Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Kuromario]

9 minutes 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.

It would be nice to have an explanation of how the prototype ended up on the auction table despite the fact that they'd asked for it back. I'm not sure about other members of the community but to me the other things like inaccuracies on your content are things which can easily be fixed going forward however a company's prototype ending up on the auction floor at an event is not a small issue that can be left to "We're paying them for it", both the community and your past and future sponsors deserve a clear explanation of this matter as well as what steps are being taken to prevent this from occurring in the future.

[ToboRobot]

4 minutes 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 think the disappointment by the lack of time and rush hasn't really been addressed (other than process takes time, which I articulated in a separate post).

All of these issues seem to boil down to, "we don't have enough time to do everything right all the time" which is an impossible standard but one to strive for.  As of recent, this has become apparent not only to fellow creators, employees and fans, but the fans know the employees know it's a problem.

[Sarra]

6 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

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.

You're putting out content that some people are going to use for large purchases. If your reviews are inaccurate, then they have much less value.

 

You need to be thorough and accurate, especially in benchmarks.

 

When errors are found, there needs to be an injection of voiceover during post.

 

All that energy, and money, you're pumping into the labs project is going to be for naught if your accuracy isn't there.

 

Start slowing down on the content, and do more checking. Steve raised a lot of valid points, I think you should look internally at processes to improve everything.

[Lyre]

7 minutes 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.

We're not here to jump on LMG, we're here to help you make better content regardless of how it may seem, We wouldn't be here if its not something we cared about, on wan show this weekend you mentioned wanting to make some sort of fact checking squad, weather that is internal or external it is something that I think is good start. - A passionate LTT fan.

[wanderingfool2]

4 minutes 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.

And your justification on quoting a $5000 as being sub $1000 (infinite cables).  For a company that's trying to claim integrity, the lack of care in numbers is telling

[McDude]

9 minutes 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.

This is informative, and unfortunate

[Error 52]

3 minutes ago, bizzehdee said:

 

contacting linus personally, and resolving it quietly. is the exact opposite of "proper journalistic practices", what an absolute narcasistic arrogant buffoon

It is generally considered good practice in journalistic circles to contact someone before you run a story on them.

[graograman]

Thanks for your swift response Linus. Be assured that many of us were also confused about the video and the way Steve handled the big issue of Billet

[R_M_Renfield]

3 minutes ago, bizzehdee said:

 

contacting linus personally, and resolving it quietly. is the exact opposite of "proper journalistic practices", what an absolute narcasistic arrogant buffoon

Steve definitely should have reached out for comment at the least.

[MageTank]

2 hours ago, Cavalry Canuck said:

GN isn’t wrong. But, I feel this is a scenario where the pot is calling the kettle black, and it won’t end well for anyone involved.
 

The example I will lean on is GN’s modmat error, where they had mislabeled pins on their diagrams. I don’t recall if there was a money back option or not. What I do recall is that the one “fix” amounted to little more than a decal. There was no product-replacement option. Sure, it may make the current customer happy, but the mislabeled mats are still out there. At some point down the road someone may look at the mat from GN, a reputable source, and break something.
 

Now, compare that to GNs expectations of LMG over the backpack issue (what was it, carabiner issue?). While GN’s response to their own problems were acceptable (particularly given the costs to fix the error properly for an organization of their size), they weren’t ideal. They certainly didn’t meet the same standard they were holding LMG to.

Not trying to defend LMG, but I think it’s important to have the perspective that no one is innocent in this business. One creator calling out another, whether the intentions are honest or disingenuous, doesn’t mean that they themselves aren’t also in the midst of their own errors.

 

In for the intervention content, though. Would be something to see everyone in the tech community list their grievances with Linus, have him atone for them (or rebuff them), and we go from there with whatever the outcome is. Nothing good will come from the high-profile tech creator feud that this could easily devolve into.

Yeah, I just watched a video from GN last week about a prebuilt PC for $800 from Micro Center. Dude went in on it being a bad design and thermal throttling under Blender, and came to the conclusion that it was a bad gaming PC. Problem is, I saw zero gaming benchmarks in the video about the gaming PC. I consider him knowledgeable, and his methodology was flawless in that video, but he seems to have issues with the scope of his videos.

