LMG is big now and there are MANY people with different POVs inside that company, the problem (in my POV) is that they need to be trained before going live because they can't say what comes to their mind, you need to think before saying things because it can go very bad (like this).

 

It's okay to see what your competition is doing and do better than them, but you show this with results and not actually saying "We are better than them because we will be better" lol.

 

[PandaSquawk]

Just now, dwkekciej said:

This is a great point. What if the prototype was really great when used as intended, and more reviewers were lined up to review it, thus generating more hype and potential buyers for Billet? LTT robbed Billet of a potential buyer base. LTT dissed the product, then made it impossible to have any competitors review it.

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas.

 

[Amaninacity]

2 minutes ago, aka473 said:

Regardless of the reason. GN has been retroactively justified to not reach out, as LMG has already proven that they cannot be trusted to not try and squash a story before publication.

In what way?

[Rhino16]

5 minutes ago, PandaSasquatch said:

I'll also point out that the video from GN this morning was clearly monetized.... If there was a conflict of interest requiring him to not monetize yesterday's video, why change did he change his mind about today's video?

Also, the merch sales probably went through the roof.

[Ottoman420]

Just now, Retire said:

almost forgot about you, Just because you simp for a tech influencer doesn't make it any less cringe just because he's not Belle Delphine or one of those stupid VTubers, your dickriding of his is almost as embarrassing as his public "statement" about the entire backlash he's gotten over the years. But yes, lets hide behind a blanket statement that i made this account to shit on Linus, not the fact that he refuses to address it anywhere else so i had no choice but to answer him on his stupid forum, which btw, crashes half the time i try to use it, and not on a YouTube or a Twitter reply

You sound fun

[syaqattaq90]

I don't know about y'all, but this is generally a painful event for me (on top of getting retrenched and being unemployed for over 3 months), I just hope the techtuber space finds a solution and heals soon.

 

All these negativity driving me away from tech and even playing games.

 

Hope all parties try their very best to be objective and avoid insinuating anything or getting their emotions unchecked, however slight it may be. Everyone from GN, LMG, HUB, etc.

 

Cheers from Singapore.

(Yes, it is 4.30am right now, and I can't sleep.)

Edited August 15, 2023 by syaqattaq90
Spelling

[aka473]

5 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

 

'malicious intervention', holy shit take a chill pill. No one has to change anything, but getting the other side of a story is expected and something Steve himself says they do in these types of videos.

They don't have to do so in a piece like this, since the act of requesting comment on a fluid situation like this to an untrustworthy party can lead to the story itself being affected.

[J82465]

 from LLT contact website I guess that's why they "Auction it"

[Shatterhand]

8 minutes ago, Drazil100 said:

They did:

I don't know if LMG has agreed to it yet but I assume they will. They would be stupid not to.

Oh wow, so Billet Labs gave them a 3090 with the prototype so they could properly test it???

So why the fuck did they act as if they hadn't one and used a 4090 and then shit all over Billet??

[PandaSquawk]

3 minutes ago, aka473 said:

Regardless of the reason. GN has been retroactively justified to not reach out, as LMG has already proven that they cannot be trusted to not try and squash a story before publication.

False.

[Caphenning]

22 minutes ago, SimonShipperd said:

People should get their facts straight about this. Linus has always said that he would feel that he failed if he gave his employees a reason to form a union. He never stated that they aren't allowed. And even more important, and something he stated himself, legally he can't stop them from forming a union. So it's utter BS that he would refuse it since it's not his choice to make.

Same for the discussion of wages. Yes, it's probably stated in some employee handbook / contract. But I don't know if any of the people criticizing actually ever read their own contract. But I can assure you that almost every company has some form of "discussing wages is not allowed" clause in it. Since companies don't want people to find out other people performing the same job are earning more. But they could never legally enforce it. I work in IT consultancy and work with dozens of different consultants from different companies. And each and every one of them has some sort of clause prohibitting them from discussing their wages.

 

But for some odd reason, people always try to frame it as Linus being some sort of iron fist dictator that terrorizes his employees. If he truly was that evil, do people honestly think that long standing members like Dennis, Luke, Ed, etc would still be working there?

The problem with evil is not slave driving employees, it’s making his living off Coltan Slavery while never addressing the issue publicly. That’s true evil.

