Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[miagisan]

Just now, eece_ret said:

Very different on so many levels.  The whole reason you have secret shopper is to preclude teh vendor from gaming their response in providing service.  If Dell knows its LTT or GN, they may (will) treat that order than Jo Schmo or so goes the premise.  The Secret shopper experience here would be Steve posing as a startup, sendin LMG a unit for review and then waiting to see if it gets auctioned.  If Linus knows its Steve, that surely wont happen.  The test and teh story is if the inverse holds true.

 

Steve is purporting to be performing Journalism, and reporting a story.  Journalists usually reach out for comment prior to publication when the story contains inflammatory material pertaining to teh person or organization the story is about.  To look at it in your context is trying to have it both ways at least in my opinion.

 

And yet Linus's videos are all out in the open for anyone to criticize.   It is no different.  His videos have gone down hill, and I think he is trying to push too much out.   What if you or I called out the errors in his videos, should we be obliged to contact LMG first? No.   We do not have too.  

[LinusAuctionTips]

1 minute ago, eece_ret said:

Very different on so many levels.  The whole reason you have secret shopper is to preclude teh vendor from gaming their response in providing service.  If Dell knows its LTT or GN, they may (will) treat that order than Jo Schmo or so goes the premise.  The Secret shopper experience here would be Steve posing as a startup, sendin LMG a unit for review and then waiting to see if it gets auctioned.  If Linus knows its Steve, that surely wont happen.  The test and teh story is if the inverse holds true.

 

Steve is purporting to be performing Journalism, and reporting a story.  Journalists usually reach out for comment prior to publication when the story contains inflammatory material pertaining to teh person or organization the story is about.  To look at it in your context is trying to have it both ways at least in my opinion.

 

And Linus' reaction shows that his honesty is questionable at best. Who is to say that if Steve reached out that Linus wouldn't just lie through his teeth. I mean, he already manipulated the facts in his public response.

[Saeumii]

30 minutes ago, ddpp said:

What’s bad faith about believing the man is a scumbag when he consistently acts like one?

claiming he's "anti-union" when he's only said that a healthy company shouldn't need a union, and "spams" ads in your face when every video only has two [unless you're talking about youtube ads... i have premium so i can't speak for that]

[ZombieMan762]

6 minutes ago, e22big said:

He didn't try to sell you his desk or his pool cooling system though.

 

Billet planned to sell you their product. And obviously, that price is a major consideration in that factor. A waterblock that cost 800, fit only on just that one GPU, and require a process so complex that it even an entire team of system integrators and engineers manage to mess up after spending days working on - isn't objectively a good product, at the very least. 

 

Should it be giving a fair chance? Yes, that I am completely agree with. But I do get Linus PoV why this might not have worth anyone time.

 

He sold that to you by making money off the video...

[RandomDude843]

So a friend of mine is asking me if he should mix rams

 

He came to me as I work in IT and I explained to him that it should work but its not recommended. To give him more info, I was tempted to send the a video from LTT but i hesitated to press send after pasting the link. This issue would surely affect how people see LMG. A public apology from the CEO would be nice but as others have pointed out, i am not a shareholder so they are free to do as they please. I’ll refrain from sharing or watching their videos in the meantime.

[bobbybobjoebob]

1 minute ago, Wyllio said:

I keep seeing this same false fallacy argument pass around so often. Neither LMG is entitled to a private discussion nor is GN required to contact LMG before making a public ethical complaint based on LMG's public video. If the case had been GN found a backdoor to LMG's servers and publicly announced the exploit without informing LMG, then that would be a valid argument for needing private discussion. Speaking privately about mistakes and misrepresented information on a live, public video would be a voluntary courtesy. This could have happened except for Linus ranted and clearly implied GN and HUB on the WAN more than once; burning bridges on his own accord. Making this argument that GN should have spoken to Linus privately beforehand would be equivalent to a company requiring me to message them before putting up a bad review for a faulty product. 

