Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[perryckd]

25 minutes ago, Cheerscake said:

That's the unfortunate thing. Beneath the personal and upset language of Steve, there is a degree of validity and truth to his points and it is good that the importance of quality is raised. But when it's packaged the way it was, it results in an inappropriate reaction of the community and the response to the feedback more likely being one of rejection than consideration (though I'm sure LMG takes the core of the points made to heart).

 

another well thought out reply. guerilla nexus feeds on the negativity he spewed on his target. if anyone needed to grow up, steve should volunteer. 

 

he's insecure about losing his 'tech jesus' status. the only way to maintain it is to ride the high horse and gather the pitch forks. 

 

if he is honest in wanting to move the industry forward, he should review his scripts and cunning choice of accusations 

[Anorax]

3 minutes ago, dustypaws said:

It's also fueled by LTT playing dead. (did they also stop scheduled uploads? )

 

If there's no official statement (except for the one that started this shitshow) people just start guessing and assuming...

As someone who works for a large public corporation when we have an incident like this we either say absolutely nothing (always dangerous) or our corporate comms department carefully constructs a public statement vetted by our lawyers. We tend to go with the second option most of the time.

[Irisena]

Alright that's it. I'm unsubbing from YT and cancelling my FP subscription. After going through Madison's tweet, now I know for certain that I CANNOT support you guys in good conscience. Good luck dealing with the fallout I guess.

 

Also, for other LTT employee, I know it's not my place to say this, but I hope you unionize. Linus has failed you.

[IndustrialBananaBread]

2 minutes ago, dustypaws said:

Different thread

 

Thanks, will keep an eye on this therad. Shit is damning if it's true

[Dangerbone]

Just now, Anorax said:

As someone who works for a large public corporation when we have an incident like this we either say absolutely nothing (always dangerous) or our corporate comms department carefully constructs a public statement vetted by our lawyers. We tend to go with the second option most of the time.

That's the SOP in public sector work as well. It's always beneficial to cite the no comment policy and let PR/legal deal with it as a rank and file employee.

[dustypaws]

1 minute ago, Anorax said:

As someone who works for a large public corporation when we have an incident like this we either say absolutely nothing (always dangerous) or our corporate comms department carefully constructs a public statement vetted by our lawyers. We tend to go with the second option most of the time.

Which is fine. The issue (as you'll already might know) is that Linus doesn't do humble pie, although he preaches it all the time to other companies. That disconnect drives people (including myself) crazy...

[ScoggsUK]

1 minute ago, Irisena said:

Alright that's it. I'm unsubbing from YT and cancelling my FP subscription. After going through Madison's tweet, now I know for certain that I CANNOT support you guys in good conscience. Good luck dealing with the fallout I guess.

 

Also, for other LTT employee, I know it's not my place to say this, but I hope you unionize. Linus has failed you.

God forbid you ever get to do jury service....

[Reclus]

1 minute ago, IndustrialBananaBread said:

For anyone who does not know, Madison has finally spoken out about what happened at LTT during her employment.

Holy. Shit. If this is true, this is absolutely vile from LTT and Linus. This is disgusting.

This is what silence from LTT brings.. 

On this part I will reserve my judgement as this one really is coming from one side only and after 2 years of silence. 

More over under current circumstance it is going to cloud the present issue. 

The 2 issues are not alike and this does not need to be dragged here.

[MPopov]

I just registered to tell you Linuz - you suck. Its not today or yesterday that sucked. Its just you. 

[dustypaws]

5 minutes ago, ScoggsUK said:

 

 

4 minutes ago, Reclus said:

This is what silence from LTT brings.. 

On this part I will reserve my judgement as this one really is coming from one side only and after 2 years of silence. 

More over under current circumstance it is going to cloud the present issue. 

The 2 issues are not alike and this does not need to be dragged here.

This topic has been split off into another thread

The mobile interface is a buggy mess.... Holy shite...

Edited August 16, 2023 by dustypaws

[FekYouMan]

Disappointed. Mainly with how Linus won't own up to all HIS mistakes. Do you remember the young ideological tech reviewer, full of passion and excitement to disrupt an old-fashioned tech industry? All the while on a mission to keep big corporates on their toes? He has just turned into the very thing he has always despised. Linus is now the modern day Steve Jobs of the tech review industry and LMG is Apple. Linus Jobs is now nothing more than a mouthpiece selling BS lies all the while profiting from the masses who are being hoodwinked. In other words, a corporate shill.

 

Add to this, the recent recruitment of a number of seasoned industry hacks (CEO anyone?) on the LMG payroll and you have Steve's Apple playbook under Scully. The incestuous relationship with companies like Corsair and ASUS means impartiality has gone out the door just as fast as Linus's humility has. There's a simple fix, but we all know Linus won't do it; suck it up, say sorry, admit to all the mistakes, slow down developing the new business, get rid of the industry hacks and most of all, stop lying. Your community deserves better. Your family and loyal employees deserve better. YOU deserve better.

[RazielKanos]

23 minutes ago, LuckyDrive said:

Regarding the whole Billet thing...it seems like the logistics and inventory team at LTT is....kinda terrible at their jobs?