[eece_ret]

7 minutes ago, Orthusaku said:

Corrected that for you

A:  Steve GN begins "LMG has issues" content curation for production.  All the clips of staff interviews, botched graphs from LTT vids etc etc)

1. Billet Labs sends their prototype and 3090ti to LMG for review

2. LMG does said review with incorrect hardware (thought indicated  it 'may' work with a 4090, so its not like LMG didnt at least talk with them first)

3. Billet asks LMG for the prototype back

4. LMG staff responds saying they plan to ship it back shortly

4a:  LTT Labs employee recorded on prem during tour answering questions, comments about GN and HW_UB are made.

4b:  Water Block Auctioned

4c:  Ltt Labs tour Video is uploaded and finds its way to HWUB and GN.  

4d:  HW UB tweets a response to said video.

5.  LMG then reaches out on Friday August 10th, saying they unintentionally sold it at auction for charity

6. Billet responds angrily 30 minutes later saying the block was expensive and it's not ok LMG sold it

7:  GN releases Linus Issues video, mentioning teh Waterblock situation.

8. LMG responds to Billet via email on Monday August 14th 

9:  Steve GN immediately has "shocked" response video written, shot edited and uploaded detailing water block situation in detail. 

 

Lets not forget how this wick got lit, and when.  Seems to be Steve has been sitting on some content for a minute and this was the opportunity to unload it.  While his content is factual good reporting, the timing is interesting and has an air of revenge to it for a perceived slight from an LMG employee.  Very Hoover esque (as in J Edgar)

 

That said, epic fail auctioning that block.  Self imposed harm 10X, collateral damage 20X.

 

 

[Abraxaz]

So many people that don't seem to understand how LMG works. It's not a small company it has 100 people working in it.

 

How many times do you guys email your ceo in your day to day emails. I bet Linus didn't even know about this until the GN video went live. The fact it's been resolved so quickly most likely means that Linus/CEO didn't know about this.

 

If Steve had contacted Linus directly this probably wouldn't have been such a issue and resolved very quietly. 

 

Linus needs to fire the member of staff as a example and let everyone know the person has been fired due to Steve's diligent investigation. 

[Lagonas]

Just now, SimonShipperd said:

Well, that seems to be the conclusion everybody is making + what Billet posted themselves. And again, I don't want to be victim blaming but sending your only good prototype that you still need for development is just not a smart business descission.

 

Of course it was not correct for LMG to sell it. But I don't understand why everyone is personally blaming Linus for this. The times of him personally being in contact with companies is long gone. Occam's razer suggest that all of this stems from a large break down of communication between LMG management, the staff and Billet. Why would they willingly sell/auction something if each and every one knew they couldn't? What possibly gain could LMG have for this?

Because Linus is the one responsible at the end of the day. When someone messes something up for a customer at a company, the company is responsible. They may decide to punish the employee that causes this, which is completely fine, but the top management is the one that is responsible for what happened and how to solve it.

[Kereplaz]

23 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.

What a pathetic response. And with downright lies. You have not already agreed jack and only reacted after the video was posted. What a colossal screwup.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Just now, kalleth said:

 

Thank you for acknowledging that. Your original post said it was required, and I just wanted to correct that it wasn't required. I agree that your sources point out that there are guidelines that state that in general, it is good practice to ask for comment before running a story on an individual or organisation.

 

However, there are exceptions to that (if, for example, as @aka473 points out, if that would lead to the story changing). My personal opinion is that this story was appropriate to run without comment (but with the right to reply - which Linus did, very poorly, and which Steve then covered on the same channel as the original claim). I don't see Steve/GN as doing anything wrong here.

I'd point out that @Amaninacity is posting US sources (NPR, etc) and you're posting UK sources, just to make sure people don't talk past each other. But in general terms, I've seen comment before in this thread that matches the IPSO's interpretation in other countries -- I just can't find the post right now.

 

I'd also add the LMG has in place a channel multiple sizes larger than GN where they can rebut anything they wish. I'd say much of the intent of the journalists guidelines in that regard are in place so that people with no access to such an outlet aren't overly penalized.

[dynastes]

4 minutes ago, VisibleXela said:

Nah, nobody who signed up specifically to comment on this thread should be taken seriously. I mean that as a blanket statement, whether you think LMG did nothing wrong or otherwise your opinion should be discounted.

