Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[poobie]

14 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

Thanks for reading this.

you meeting issues head on would maybe not frequently have you doubling down aggressively on the wan show before you actually had to meet them head on ngl

[mirai99]

2 hours ago, manikyath said:

 

yes.. LMG makes a lot of mistakes, too many mistakes.. but saying that a "100 million dollar company" should not do this, is just factually inaccurate. that cash does not exist at LMG, and steve knows this. why make this argument if not to purposefully make LMG seem evil, rather than just careless.

 

 

When Apple does something, everybody says "triilion dollar company", but Apple does not have a trillion dolars cash, it is valued at 2.81 trillion, same as LMG was valued at 100M by somebody wanting to buy it. This is what that means.

And you could say LMG is just careless if not for Canada Day WAN show, when Linus admitted he preferes $500 savings to having a video that is factually correct and not dumping on a startup with f'd up pseudo-test.

[eNcrypt65]

3 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

You need to slow down and think.... 

Ironic

[RasmusDC]

This response seems to be pure "spew" of non value adding dialogue. 

 

but maybe that is just me, this whole LAB development farce of LTT, the EXTREME amount of inaccuracies, and these giant plans of what you want to be..

 

at some point this company needs to grow up, that is REALLY needed. it is EXPENSIVE to be BIG because small mistakes can have big impact..

and what is worse, is suddenly you word has weight, especially if you hide behind bogus statements are about lab setups and high level of competence. 

 

I still hate the statement of charity as part of the defense for selling off other people property.. but it is what it is.

 

hopefully this light will be stronger and stronger.. maybe the next youtube warrior, could actual create a rating engine, that can begin to actually measure, who is MOST wrong of the youtube channels, so we have a "LAB" figure on who to trust  

[RotoCoreOne]

3 hours ago, hassam222 said:

The part where it is alleged LTT auctioned off a prototype water block they promised to return is troubling. That requires an official response.

I dont recall seeing the waterblock at their charity auction at ltx but maybe i missed it :/

[McDude]

1 minute ago, Moortu said:

He said there wont be a segment on this

It's Monday, give it some time. Of course there will be.

[Deeppurp]

7 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

This is a brain dead take.

It is standard practice to reach out to the company for a comment or statement on an article published about them. GN even normally follows this practice.

 

IT IS WHY Linus called them out for it. If LTT refused or gave a BS statement, GN likely would have put it in the video and criticized it as such as they have in the past.

 

They didn't though, GN just blasted it out.

[Harlem_Shaker]

5 minutes ago, Alan999 said:

I watch pretty much every video uploaded by GN and LMG. GN is mostly for reviews and LMG is mostly for entertainment. There is plenty of crossover with news etc. but that's the main categories, for me anyway.

My (totally parasocial) take is that Linus and Steve's relationship fully broke down during their public dispute over 3070ti pricing a few years back. I'm sure the subsequent ramping up of the LTT lab and such things as the PSU tester didn't help the relationship either.

During the "trust me bro" debacle, Steve announced he had decided to review LMG content and products differently and hold them to a higher standard. I'm not sure what the threshold was, earnings, employees or maybe a gut feeling, but it was certainly self-imposed by Steve.

Just to be clear, I feel Linus handled "trust me bro" terribly. To this day, he suggests that even those who didn't know him or the company were basically stupid if they couldn't deduce they were covered. I don't know if it's manipulation or if he genuinely believes it, either way it was handled very badly.

I also believe GN's handling of their recent recall was bad. It was more of a pat on the back and showcase on how well they handled it rather than cold hard facts. Ironic when you think how much Steve hates other companies marketing. The whole video didn't even make it clear if a refund was available. Sticker and a pin? I also think an incorrect wiring diagram can potentially do a lot more damage than a faulty zip puller. I can't find the video now either, has it been pulled?

Anyway, there are many valid points made in the video. Also, some very serious allegations (Billet Labs) that will need to be addressed and (unlike many others here) I'll decide after hearing the other side of the story. Unfortunately, there is also plenty of supposition from Steve. Assumptions about sponsor relationships and employee ties to previous companies. Company valuations etc. that are not offered for any other YT channel reviews. In fact, GN don't review other channels or more accurately; they don't review competitors at all, except for LMG.

I also really hate the way Steve cuts in the reactions of Luke. This was done during "trust me bro" too... "you can see Luke agrees". How does he know what he's thinking, it's pretty poor journalism and seems like petty playground behaviour. I think Steve's bias is showing and there is far more opinion, speculation, and sensationism than any previous topic they have covered.

 

 

Yeah.  I watched the whole Gamer's Nexus video this afternoon.  I completely agree that there are some fair criticisms.  Billet Labs being the most egregious.  And I wouldn't be surprised if Linus did not even know about it before this video came out today.  I fully believe he will try to make that right.

