Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[PandaSquawk]

Just now, aka473 said:

Neither of those two things are true. The way you phrase the wording Linus uses is down right wrong. He said that they agreed on compensation, which implies reimbursement, when none of that was the case.

 

Billet Labs did not and still has not provided a true quote of value to LMG, per their own statements.

By "agreed on compensation" are you referring to this later quote by Linus?

  

On 8/14/2023 at 2:30 PM, 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.

 

If so, you are still incorrect. He said that received a quote. From the public into available it is impossible to tell if it was a formal quote, but we do know that Billet Labs sent them an email containing an estimation of it's value. They said as much in their public response on Reddit.

[Monolithic]

3 minutes ago, kendirect said:

That's not ad hominem.  Him being a good person is directly correlated to the video he's made.  He just wanted to attack Linus, that's why he put this out in the public space and not in private.  Don't use words you don't understand, babe.

Journalist do not do that. I suppose you think Steve should have just contacted Artesian builds privately and never shined a light on what was happening?

[RevengeofProfKatz]

1 hour ago, 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.

Exactly, and who is to say if the prototype was sold to someone acting on behalf of a competitor at the auction. No one seems to know as of yet, and given Linus's ties to different sponsors, it is all very suspect. If it was, then it makes it even worse that Linus went out of his way to disparage the product and Billets work in a preview before selling the thing off.

[Drazil100]

3 minutes ago, VascoM said:

 

Actually, not,what is in the internet in that he is ceo from July 1st, and handling a PR disaster and several problems is really a work to be done by him, no Linus, if someone has to be groomed to deal with this situation…then that person is  no CEO material. It’s really strange that Linus cargo just changed to CVO on the website mas the CEO is completely absent…absent from everywhere . Any major company has the CEO making a statement in day one .

Yeah but Linus isn’t a traditional business man who went to business school. We already know he is running LMG incompetently. He is probably training the CEO and handing over responsibilities like PR management incompetently too. 

[PandaBumpin]

23 hours ago, LinusTech said:

Getting all the details before publication is *NOT* the opposite of journalistic integrity.

This isn't about being on a side... There's no war. You don't need to fight. You need to slow down and think.... 

It's truly incredible that you cannot see the irony in asking for details prior to publication, despite you consistently demonstrating you can't slow down enough to do the same.

 

Whether it be the video in question, or the way you publicly and casually ramble about creator issues on WAN, you consistently demonstrate a lack of consideration for details prior to publication. Hypocritical through and through.

 

Even in your comments, telling your audience to slow down and think. The amount of videos that demonstrate an employee voicing valid wisdom/insight/information to you and you proceeding to ignore it entirely is shocking. You also repeatedly demonstrate the same in WAN. Why don't you slow down and think, Linus?

 

I have been watching/listening to you since sub 30k on NCIX and at a certain point you have to fix what you keep blaming the issues on rather than using it as a scapegoat. If you can't afford to hire a few people for accuracy, etc. rather than rushing through everything then maybe you should reconsider the direction of the content.

[NorKris]

4 minutes ago, kendirect said:

That's not ad hominem.  Him being a good person is directly correlated to the video he's made.  He just wanted to attack Linus, that's why he put this out in the public space and not in private.  Don't use words you don't understand, babe.

where is the dislike button when we need it

[theRealCoalBoi]

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.

Let me preface my comment with the fact that I have been an avid viewer of LTT content (including the WAN show) and buyer of LTT merch for the past 8+ years. I have grown up with a love for tech and I owe much of my knowledge and continued love for tech to Linus and his team. And after all this time, this conversation seems important enough that I ought to at least say something.

 

With all that said, it seems as though too many people are concerned about the mistake regarding the auction of the waterblock. It was a mistake. These things unfortunately happen and it's not helpful to anyone to die on that hill.

 

I think this situation is so worrying because it seems like Linus is missing the point of Steve's video and his response seems intensely emotional and he has framed it as a personal attack. From an outsider's perspective, and as someone who has never really cared about GN in the past, I think this should be a huge wake-up call for Linus and the management team at LMG.