 

1. Billet sends waterblock and 3090Ti, 3090Ti goes missing.

2. LTT is forced to shoot a video with a completely different GPU.

3. Billet asks for waterblock back, someone at LTT says they'll send it back, doesnt send it back.

4. Waterblock presumably gets misplaced, and someone mistakenly puts it up for auction.

5. Someone loses auction winner tracking sheet, forcing LTT to reach out auction winners by email.

 

Just seems like a lot of this could have been avoided if 3rd party product inventory were taken more seriously and properly itemized and tracked.

Yeah, it sounds to me like "growing too big too fast" and not able to establish a proper workflow.
In my sysadmin days at the ALLIANCE Insurance, we from the IT department never had to do with any external people or companies. If we needed something for a project, we told a special division about it, and THEY handled all communication. That way you didn't have too many cooks on the same meal.

[Mrpizzaeater145]

1 minute ago, dustypaws said:

So.... What do you know?

I already posted some stuff on a thread less violent. You legit being nice, or are you asking me so i can show I don't know anything and you can be right on this one bullshit post? I can answer legit, but if you are just playing me?

 

[RazielKanos]

3 minutes ago, MPopov said:

I just registered to tell you Linuz - you suck. Its not today or yesterday that sucked. Its just you. 

Amazing, no one needs you here with such an attitude.

[MrDKOz]

I just want to start by saying I'm not defending eitherside. Regarding the mistakes within the videos that GN pointed out I personally think they're valid and for the most part I believe that LTT knows this. They've mentioned multiple times that they're focusing on accuracy and changing processes where it matters to minimise issues, I hope going forward they learn from this and continue to get better.

 

In terms of the GN video it's hard for me to know entirely, but if I was in GN's shoes I think I would've handled it a bit differently. From what I can tell LTT and GN were on good terms for quite a while and then all of a sudden GN drops this video without reaching out to LTT prior? I know GN doesn't have to do this (as he noted in his video) and I agree, however, if you're "friends" or at least on good terms with another channel surely out to respect you'd reach out and have a chat about it if the intention is purely to help or bring attention to something from a outside perspective.

 

I watch both GN and LTT and will continue to do so, however I can't help (I have no proof, it's just a gut feeling) but think that the main trigger for the video from GN was purely due to the video from the warehouse tour that GN showed within the first 10 seconds of the video where GN was used to make comparisons between GN and the upcoming labs:

Quote

The difference between us and someone like Gamers Nexus or Hardware Unboxed, is we test new components, new tests, everytime.

GN in my opinion probably felt called out and that resulted in the released video, I'm guessing that in a alternate relality where GN wasn't mentioned in that warehouse tour wouldn't have resulted in a video at all.

 

My comment here won't make a difference to the minds of many but I wanted to at least get my thoughts about this out in the open. I'm also suprised (but at the same time not suprised at all) at how quickly the pitchforks were raised by the audience.

[MyNameWontFi]

On 8/14/2023 at 6:05 PM, mirai99 said:

Linus claims Billet sent him a bill and he greenlit the payment, so you can re-subscribe.

If the prototype is in the hands of a competitor right now, reimbursing them the cost of that prototype doesn't fix the problem. 

[ScoggsUK]

1 minute ago, MyNameWontFi said:

If the prototype is in the hands of a competitor right now, reimbursing them the cost of that prototype doesn't fix the problem. 

Its not in the hands of competitor though, they confirmed themselves.

[Drone971]

2 minutes ago, RazielKanos said:

Amazing, no one needs you here with such an attitude.

Let me quote linus here ok? "criticism is needed in tech space for companies to improve "

So yeah, people like this are actually more needed than the "trust me bro, its ok" people

[dustypaws]

7 minutes ago, Mrpizzaeater145 said:

I already posted some stuff on a thread less violent. You legit being nice, or are you asking me so i can show I don't know anything and you can be right on this one bullshit post? I can answer legit, but if you are just playing me?

 

I was half-playing tbh. But I'd be interested in a legit answer, yes. I don't want LMG to burn. But what I also can't stand is blind LMG fanboyism. And also a lot of people telling me and others that my opinion is worth nothing because I'm one of the vast silent majority that just made an account here because of the current situation. I'm also a fan since the Langley days, I'm just not the type that has the urge to post in forums a lot, I'm still part of the community tho, im in livestreams, subbed on floatplane, etc...

 

That's why I get mad if I read stuff like that just because my post counter is under 1K

 

No hard feelings tho

Edited August 16, 2023 by dustypaws

[aaradorn]

19 minutes ago, perryckd said:

 

another well thought out reply. guerilla nexus feeds on the negativity he spewed on his target. if anyone needed to grow up, steve should volunteer. 

 

he's insecure about losing his 'tech jesus' status. the only way to maintain it is to ride the high horse and gather the pitch forks. 

 

if he is honest in wanting to move the industry forward, he should review his scripts and cunning choice of accusations 

Why would you attack GN? 