I think you missed my point. Also I wouldn't call this a fallacy (also, "false fallacy" is redundant). My point was that they've had some form of professional and/or personal relationship in the past. This is different than Steve calling out, idk, some 100-employee company that he's never had any personal interactions with. I agree that LMG has definitely contributed to souring the relationship, but I still believe that someone should be reached out to first. If they don't respond, then air out the dirty laundry and say "they didn't respond to our request for comment". Personally, I just can't imagine doing this to someone I personally know without speaking to them first. Of course, maybe this is why I'm not a journalist

[mikaelus]

12 minutes ago, Silviecat44 said:

Except if they are a $100m+ corporation

Now now now, here's a good opportunity to educate people. Just because someone OFFERED Linus $100 million doesn't mean he has $100 million, especially as:

A. He didn't take the deal.

B. It was part equity, not all cash.

 

As far as I remember Linus took on debt to finance Labs etc. So it's not like the business is sitting on millions of dollars. It might be WORTH millions of dollars, but that's not the same thing.

 

Of course the fact he didn't want to spend a few hundred bucks to improve a product review on a video that makes thousands of dollars for the company is ludicrous.

[Inwards]

55 minutes ago, mobriskie said:

Yes...   

 

I think people are reading way too much into this statement and newcomers don't have the context of the timelines involved.  Here's how I read it:

 

"What Labs is doing is doing completely news tests, with new data, every time for every piece of hardware that comes through here."  Now remember that the Labs is VERY new and still a work in progress.  Hell, they didn't even have a working building to run any tests out of until recently.  The vast majority of the hardware reviews on LTT's channel pre-date Labs, and even once Labs was running, I doubt that every product was going through there.  The claim made in this video is broad, but it's unclear that's their current best practice or the goal.  Watch the rest of the clip.  Most of the stuff they're showing there is still WIP.

 

I understand why Nexus has a burr up their behinds when there are errors in some LTT videos that belie the claim that can interpreted to be made in this video. They chose to interpret it in the least charitable way possible.  I saw an engineer who is proud of his work and his mission (actually, I think I saw two of them).  I don't believe that he was taking a shot at Nexus and Unboxed.  (This is probably why he's in the lab on not a regular in the script room or on camera) Nexus, who are already unhappy with LTT saw that as the proverbial straw.

 

I don't think there are any bad actors here, only bad tempers.  I do think Linus' heart is in the right place, but as he tries to scale, he is learning that Price's Law is an unforgiving b*tch.  And good processes can only go so far towards substituting for good people.

LTT's deadlines aren't self-imposed, they're embargo and algorithm-imposed.  Nexus knows this and it's disingenuous to call it LTT out for the real time pressures.  That's no excuse for getting it wrong, as both sides seem to agree.  But it happens.

Linus and Steve are both smart people.  I don't know either of them, but Linus' public personality stresses ethics.  In business, the bigger you get more those ethics are tested, daily.  As far as I can tell, Linus tries to do right by his company.  Sometimes he fails.  Sometimes the company fails.  But if he walks the same walk personally and professionally as his public personality, these issues will disappear like a wind in a grass.   Consistency in honesty and integrity - particularly when it's difficult - have a way making up for gaffes, bad takes, mis-communications and poor choices made in the moment.  

 

I think Linus will weather this one fine.  And I hope Steve does as well.

 

And of course Linus isn't going to talk about this on the WAN show.  What he understands is that this isn't a courtroom drama, it's a PR issue.  And once it's PR, the facts don't matter anymore.  No amount of explaining (seen as 'excusing'), apologizing ('he doesn't really mean it'), publicly trying to make good ('he's only trying to save his image') is going to help.

[AlTech]

Just now, mikaelus said:

And when did I say he didn't in reference to these points? I agree with those. What I do not agree is with peddling accusations that are not backed by fact - like suggesting LMG was in some conflict of interest with ASUS because it was their sponsor at LTX or one ex-ASUS guy works for the company now. The same goes for Framework, which Linus has always been clear about.

The appearance of a potential conflict of interest is sufficient to cause doubts about the propriety of the relationship between Linus, Framework, Asus, and LMG.