 

These are serious issues and Steve has done his duty to report things as they appear. He's not wrong in not taking Linus at his word, because he's been presented with conflicting evidence. An ethical journalist only accepts assertions that are backed up by the facts.

 

With all that said, I really don't want to alienate anyone in this dialogue. I love this community and all the good that LMG has brought to the table. We're all on the same team, one that values knowledge and truth, and we like to have some laughs along the way.

 

To @LinusTech: I truly hope that if you see this, that you can understand that I am making this point in an effort to help. I can't even begin to understand the weight of everything between being a public figure, paying the salary for 120+ talented staff, and running a business that embodies so much of your own raw passion, on top of everything else that life throws at you. But in spite of all this, I think it is more than a little bit careless to pin the blame for this heat you're getting on Steve.

 

The truth is, lately it does seem to be the case that your ethical expectations of LMG have been slowly fading over the past year or so. While the growth of the company may be an explanation, you cannot use it as an excuse without damaging the trust we all have in you. "Trust me, bro" only works when you can show that you learn from your experiences. I really want you to succeed and be the best damn tech bro you can be. So please, take a step back for as long as you need, try to see where your community is coming from, and get the support you need from those around you to get moving in your best direction.

 

While you don't owe anyone a public WAN Show segment, I am sure you can get a lot of good guidance from Luke and the others around you. You and your team will have to make some tough calls, but you don't want to be the bad guy in this story. It will be 100% worth the tough work and I hope I can be there to see you come out of this to kick some serious tech ass going forward.

 

 

 

[Monolithic]

2 minutes ago, Vilacom said:

Then it’s still not worth spend $800 for, there is a limit how much performance you get with more cooling and we know the upper bounds by people pouring literal liquid nitrogen on CPUs to test extreme overclocking.

Copper is not magical, there is no level of cool engineering that makes heat transferring into water that much more efficient.  There is no reason to ever spend $800 on a gpu block. That’s been proven multiple times by multiple channels doing tests of custom water cooling vs good air coolers, a pretty block does not change that and does not change basic thermodynamics

Tell that to professional overclockers that spend thousands of dollars on mobo's and pots....

[InTarDavid]

It is very sad that Linus is so hypocritical, he likes to talk about how Labs will revolutionize testing, he says how his products took years to make to be great, but it seems he does not care about the accuracy of his company's videos. I used to be a fan of Linus and his company, but it feels like he was right about companies not being your friends... And fans being fanatics...

[jitteryzeitgeist]

1 minute ago, PandaSasquatch said:

If so, you are still incorrect. He said that received a quote. From the public into available it is impossible to tell if it was a formal quote, but we do know that Billet Labs sent them an email containing an estimation of it's value. They said as much in their public response on Reddit.

That's not a quote.

 

That's quite literally an estimate.  It's not an invoice, an agreement, a placeholder, an offer, or a bid.  It's an off-the-cuff "Gives us our shit back now it's worth X" directed at a company who refused to do so.

[TimedPing]

1 minute ago, Monolithic said:

Or you could just shut down your browser and go take a break....no one is forcing you to be here...

What I meant by that is many people here need to spread their arms and legs for a bit, the last time I visit this thread is 8 hour ago, and holy crap the comment count is getting wild.

 

My point is not trying to gaslight anyone or trolling, I'm just concerned with everyone who taking parts in this spicy thread almost non-stop for many ammount of time.

[JoshuaScholar]

Just now, Drazil100 said:

Yeah but Linus isn’t a traditional business man who went to business school. We already know he is running LMG incompetently. He is probably training the CEO and handing over responsibilities like PR management incompetently too. 

Meh.  Linus surrendered too much to the youtube algorithm, and he thought no one would care if he trashed some kids who don't have a big-company product.

 

USUALLY he seems to have better principles and instincts than this.