 

It makes it hard for me to recommend them as a "review channel" when people won't get relevant review information. 

 

This pales in comparison to the scale of issues he pointed out about LMG, but it's still something he himself would have to acknowledge to avoid being hypocritical with his push on ethical testing and scope.

[ZombieMan762]

4 minutes ago, K4shira said:

Wow... now LTT is being acused by a (IMO) very credible channel of theft... stealing a companies prototype is serious and if true I hope that Billet Labs files a police report. The fact that Linus himself said that he would not want to invest a few hundred bucks to fix a serious mistake they made which could potentially ruin Billet Labs is just the icing on the cake.

 

And I fully agree with the declining quality. In the last maybe 6-12 months I have stopped watching most LTT video because it became just too unreliable to be even used for entertainment. I like the videos where they build some insanely stupid thing, but any videos where they even remotely try to be factual... I just can't watch it anymore. Especially when compared to GN or HUB. It really hit me when I found the Daniel Owens tech channel and realized that his one-man show YT channel has more useful, and more accurate information than any recent LTT video.

 

LTT Labs sounds like a great idea, but Linus himself confirm that they are investing money in all the wrong things. Why buy all this fancy expensive new equipment, build this fancy testing chamber for 6 figures but then not be willing to literally invest A FEW HUNDRED BUCKS to fix a big mistake in your testing? I cannot comprehend how these decisions are made.

 

The TMB was the "nail in the coffin" for me regarding the LTT merch store, and not because they didn't offer warranty at first but because if Linus's reaction. And this new GN video puts into words what I've been noticing for the past year... I hope LTT fixes the quality issues, fixes their mentality and methodology. But before that, they need to fix the issue with Billet Labs. They need to return the stolen Prototype and compensate any damages that Billet Labs incurred. 

 

The callousness of the way Linus has handled the entire Billet Labs situation has been TERRIBLE.

 

- Figured out they were using a card the GPU was not designed for

 

- Decides to use wrong card anyways instead of stopping production

 

- Gets data the block was not cooling the card correctly

 

- Published the video trashing the block 

 

- Gets obviously annoyed he was called out on the video

 

- Says it's not worth a couple hundred dollars to retest it

 

- Says none of prior ethical mistakes matter because it's not worth $800 anyways

 

- Doesn't send a prototype part back to the company

 

- Puts Billet Labs behind on development of their product

 

- Uses it for an auction at LTX

[MedievalMatt]

10 minutes 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.

RE: Billet labs.  While auctioning things for charity is good.  In this case specifically I think its just as bad as if you had sold it on for profit.  Allegedly - You received something that wasn't yours legally speaking, and therefore had no rights to sell unless given permission, which you didnt.  Again, Allegedly.  Its still wrong even though the money went to a good cause.

[izan TM]

2 hours ago, Ultraforce said:

Yeah, while I get that this was mentioned because it was the start of attempts at re-examining LMG it felt a bit off since this is an engineer doing a tour and talking about stuff related to their work. I think it's very possible that both LMG doing re-tests for everything and the data they have shown in graphs being copied from previous tests both being true. Tim might have seen the re-test of everything happen and somewhere along the line that data could never end up reaching the final video without the engineer being wrong.

I would like LMG re-testing stuff if it wasn't because as far as I've seen in the GN video, the results for a specific GPU on a specific game changes from one review to the next, meaning they re-test everything but don't cross-check their results with ones done previously to ensure everything is working well

[LinusTech]

Just now, bizzehdee said:

 

contacting linus personally, and resolving it quietly. is the exact opposite of "proper journalistic practices", what an absolute narcasistic arrogant buffoon

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.... 

[Neroon]

Just watched the whole video, pausing a view times to exchange messaged with Linus on a different, but honestly similar subject (check page 28 where Linus responded multiple times to my comments)

 

First of all, I don't really care if Steve and Linus are on good terms or not, I get this matters if you are looking for the drama aspect, but I don't.