Just now, mikaelus said:

So, no, Steve had zero basis for these allegations. This is where he went rogue and personal.

No, he reported conflicts of interest that LMG has either not considered or ignored.

Just now, mikaelus said:

I find it funny that people can be so invested in defending one side without noticing the hypocrisy of the other. Dude, these are just some Youtubers you don't even know. Take a chill pill.

Is anything I have said wrong?

[e22big]

2 minutes ago, coopa said:

It is only designed to fit one specific GPU.
It is very expensive.

Do you know what key fact you missed in the above?
LMG DID NOT INSTALL THE MONOBLOCK ON THE GPU IT WAS DESIGNED TO FIT.

It'd be like buying an engine part for my Ford Explorer and complaining that it performs like shit on my Ford Fiesta.

 

LMG cannot seriously entertain that the review is fair at all when the monoblock was designed to make extremely close contact with the GPU of a 3090 Ti and despite the manufacturer telling them it was designed to fit a 4090, to test on that and dismiss the performance of the product.
 
If LMG considered a GPU specific monoblock so ridiculous as to be impractical or not worth reviewing - they could have instead refused to review it.

Instead they reviewed it, installed it on a part it was never intended to fit, said it wasn't worth buying, and then doubled down on the invalid results when people pointed out the monoblock was never intended to work with a 4090.

That's bad review practice, and it erodes trust in what LMG is presenting as reputable benchmark results as they tout how wonderful the labs are.

 

That I agree, they should at least have not released it, if they decided the re-testing wouldn't have worth everyone time. Publish it anyway for a laugh but didn't bother to work on it properly just isn't fair to the manufacturer. 

[Shadess]

Generally speaking I like LMG content, but seems to me the issues GN raised were largely valid.

Slightly disappointed in the answer here Linus.

[bobbybobjoebob]

7 minutes ago, Silviecat44 said:

Except if they are a $100m+ corporation

I'm curious, how'd you arrive at that number? Not attacking- genuinely curious

[Why_Me]

btw have to love the review on the mouse where the reviewer didn't have the brain capacity to notice the mouse was covered in plastic yet gave it a crappy review anyways.  It's like asking a Canadian Burger King employee if they want a job at LMG working as a tech reviewer.

[LinusAuctionTips]

Just now, e22big said:

 

That I agree, they should at least have not released it, if they decided the re-testing wouldn't have worth everyone time. Publish it anyway for a laugh but didn't bother to work on it properly just isn't fair to the manufacturer. 

Definitely not fair to billet labs, but retesting is just to expensive ;).

[Guest]

Just now, Why_Me said:

It's like asking a Canadian Burger King employee if they want a job at LMG working as a tech reviewer.

The pay is similar, so how much more can we expect?

[Entersprite]

I was a long-time follower of Linus since NCIX and even a Floatplane subscriber. I'm honestly disappointed and not because of most people. I have watched the Billet Labs video and his reactions to the comments and I think he has all the rights to have his own opinion about a product. He didn't like it, he stated that even if it would be thermally superior compared to other watercooling solutions, it would be still impractical and expensive. I don't agree with this, but I saw no controversy there. The auction fiasco was also something that could have happened by mistake, even though you gotta admit it's somewhat funny they've put something on an auction they recommended "not to buy". My trust and respect was lost when he posted his response to this forum and how he handled Steve's criticism. He messed up big time, didn't apologized nor reacted properly to the mistakes and points Steve has highlighted, deflected the blame on others, ignored his employees feedback and the fact that he reached out to Billet Labs only after GN's video went live is just the cherry on top. He is clearly aware of the weight of the situation, but instead of being grounded he is acting like a corpo he "swore to destroy". The "minimum" after this would be a separate video addressing this topic and providing guarantees that the mentioned issues will be resolved.

[Saeumii]

8 minutes ago, ColonelSupremePizza said:

Dude, you are beyond wrong here. They KNEW they couldn't sell it, AGREED to send it back, and still SOLD it regardless. An auction sale is still a sale. They knew it wasn't theirs to sell and sold it anyways despite assuring them they'd send it back. That's some top tier shitty behavior.