 

I'm not convinced that thoroughly trained businessmen do a good job either.  

[Rhino16]

7 minutes ago, Vilacom said:

It’s like a Rolex watch, they are very pretty and there is a market for them among people who are looking for a way to try to impress other people with lots of money, but no one in their right mind would look at a Rolex and say “This is worth considering for anyone purchasing a watch”.  

A Rolex would be a better purchase as it wouldn’t become obsolete in a few years. Might even hold its value. I thought of it earlier like buying a sports car vs a minivan, but the sports car can’t go any faster than the minivan. Spending more, and losing more value over time. Your example is still fine though, I’m just bored and thinking too much.

[Karon]

58 minutes ago, PandaSasquatch said:

Yeah, I mean, you can't expect "Tech Jesus" to have consistent ethical standards on monetization can you? /s

I like how you grasp at straws.

[ColonelSupremePizza]

Just now, RockerBug17 said:

If Linus had instead published a polished piece of PR damage control would you be more or less satisfied than you currently are?

To me, it would show that multiple people had reviewed it and chosen the words carefully to ensure the best outcome possible with such a statement. Would it be satisfactory? I doubt it, but it would at least show that it was something done with more people involved than Linus just free firing from the hip.

 

I hate PR damage control pieces as much as the next person, but EVERY time a person at a company tries to pull what Linus did and does everything to push the blame, ignore the actual issues, and sweep things under the rug while trying to twist the narrative, it's ended in disaster. Linus SHOULD NOT have the power to make and post such atrocious takes in answering serious allegations WITHOUT people reviewing it first. The focus should be on maintaining the brand or image reputation at all cost.

[Saeumii]

gonna respond to this here bc this strikes me as a bad faith take from someone who's just trying to hate on ltt and i have no interest in directly engaging with that type of attitude.

they mistakenly auctioned off the prototype for charity, presumably bc they viewed it as a unique item that someone would want. the only reason they said that no one should buy it is bc you can get much cheaper coolers with the same performance.

no, they shouldn't have auctioned it off in the first place, but their logic and reasoning for this situation seems pretty clear to me

 

this incident seems to have just brought the haters out of the woodworks

[PandaSquawk]

6 minutes ago, RevengeofProfKatz said:

June 30th, Linus agreed to send the prototype water block back, along with the 3090 Ti back to Billet if required (which it was).
July 6th, Linus again stated their intention to send prototype and card back.
July 12th, Linus stated it would be sent out the following week.
July 30th, over two weeks later after Linus provided a shipping time frame to return the property, Linus sold said property/ a prototype/ that did not belong to him.
Early August 10th Linus stated: "So, there was a communication mishap and we ended up auctioning off the Monoblock in a silent auction for charity at LTX. The good news, is that it isn't just sitting on a shelf"
August 14th Linus lied in a post on this thread about having discussions with Billet and having come to an agreement for compensation, when in actuality, Linus had ghosted Billet after Billet had wanted to know how Linus planned to fix the problem in early August.
August 14th, after GN posted their story, is the first time Linus reached out after ghosting Billet. Billet stated to GN today they have not replied back yet to Linus's email sent to them today concerning this.

The moment to fix it started on June 30th, not August 10th. The prototype and card included with it should have been sent back to Billet in early July, or more appropriately, when the preview with all the half-assed, flawed testing and product bashing was done.

I'm going to point out the most glaring problem with what you said....

 

Linus is not LMG and clearly did not personally handle every bit of the communication between LMG and Billet Labs.

[VascoM]

4 minutes ago, kendirect said:

That's not ad hominem.  Him being a good person is directly correlated to the video he's made.  He just wanted to attack Linus, that's why he put this out in the public space and not in private.  Don't use words you don't understand, babe.

So, if there is a problem with ASUS motherboards , for instance, jayztwocents should have adressed it in private ? The issue with Newegg RMA , Steve should have adressed it in private ? the problem with Nvidia and hardware unboxed, Linus should have adressed it in private ? I like LTT  very much, but I’m not biased…you are being incredibly biased …

[Blademaster91]

42 minutes ago, PandaSasquatch said:

Sure... It's not worth a dedicated follow-up video, but it's all over the thumbnail and title designed to get clicks as the biggest news around.