All of that said, your point about the editing is spot on.  This was personal by Steve, even if there were fair criticisms.

[Alan G]

I just finished watching the Gamers Nexus video and found the presentation well thought out and troubling for LTT.  I spent my working career in the pharma industry and am well acquainted with problems regarding bad or misleading data.  The fact that obvious discrepancies can find their way into posted videos speaks to very poor quality control.  I am not a consumer of much of what LMG posts to YouTube, pretty much just relying on the forums for answers to technical questions and also providing assistance where I might be able to. 

 

Bottom line - spend some time on quality control and review; slow down and your work product will be better.

[Timoran Synkral]

3 minutes ago, Moortu said:

He said there wont be a segment on this

Looking forward to Linus closing out of both Twitch and FP chats to avoid the callouts

[ToboRobot]

Also I think not having a big WAN show segment on this is a big error.  This is the value of WAN.  It's your weekly connection with your people.

 

Own it, accept it, and deal with it live on air.  If you are real, you will know with your merch dashboard.

 

Personally, I'd bring on Steve from GN and go over it.  Not point by point, but have a friendly discussion.  Talk about the challenges, and what you are doing about it. 

 

[DeerDK]

2 minutes ago, GotWeez said:

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

Irrelevant in terms of journalistic integrety. You reach out for a comment before you run a piece like this. Otherwise its an attack more than reporting. Reporting is about bringing the fullest picture 

[Blademaster91]

57 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Tiptoeing, being careful how to present his data and word his critique against LTT or products highly endorsed by LTT.

If Steve was anywhere, before this, to go "LTT is completely wrong", there would have been huge backslash from the LTT fanboys, the biggest tech channel that mainly goes for the entertainment and so caters less media literate people who have hard time understanding that their messiah/idol/bro Linus would lie to them.

 

Like you remember when the today sports drink seller and boxer cracked jokes about people who had ended their lives while walking around a forest where many people go to end their lives?

Before the main media started to call him asshole for it, a lot of his fans went completely frenzy against YT channels and people calling that guy an asshole and demanding shift response from YouTube. That's how, kind of, "retarded" people can be and why GN has needed to word his critique carefully. Like there is probably a ton of people right now writing how "evil" and "wrong" GN is for publishing that video and we can probably see from socialblade or somewhere how many of those people are unsubbing GN for calling Linus out. Like this forum taking mainly the more mature stand and even joining calling Linus out isn't something exceptional, but go and look at Twitter and YT and you can find those who are calling GN out for dirtying LTT.

Yeah I agree, GN can't be go too hard on this because of the fanboys, although since Linus technically isn't the CEO anymore, GN probably wants to avoid any legal issues as well, I'm not a legal professional or expert at all, though the video may be enough for LMG to sue GN for going after their brand if the CEO wanted to.

45 minutes ago, Cavalry Canuck said:

Linus has always been a bit of a prick. I remember they were reviewing some MSI z79 or z89 board and Linus told “Slick” off in a rather rude manner. E  Even left it in the video. I’m sure that’s never changed behind the scenes, but that’s also why I said the channel lost its soul when Luke went to do Floatplane. It’s Linus’ name on it, but it was Luke’s personality that made it.

 

I’m not saying is solution was bad. When he was first outlining it, one of the thoughts going through my head was that it was probably the best that he could afford. But that doesn’t mean it meets the same standard I feel he layed out for Linus. I think it’s hypocritical, even if the alternative was impractical.

Might screw LMG too, in the long run. What Corp, in their right mind, is going to send their products to LMG Willy Nilly after this? Things are going to be a lot more locked down and structured so far as product samples go. 

I have to wonder if Luke is even going to stay around with Floatplane, i've noticed that Luke disagreed with Linus on the whole backpack thing, and you can see the disappointment or disagreement on his face when Linus has an objectively bad take, but sometimes Luke doesn't speak up about it. I miss Luke's videos, he had a more genuine personality in videos, while Linus seems to do fake excitement for the camera while seeming to be too scripted like he's reading off marketing material.

 

I think GN is holding Linus to a higher standard, and IMO that is justified given the size of LMG as a company and how much influence they have on everyone else in the tech youtube community.

 

This whole thing probably won't affect LMG that much, Linus will probably put out an apology, and maybe compensate the startup company for the water block, I doubt much more will happen other than that.

[IndustrialBananaBread]

18 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.

Made an account to make this post. Honestly, the entire defense about inaccuracies seems to boil down to "we're not perfect", which frankly isn't good enough for a company that was offered to be bought out for a hundred million dollars.