You are entitled to your opinion. However, I think that this opinion is utter garbage. The reasons should be obvious. If they aren't, your opinion should be discounted anyway.

[Droz_]

Terren was hired as CEO and the buck no longer officially stops with Linus. That is Terren's job now. 

Linus' forum response was ill thought out and not what the community should have seen. 

Linus needs to remove himself, as he is no longer CEO, from the day to day decision making. Linus should also be involving Terren a LOT more on what goes on. 

Terren as CEO should be telling Linus what to say in this if Terren is to be a truly to be an effective leader of LMG and not just taking care of the things that Linus could not focus on. Otherwise Terren is just COO and Linus still handles executive decisions as direction of the company. As well as handles what the company says. Because while Linus' name is in the company. It is no longer his to run and manage. 


My $0.02

[Glorthiar]

7 minutes ago, PandaSasquatch said:

I'll also point out that the video from GN this morning was clearly monetized.... If there was a conflict of interest requiring him to not monetize yesterday's video, why change did he change his mind about today's video?

Maybe he went into it with best of intentions and then saw how much money and clout the stood to make and couldn't resist.

[VisibleXela]

Just now, dynastes said:

your opinion should be discounted anyway.

precisely

[Leksi T]

3 minutes ago, Glorthiar said:

I had the same thought until I saw GN's reply to Linus' reply this morning.

it was honestly so shitty and rude it made me reevaluate the entire previous video.
What I saw previously as a difference of opinion and slight oversight now feels like malicious manipulation of the the truth to invoke outrage. 

 

3 minutes ago, Drazil100 said:

Linus has backed this up many times in the past in regards to why he stepped down as CEO. He knew he was incapable of running the day to day operations at the scale they had grown to and it was necessary for them to hire a new CEO who did have the experience and also the time to manage LMG properly.

I have similar thoughts regarding GNs more recent video, even a bit regarding the first. But, the main points behind GN's criticisms still seem mostly valid.  

 

As far as claiming negligence,  whatever is happening inside LMG, it's resulted in consequences outside LMG that are too big or numerous to ignore or keep quiet about any longer, at least now that GN has decided to go full force in bringing them to light.  I think GN has to really look at what they view as being 'professional' themselves, but here we are.

 

I am using somewhat light terminology here and in my previous posts, but I am trying very hard to keep my own biases under wraps, and I know words with harsh connotations can be easily misinterpreted. So to be clear, and a bit more open: Both companies need to get their shit straight.  This is hard on LMG, GN, and the community, and half assed statements/responses aren't gonna cut it anymore.  And I think that so far, I've seen too much from all sides.

 

(Except from Billet. They've handled this exceptionally well)

[ScoggsUK]

2 minutes ago, Shatterhand said:

If it was only internally then it doesn't make sense to use it towards GN and imply that GN purposefully left that information out.

But since it is in the context of shooting at GN it only makes sense to interpret it as if it was agreed with Billet.

He didn't say they've intentionally left that information out he said they were disappointed to have not been contacted on this issue.

 

And the subsequent point is him explaining that that if he did, he would have found that LMG have already agreed to make good on Billet Labs. 

[jooroth18]

2 minutes ago, LeeJC73 said:

Every single one of you, myself included is posting into this thread on a device manufactured by a company that has at one time or another done something that I’m damn sure wouldn’t meet your exacting moral standards, or it seems the moral standards of self righteous Steve. I’ve stopped really engaging with videos for either of them. 
LInus has become more mainstream entertainment, Steve has become more I am the bastion of all knowledge do not question me. 

Anyone dead…… Thought not. 
 

Get a f@#king grip. 

If you don’t like it vote with your fingers, but get over yourselves in believing that anyone owes you a thing because ‘you supported them’

 

Grow the hell up. 
 

 

 

This is not about growing up, this is about making it clear that this is not a small issue, and for someone who we knew to be an honest and trustful person, to wright the wrongs made in this situation. 

 

We all know linus is better than this, and can surely fix these mistakes. 

 

Are there lots of bad people in this world, yes. Can we solve every problem in the world, no. Is there situations that we know we can make right with our voice, absolutely, and this is one of them.

 

Is it true that linus is at the head of a $100M+ valuated company, yes. But, does he have a proven track record of eventually listening to people, yes. 

 

LTT is a sinking ship that can be saved, and that is why I am making my voice loud and clear. For the sake of linus and his team.