Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[LinusAuctionTips]

Just now, mikaelus said:

Was it baseless?

maybe, maybe not. But the appearance of impropriety is not unfounded.

[throwawayManMode]

1 minute ago, Rimson said:

201 pages of comments, this isn't dying down isn't it
Linus should do a mea culpa, and apologise to us and to Steve and hardware unboxed.
He should learn some  humility ...

Sadly we all know he is too stubborn to do this.

If he doesn't make this right during the WAN show then this thread is going to get a whole lot longer...

[mikaelus]

2 minutes ago, Rimson said:

201 pages of comments, this isn't dying down isn't it
Linus should do a mea culpa, and apologise to us and to Steve and hardware unboxed.
He should learn some  humility ...

Sadly we all know he is too stubborn to do this.

Too late for that. He had the chance in his first response. Any retractions made now would not look genuine to anybody.

[poochyena]

No new video today, I noticed.

[nightryder21]

1 minute ago, mikaelus said:

I did, the entire gruelling 45 minutes - which was the only video by GN I've ever watched in full because Steve is just mind-numbling boring at times. So, either you can make an argument or you should stop adding to the noise.

Not my job to repeat what what was plainly spelled out. Asus bias are there. GN video presented their evidence. 

[mikaelus]

1 minute ago, LinusAuctionTips said:

maybe, maybe not. But the appearance of impropriety is not unfounded.

It's not in keeping with Steve's self-imposed standards. Either you have evidence or you keep it shut. Otherwise you become a tabloid.

[eece_ret]

25 minutes ago, LinusAuctionTips said:

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.

Thats easy.  If the stories between the two parties dont match...  You report both!  This informs the audience such that they may make a decision about the situation.  Thats reporting.  Providing conclusion is editorial.  They are different and Steve is purporting to be a journalist. 

 

[LinusAuctionTips]

Just now, poochyena said:

No new video today, I noticed.

there was. It got nailed in terms of like/dislikes.

[Loopers]

Just now, poochyena said:

No new video today, I noticed.

Despite years and years of watching, I still don't know their release schedule, but I was pretty sure one was supposed to be up today other than the TQ and GL videos.

[throwawayManMode]

1 minute ago, poochyena said:

No new video today, I noticed.

It probably had errors with asterisks and they knew the backlash would be too great if they posted it anyway.

[zeroality]

@LinusTechwish you the best!

Gonna make this my last post here. Had a fun time. 


Final comments: Steve’s integrity is beyond reproach and Linus has no ground to stand on. 
Honesty is expensive, don’t expect it from cheap people. We shall see Linus’ value in the coming days but unless there is some extraordinary change in messaging or behavior I don’t see myself investing in the brand anymore. The world is gray, I am beholden to enough shit brands already (Apple,Samsung,Google) and I don’t need LTT to become the same.
 

[AlTech]

10 minutes ago, mikaelus said:

Was it baseless?

The appearance of it means it doesn't mater whether or not there is any agreement in actuality or not.

 

We will never know if Asus gives LMG big bags of money in exchange for a pass on some issues. It probably doesn't happen but we cannot 100% rule it out because of LMG's behaviour. Conflicts of interest are like this no matter the industry. It's not tech specific. LMG walked themselves right into this situation and nobody but LMG can get them out of it.

[IndustrialBananaBread]

Just read Billet's statement and somehow it got worse. They sent them a 3090ti to test with, and lost it for 9 weeks. The incompetence is staggering, every corner of LTT from testing to logistics seems to be filled with mistakes and miscommunications.

[mikaelus]

Just now, nightryder21 said:

Not my job to repeat what what was plainly spelled out. Asus bias are there. GN video presented their evidence. 

I.e. no evidence. Zero, zilch, nada. That Jake said something nice about their cards during unboxing and that they employ an ex-ASUS guy. There was zero actual evidence of any impropriety in terms of e.g. presenting benchmark results or making false claims about a particular product. None.

[Dansrage]

I'm sure Linus has stopped reading the thread by now, but I wanted to share my thoughts, even so.

 

The inaccuracies in the reviews, while certainly damaging to LMG's reputation, aren't the end of the world. Mistakes happen due to bad processes, and so we update and refine those processes. It would be sufficient to simply thank Steve for shining a light on the issues and commit to doing better, which is as far as the response needs to go. There's doesn't need to be some big self-flagellating response, just "yeah, thanks for pointing it out, we'll strive to do better."

 

The Billet labs thing, though...

How on Earth does a prototype for an unreleased product end up at auction? It would have been shared in good faith, presumably with the expectation that the proprietary technology would remain confidential, as competitors getting their hands on it could ruin the company. To hear that LMG agreed to return the block when asked, but proceeded not to do so, and that compensation was only offered after Steve's video was released, that's criminal. Maybe Billet trusted Linus enough not to include some kind of formal legal document protecting their IP, but that clearly wasn't a good decision. I can't stress enough how big of a deal this is, to take a startup company's intellectual property and auction it off without their permission, potentially allowing their competitors to obtain it. I can't imagine how the company might be managed where something like that could even be a possibility, it goes beyond miscommunication.

 

Very disappointed in the response, but it's not unexpected. It follows a similar pattern as the backpack fiasco, where apologies are given begrudgingly and insincerely only to mitigate massive backlash. "I'm sorry you feel like you deserve an apology" should become LMG's new company slogan.

 

 

[Saeumii]

18 minutes ago, nightryder21 said:

Nobody was calling malicious. They calling incompetence to the scale that bring down a small company. Wherever the incompetence lies it's needs to be fixed. Linus not apologizing and then not saying that it will be fixed or how it will be fixed if ridiculous.

implying that linus knowingly auctioned off the prototype despite knowing better sounds like an accusation of wrongful intent to me. again, none of us will know what actually happened unless linus or one of his coworkers comes out to talk about it. until then, all we have is speculation

[ANIMAL_ORIGIN]

This can be a lesson to everyone.