[FadedSpark]

2 minutes 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.... 

I'm sorry but there is a side, and it's your community's side. Built at first by you and slowly but surely has become larger than I'm sure you ever dared hope it would be.

 

And you should feel pride in that, but also disappointment that you've let company values slip in favor of whatever it is you've let them slip for.

 

It's (in my opinion) one of the following:

 

A crushing self imposed expectation to put out more and more content, at the sacrifice of quality.

 

An overly broad vision of what is happening aka not seeing the forest for the trees,

 

Or, money.

 

I don't think it's malicious, but it is a problem.

[bizzehdee]

3 minutes 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.... 

Their story was about the videos, the videos are already out in the wild, the information is already out there... they did a piece on the videos, videos that are still online... They have no duty to ask you for your comments, they have no duty to ask for you to influence their findings, they have no duty to you at all... At best, they could have asked you to provide comments on what they were going to report, and they would then be able to choose to publish those responses or not. But, youtube, as the ability built in for you to provide comment on their reporting.

 

Either way, the Linus "im right, everyone else is wrong" attitude, isnt going to help make LTT, or Labs, more accurate. The common thread to all the problems here is you. I like LTT, i like you, but you are coming across as the type of person who wont accept that they are falable and are completely incapable of admitting to your mistakes.

 

You have a choice, be a genuinely trusted media outlet for tech... Or be the "Top Gear" of tech and just be a bunch of clowns who make funny videos tangentially related to tech.

[VinLAURiA]

12 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.

Is it possible to contact the winner of that auction and ask for it back to return to Billet, while fully reimbursing the buyer for what they paid? I think making an effort to actually procure and return the prototype on top of compensating Billet for what they asked for would be a major show of good faith.

[BakerT]

I find it a bit weird that a lot of people take Steve's word as absolute truth here. Some valid points yes, but a competitor that says "I have to do my journalistic duty" and people then believe every word also seems biased.

[LTTinthegravetonight]

5 minutes ago, Moortu said:

He said there wont be a segment on this

Just gonna try to bury it, ay? Smart. Cannot wait for it to backfire.

[Ex14]

4 minutes ago, Viesulis said:

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.

He meant breakdown of comms within LMG I.e. this card being earmarked for auction when it wasn’t meant to be due to miscommunication

5 minutes ago, post_screen said:

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

Idk about you but there’s definitely a fair amount of pitch forks without even waiting for any real explanation. I mentioned it o. Reddit but we really shouldn’t be blindly following any single person nor entity.

[Paul Thexton]

11 minutes ago, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

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.

Tbh I was thinking about performance data with that statement, I can’t say I’ve seen (or at least noticed) video sections where they’ve talked about manufacturing processes but thanks for the heads up in that regard.

 

 I’m not a hardware/electronics expert myself but I can sympathise with that reaction when it comes to people talking about software engineering.

[Alex T88]

3 minutes ago, bizzehdee said:

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...

Agreed, if you have ALL the information. There are 2 sides on GN's take, the bad info in the reviews, which is clear as daylight and the Billet Labs aspect. I think he should have contacted LMG on that matter. Especially when you imply that illegalities might have been committed. It is one thing to botch a review for a gpu, for example and a whole different cup of tea, to imply possible theft and who know what other illegalities.

[LinusAuctionTips]

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.

Steve doesn’t owe you anything. Implying that this is unfair or not journalistically proper because he didn’t contact you before publishing an expose is absurd. If they wanted your take, they should have reached out after publication. You own a large company, and people rely on the information you provide. Sometimes that means you will get taken to task publicly for a screw up. Stop whining, show some integrity and just admit you f-ed up and need to do better. End of story.

Edited August 14, 2023 by insanityclown

[K4shira]

8 minutes ago, SW_Rose said:

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.

This exactly. The fact that stealing a prototype, hopefully unintentionally, can even happen in such a way... in addition to the seriously botched review and the unwillingness to rectify it just shows that the company ethics are non-existent. And Linus has proven with his own statements (TMB/Billet re-testing/etc) that he has no ethics, therefore it makes sense that LTT as a company exhibits the same issues.

[Lyre]

2 minutes ago, ToboRobot said:

Also I think not having a big WAN show segment on this is a big error.  This is the value of WAN.  It's your weekly connection with your people.

 

Own it, accept it, and deal with it live on air.  If you are real, you will know with your merch dashboard.

 

Personally, I'd bring on Steve from GN and go over it.  Not point by point, but have a friendly discussion.  Talk about the challenges, and what you are doing about it. 

 

Not talking about it on WAN while probably not intended to be (Seeing the breadth of Linus Comment) might be bad optics, maybe it will be seen as sweeping it under the rug.