Of course the topic is on the thumbnail, its one of the main subjects in the video,and yeah I think it is news worthy.

Complaining about clickbait is another thing i find ironic when LMG uses such bad clickbait and weird titles at times there isn't any way to tell what the video topic is about, and makes finding a video later difficult.

[Cynapse]

 

 

On 8/14/2023 at 11:25 PM, LinusTech said:

... 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).

I know this statement was made relatively quickly after you digested the GN video and I have different takes on different parts but this in particular stuck out to me. This is a truly bad analogy to why I feel this video, or more specifically your wrap up made no sense to me. The block was specifically designed for a 3090ti and you tried with a 4090. No issues so far, but I distinctly remember being baffled at the end with the strong recommendation against it. It didn’t make sense to me at the time as you clearly linked your findings in the video to the conclusion. But it literally wasn’t designed for that card so I couldn’t connect what the relevance between for example the temperatures and it being a product that didn’t make sense. 
 

A better analogy would be that it is like reviewing a petrol super car, putting diesel in it for lulz, and then declaring it is a useless car because it stutters down the road before dying. There is no issue with the content of putting diesel in a petrol super car, but to then say it is a pointless product linking or suggesting it is so because of its performance with diesel in it makes no sense.

 

 In last weeks WAN show you discussed a potential culture of your colleagues and friends not enforcing boundaries with you. I’m not sure that that would even be relevant and it definitely seemed to come (at least from Luke and Dan) from a place of love and understanding rather than fear or subservience of any kind, but potentially it could feed into how an increase in mistakes and perceived inadequate corrections have been allowed to increase in frequency and severity?

 

 In any case you publicly come across as a relatively good guy and clearly have a good people around you so I’m sure you will fix things one way or another (kicking and screaming or not!)

 

 

[bobulator]

He says that the waterblock is massively overpriced . its a 1 of 1 and he purchases 1 of 1 servers from protocase for 1500, his screwdriver is 80 bucks for a screwdriver. Tell me about overpriced

[WolframaticAlpha]

6 minutes ago, TimedPing said:

For Lord sake, this thread is getting out of hands

 

I don't care who you sided with in this fiasco, JUST TAKE A LITTLE REFRESHING AIR FOR A MOMENT, PLEASE GUYS I'M BEGGING YOU

Yeeeep. God I hope they don't start fucking up other threads. 

 

Also I am 100% sure that @mods are getting fucking deluged with thread dumping.

[aka473]

1 minute ago, PandaSasquatch said:

By "agreed on compensation" are you referring to this later quote by Linus?

  

 

If so, you are still incorrect. He said that received a quote. From the public into available it is impossible to tell if it was a formal quote, but we do know that Billet Labs sent them an email containing an estimation of it's value. They said as much in their public response on Reddit.

No I am referring to the following line in Linus' original response (which you took out of context btw): 

"we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype"

They said that they agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype, which implies that they both agreed on reimbursement terms before he made that post.

[Vilacom]

1 minute ago, Poagie said:

Dude sold tickets that were 10k to his event. There is definitely people in his audience that would buy an 800 dollar water cooler just in the mere fact it looked cool. They have all kinds of content about stupid over priced items and builds.

Yes there are people who would buy something like this, just like there are people who will spend $50,000 on a purse and $350,000 on a watch.  The performance of those products isn’t why they’re being purchased, its entirely down to status and looks, so the review couldn’t matter less, people with that kind of disposable income are just gonna buy top of the line everything and then make it look how they want it.  

They don’t look at reviews for price and performance, they just want the best of everything. 

[UncleFunkle]

2 minutes ago, NorKris said:

where is the dislike button when we need it

I believe people in this thread are using the laughter reaction for that