This is what happens when you surround yourself with "Yes men"; people who aren't comfortable with being uncomfortable and telling you to your face that what you're doing is harmful and incorrect.

It's important to let people know that you're more than okay with being criticized and you'd like to be held accountable for your actions.

[coopa]

 

 

Linus' cascading reasons of defense (in order, over time):
 

• It wasn't worth the $100-$500 in production effort to re-shoot the Billet monoblock so it was tested on the GPU it was meant to be tested on (Youtube video already did its big numbers and adsense, not worth the money to be accurate).
• Even if the money was spent on the video, it wouldn't have changed anything, the product was bad (they installed a custom monoblock on a GPU it wasn't designed to fit)
• Even if it had been installed on the correct GPU, it wouldn't have mattered because the performance difference wouldn't be worth the "bang for the buck" (why review it at all then?)
• Even if it had been installed on the correct GPU and it was still wasn't a value but performed better than anything else, it didn't matter because LMG audience couldn't afford it (again, why review it at all then? or present the results versus other products as objective on temperature)
• Even if it had been installed on the correct GPU and it wasn't a value prop and maybe some of the LMG audience couldn't afford it, there was no way to "perfectly" test it (a lazy excuse - nobody was demanding Linus/LMG become masters of space and time - just test the monoblock under common conditions while it's on the GPU it was designed to fit.

Linus' dismissive attitude towards a company that sent him both the GPU it was designed to fit (which they apparently misplaced as they couldn't find it for the video they rushed to put out) and their monoblock is callous, obnoxious, and in the way that Linus addressed it on the WAN show, utterly obnoxious. That is what the other user is referring to, in less polite terms - Linus acts so smug in his flawed rationale to not review the product properly, that it makes him deeply, deeply unlikeable at that particular moment.

[K007]

22 hours ago, duke_seb said:

I just want to say that video while being mostly fair was definitely harsh in its presentation.

 

the roughest part is the billet drama.  It seems odd to me that Steve would automatically think Linus was trying to sink a company.  Maybe they didn’t test it right but I’m sure Linus as a whole is a decent person.  As for the auction, no one at gamers nexus knows the details of anything related to that.  That to me look more like left hand and right hand at ltt didn’t know what was happening and created an unfortunate situation.

 

as for content errors.  Editors should definitely consider cutting out errors rather then just putting corrections in, however ltt isn’t the only channel that does that and to be honest sometime I kind of get a kick out of Linus bumbling something up and having it corrected in the edit.  To my it’s makes him and the channel seem more authentic… but maybe that’s just me.

 

steve said one thing repeatedly in the video that I don’t agree with.  The idea that the amount of uploads is a self imposed arbitrary amount that they don’t have to do.  I would think that GN having I’m sure way less staff and way less subscribers probably doesn’t know that self imposed actually is.  Ltt has a responsibility to its staff, lots of salary’s to pay, lots of equipment to buy to keep making engaging content.  Missing 1 video a week could potentially mean laying off a number of staff…. 
 

It’s a lot easier to control your product when you are 1 person and I’m sure that part of the reason Linus stepped down as ceo is that he sees some cracks that he wants to work on and the management side of it was taking his time away…

 

it amazes me that in a YT community of tech people Steve didn’t reach out behind the scenes and then make his video rather then do it this way

Bro.....what? There is no obligation for Steve to reach out to LMG. 
Also, after todays update, are you still saying everything was ok? The prototype was sold without consent. Then it was only after the video from GN went out, and later did Linus reach out for a compensation. Stop defending big corporations like this. GN went over it on todays HW News update on why they had no reason to reach out to LMG. 

[Hazz3r]

3 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

You think Linus’ forum access is going to be revoked? You think there’s some actual likelihood that would happen?

His ability to post. Yes. If he can’t be trusted not to make a knee jerk reaction like this going forward, it would be irresponsible of Terren not to take that measure.

[RandomDude843]

I agree that the WAN show should be hosted by the ceo and luke or anyone else. Heck I’ll take Dennis as the new co-host if that gives Linus time to reflect and breath.

 

Having linus talk at this point will just make matters worse.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, LinusAuctionTips said:

there was. It got nailed in terms of like/dislikes.

Those were gamelinked and techquickie. No techlinked or main channel video yet on YT or floatplane.

[Silviecat44]

24 minutes ago, Nate_LapT said:

"Valued at"
They didn't sell. 

That doesn't really change anything. They are a sizable corporation now and Linus should act accordingly.

[mikaelus]

2 minutes ago, AlTech said:

The appearance of it means it doesn't mater whether or not there is any agreement in actuality or not.

 

We will never know if Asus gibes LMG big bags of money in exchange for a pass on some issues. It probably doesn't happen BT we cannot 100% rule it out because of LMG's behaviour. Conflicts of interest are like no matter the industry. It's not tech specific. LMG walked themselves right into this situation and nobody but LMG can get them out of it.

So, guilt by association, got it. From people who hail Steve for "unbiased", meticulous testing. 

 

This is why you're no better than Linus.

[Taf the Ghost]

6 minutes ago, AlTech said:

I was referring to Asus sponsoring some GPU videos and seemingly getting glowing recommendations and an easy ride as a result.

LMG has had a good relationship with Asus for years.  (And there's probably some issues they've had that got glossed over going back a decade we're forgetting.) It's probably why they've hired former employees. But, yeah, there's definitely some perception issues that need to be managed.