 

They also absolutely did screw them over by selling the best prototype a small start up has instead of doing what they promised which was send it back.

 

Those are facts. Linus and LMG screwed them over, plain and simple. They only addressed it AFTER this blew up. Stop defending obvious shitty decisions, management, and utter lack of responsibility by Linus.

 

These are literal facts. It has nothing to do with being a hater. If you equate mentioning facts as being a hater, you're too blind to see that this whole thing is FUBAR and has no winning on Linus' part.

you are assuming everyone involved in the process knew what it was, its importance, and lmg's agreement with billet labs. again, incompetence isn't great either, but claiming malice when there's more reasonable explanations is disingenuous

[gottahavit]

2 hours ago, andreimj said:

 

 

There you go. Linus explained why this product can never be a solution to cooling, but everyone is ignoring this. The difference between me and you is that I don't need a reviewer to tell me what to think. You people are just regurgitating other people's opinions. The design is not only mediocre at best but also wastful (milling a block of high purity copper) but also 800$ (reduced from 900 btw)

Then he should never have agreed to test it at all, OR he should have done it right. and he definitely shouldn't have "auctioned" it off.  If he had done the review right then he could have put the proper numbers out and justified his opinion.  "Why should I actually test the RTX 4060, it's 299, it's the cheapest nvidia GPU and we all know nvidia are the best... just buy it, it's great"

[plume]

Just now, bobbybobjoebob said:

I'm curious, how'd you arrive at that number? Not attacking- genuinely curious

someone offered Linus that much for the company. 

[throwawayManMode]

Is there any chance that Linus isn't allowed to attend the WAN show this week and instead, Luke and the CEO Terren address the situation? or Luke and Yvonne, or ANYONE besides Linus?

[RadiatingLight]

Just now, bobbybobjoebob said:

I'm curious, how'd you arrive at that number? Not attacking- genuinely curious

They were offered 100 Million dollars as an acquisition offer, therefore the company is worth $100 million.

[Amaninacity]

17 minutes ago, infinitytec said:

Yes, but unfortunately it looks like Linus took this as an attack rather than a learning experience. There is still time for him to make things right though.

I mean, that’s because it was clearly intended to be an attack. A high percentage of the specific points were more or less accurate, but it was a hit job top to bottom. Whether because Steve really is pissed off about the subject or he’s letting personal beef of some sort make him feel more pissed than he otherwise might, the clear intention of this video was to aggressively attack.

[infinitytec]

2 minutes ago, bobbybobjoebob said:

I'm curious, how'd you arrive at that number? Not attacking- genuinely curious

In a video Linus mentioned being offered this for the company. IIRC it was the CEO announcement video.

[mikaelus]

Just now, AlTech said:

No, he reported conflicts of interest that LMG has either not considered or ignored.

Only he didn't. First of all, LTT and Linus himself have always fully acknowledged his investment in Framework. And the idea that LMG is in bed with ASUS for some reason is completely unsubstantiated. On the basis of Steve's line of thinking nobody who took any sponsorship from any tech company should review its products or is in a potential "conflict of interest" with it.

 

It's ridiculous. This is where he broke his own rules about focusing on facts and evidence. 

 

You do realize it's possible for people to be right about something and wrong about something else, right?

[nightryder21]

2 minutes ago, bobbybobjoebob said:

I think you missed my point. Also I wouldn't call this a fallacy (also, "false fallacy" is redundant). My point was that they've had some form of professional and/or personal relationship in the past. This is different than Steve calling out, idk, some 100-employee company that he's never had any personal interactions with. I agree that LMG has definitely contributed to souring the relationship, but I still believe that someone should be reached out to first. If they don't respond, then air out the dirty laundry and say "they didn't respond to our request for comment". Personally, I just can't imagine doing this to someone I personally know without speaking to them first. Of course, maybe this is why I'm not a journalist

There was nothing to reach out for. Linus already commented and gave his view point the Billet Labs debacle. Test errors and such are just reporting facts and comments by himself and other employees already are the statements.