Now there were definitely a few points in the video, where some eyebrows can be raised, whether it be the cooling block, quality control, test results and things like that, but I think the handling of the mouse was the most obvious one.

 

I understand how that video came to be, if there were no pull tabs, I can absolutely understand they missed it, and I don't believe they should be blamed for that. I can understand if this had impacted the video a bit, and they were not willing to remove it, that they would choose to add some notes to the video.

But in this case it completely changes the video. It would be like testing a monitor with a bad cable, or a videocard while giving it insufficient power.
Yes, there should have been a clear indicator to remove the plastic, but the experience is pretty much a complete 180.

I get it really, really sucks to reshoot the video, but that's the nature of the game. As a company you want to receive these brand new products, and you will encounter faulty stuff, whether that be because they are pre-production, or simple an oversight.
 

I also believe that common sense is key here, whether that be from test results, or a company making very wild claims that aren't close to being met, you have to assume something is wrong, no matter what the cause is.

They need to demand higher quality from themselves, and personally I rather see them cut a few videos per week, to improve on quality, then to see them become unreliable.

 

[eNcrypt65]

@LinusTechWhat in the actual F is that 'statement'. If you wanted to make it worse, you may as well just have gone nuclear instead of this half-assed nothing burger

[post_screen]

Linus talking about pitch-forks being out so fast seems like he is reading into this a bit wrong. I personally don't want to shout for the sake of pointing the finger at Linus and calling for the cancelation of LMG. I admire Linus and Yvone and everyone else in that company and really want them to succeed. And that is exactly why I jumped on the forum the moment I saw GN's video. I want to point out the things that I think they could and should do better. I know that my opinion doesn't mean anything, but the opinion of the community does, and it HAS to be heard

[Viesulis]

5 minutes ago, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

I hate to break it to you, but all tech journalism has plenty of factual errors, especially those that go for the video format. To avoid falling into the what-aboutism category, let me just say that as someone who works in related industries, GN has plenty of bad takes as well, the difference being that they're not nearly as good about going "my bad". LTT doesn't get needlessly defensive over the fact that they make errors, and they often include the bad takes in videos with corrections, which I appreciate because it does tend to show the initial genuine reaction - something which is useful for myself as someone that's tangentially related with product design on various occasions. This is far more useful than a boring line that might get missed from my point of view.

 

I would imagine it's actually more than 500 USD, having an actual person with some training and a college/university degree work in a building tends to cost around $90-100 an hour. So you need someone doing the work, someone on the camera, someone doing sound, and preferably some sort of director present, so the shoot alone would probably end up costing around $2000, if you then need to manufacture a new mounting bracket, etc. you could easily lose an entire day and now you're looking at somewhere around $4000 to $5000. It also doesn't account for the fact that you might have a deal with sponsors that require the video to come out on a certain date, availability of working and recording spaces, etc.; which is to say that I understand not wanting to do another take. But it's indicative of general communication problems between billet labs and LTT, which compounds further with the block being sold at auction. The real question is how they respond after the screw up becomes known. I experienced this type of communication breakdown at both small start-ups and multi-billion dollar corporations, so I can totally see it happening at LTT as well.

 

Accuracy of information is actually my main grievance with Gamers Nexus. Every time they dove into electronics manufacturing I just cringed and wanted to start bashing my head on my desk to make it stop.

 

Asking the manufacturer for input when you have unexpected results is quite desirable when dealing with complex and new products, it's quite possible a single setting could make all the difference in the world. I just wish this would be done consistently across all products if unexpected results pop up.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the recent increase in error rate is caused by the large volume intake of new employees.

What breakdown of communication? LMG said they would return it in June, and proceeded to sell it a month later. This is entirely on LMG.

[McDude]

Just now, 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.... 

Exactly, every time a story breaks you hear "we reach X evil / not evil company for a comment, but we have yet to hear back" or something similar.

[Kuromario]

10 minutes 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.

An outlier issue that could have wasted years of a team's hard work and dedication. Yes it did only happen once in ten years, but now that it has it is clear that more steps need to be taken than "tightening up some documentation."

How did the person responsible for maintaining communication with Billet not keep track of this, how did they allow the product to be stored in an area with other products that aren't being returned to their producers, why was it not labeled as "to be returned to sponsor" or similar?

[Display_Name]

23 minutes 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.

Thanks for the quick response as always but I'm not sure that the message of the video is fully explained here (I hope you didn't just read the comments, jk :D)

 

What I would really like to know is why data driven content doesn't get the time to add the seemingly required polish given it's a pain point raised by many of the LMG Team and are there any plans to address this from a production standpoint?

Edited August 14, 2023 by Display_Name
typo

[Moortu]

5 minutes ago, xzvf said:

Fair enough. I do respect the quick reply, and the willingness to fix damage caused to other parties.
 

 

On a lighter note: This week’s WAN show will likely be a spicy one

He said there wont be a segment on this

[GotWeez]

Just now, 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.... 

Perhaps he feels you've grown unreachable and needed a good OP metaphorical shake back to reality.

[SW_Rose]

This video has brought to light a lot of the issues with LTT, and the problems facing the company recently.

 

Regardless of what your stance on the video is, it's undeniable that LMG did some awful things to Billet labs, and not only do they deserve an apology for what happened to them. Selling a prototype piece of hardware in an auction is one thing. But the company made it clear they needed it back, and in doing so LMG may have entirely screwed a smaller company, after they already spoke poorly of them in a previous video. The auctioning of the prototype was just a swift kick to balls, after a cruel and unusual slap to the face and it's one that not only should Linus apologise for, he should also be doing everything in his power to personally recify if he has any semblance of integrity. This doesn't just reflect poorly on LMG, it reflects poorly on his management of the company and the company culture that something like this could even happen in the first place.

 

Although on the note of the video I would like to point out that Steve has a point about LMGs bias towards sponsors and companies they have a good working relationship with. In the past Linus has been openly critical of sponsors that have decreased the quality of their products or have had major changes in management that shifted the reliability of the company. In the past LMG has dropped sponsorships with Tunnel Bear and Cheero all because of their new management and drops in quality. Likewise in the past LMG has made the impression that they listen to the community and are quick to call out anti-consumer practices in the tech space. Or being critical of poor customer support provided by companies who they've previously spoken well of.

 

But that seems to go out the window when Asus is the one on the chopping block. In the recent customer support video, Asus gave some truly awful tech support, yet Linus still ranked them highly despite the fact the actor calling them had to outright give them the solution. Asus should have gotten an automatic fail, but again they were highly ranked and Linus spoke decently of them. In the thread made by Plouffe discussing customer support issues people have had, many people have pointed out bad experiences with Asus customer support, myself included, and yet as far as I'm aware, none of this has been mentioned in a follow up. Likewise in that same thread, many other people mentioned having Asus products fail spectacularly, again myself included. But nothing has ever come out of this, nor has Linus giving a follow up really addressing the concerns or the bad experiences people have had with the company.

 

I'm not suggesting Linus go out of his way to burn bridges or anything by insulting the company. But the fact that Linus and LMG in general have kept Asus as a sponsor despite people having major issues with their quality control recently feels a little disengenuous. I get that they're sponsoring LTX, but after the fiasco with Asus motherboards and Ryzen 7000X3D chips, I feel like LMG should have at least mentioned it and been openly critical of Asus for letting an issue like that happen. Rather than just keeping them as a sponsor and entirely dancing around the dead CPU shaped elephant in the room

 

[bizzehdee]

2 minutes ago, Error 52 said:

It is generally considered good practice in journalistic circles to contact someone before you run a story on them.

Not that ive found, or seen in general when i was in that world, or when ive had stories written about companies that ive worked with/for... If you are writing a story about someone/something, if you already have all the information, the most you would do is ask for comment... but youtube has a comment system built in, Linus has the option of making a video to produce a reply to all of this... but hes chosen instead to claim that he is right, and everyone else is wrong