He's tech Jesus because of the looks and all the technical details he adds to his video, the detail is autistic sometimes and I love it.

He critized LTT because they made a lot of mistakes, he wants them to do better, at no point did he "attack" LTT. Criticizing someone is not the same as attacking.

[XionEternum]

Huh, cool, my account still works.

Anyway, I figured I'ld chip in my two cents on this like so, so very many already. Albeit it seems most posts have degenerated into otherwise opinionated anecdotal nonsense regarding allegations of workplace harassment from a former employee. Here's hoping this thread can get back on topic.

 

First and foremost I'll make the claim that I've been following and subscribed since the NCIX days. It was in-fact the Phenom II 1100T review video IIRC that I subscribed for. Something in that era, but minor details. I've certainly seen most if not all content since, probably in the 99% range. In that time, I've seen a very passionate drive to see how far and how fast LMG can go on YouTube. Lots of looking back to see where they've come from as well, but not so much lately. I even still remember when on WAN Show Linus said they would likely never review server components due to lack of interest in their community. Then reviewing them became content as they scaled up with server equipment. I don't know if Canadian tax law is the same as the US regarding rebates on business related expenses, but I remember a joke made way back in the initial setup of the warehouse that now that it's in a video it can be a tax write-off. Whether or not that's true is beside the point though, so let me cut myself off here and get to that point.

GN didn't contact you privately because LMG burned that bridge already with the whole "backpack warranty" drama. GN said then that they would going forward treat LMG as a corporation like any other selling product. Any further contact going forward has likely been either professional or journalistic. You were warned, and to claim otherwise is nonsense.

I've defended the intent behind not having or needing a warranty. Unlike the binary Red VS Blue mentality that is your typical drama or flame war, I saw both sides rather evenly valid. No, LMG did not need to warranty their products if they were consistently making things right by their customers. Even a 90% satisfaction rate from an entire company's merchandise lineup is impressive. LMG has better than that. Yes, LMG did need to warranty their products because some of their potential customers were holding out over the lack of a warranty, regardless of how good the service was. See, this is the crux.

Yes, Linus is right. Yes, Linus is wrong. That's part of being human. Mistakes can and will be made, but when so many are being made so quickly, where are the brakes? Linus has never had brakes. He is crunch incarnate. He is a dudebro. He can be humble or he wouldn't be letting someone else take over as CEO, and he can be arrogant by gaslighting his community and thinking it's okay to make so very many mistakes. I'm actually rather happy I wasn't hired to work at LMG because frankly, I'm making more as entry-level IT if the rumors are true. I have recent college education in IT, and almost two decades of experience in tech. I only did the college for the pay raise. I could single-handedly crush the effective accuracy of hardware testing LMG does, as does Steve from HUB and Steve from GN. I've also got two decades of management experience, so I can see when people are pushing their limits and when they're getting lax in their effort. LMG staff, at least those who have been on camera, all appear stretched thin. I can see and feel the effects of crunch building in them. Even if they are only working a standard 40-hour full-time workweek, the effect is still there. As Steve(GN) has highlighted rather heavily in their initial video on this; I'll put it bluntly: EVERYONE IS BEING WORKED TOO HARD! Not likely because of coercion, but because of example. I'm also willing to bet, that Linus knows this already. He likely already knows that his personal standards are making his team want to push themselves too hard. This is also likely a part of his choice to hire a replacement CEO. Speculating though, so... take all this for what you will.

Linus, like anyone else, wants to defend himself as a first instinct. "I've already made these justifications for having made these choices. Here are all my justifications." rather than pause, step back, and observe the effects of those choices without those justifications. Anyone with any reasonable healthy amount of arrogance will do this. Nobody is a perfect self-reflecting monk. I do it too, and I've been praised more than once for how well I self-reflect on my choices and opinions. So, here's my attempt at calling him out to re-read his original response as if he didn't write it. Something he should've done before posting it, but hindsight is 20/20.

Linus, you're response was riddled with deflection, attempted psychological manipulation, and gaslighting. I sincerely hope you do not use this kind of verbiage with your own employees. It is tantamount to cult-indoctrination tactics. Film Theory on YouTube did a great video breaking down how Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey used these tactics on the protagonist. I challenge you to watch it, and see if you can catch similarities in your own treatment of your employees. I don't know if you are, I just feel you need a lot of self-reflection now, and I'm offering suggestions. I also invite all LMG staff to watch that video as well, see if you can spot any similarities yourselves. The reason this is such a concern in my eyes is because I'm immune to it. One of my former Store Managers (I was a fresh Assistant Manager) defied the ethical treatment of employees policies our own company's training program taught us - all things I already knew and practiced - by telling me one day, "I toured your crew, and you know what I saw? I saw no fear in their eyes." I gave him a puzzled look. "They should be working like they are afraid of losing their jobs." This made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. This made me want to deck him outright. Normally I have my recorder app recording for private conversations with my superiors, but this was in public, on the floor so I didn't think I needed to. Hard regret. I tell you this because if there's one thing to avoid as a superior is treating anyone as either inferior or more than a casual friend. Getting too buddy-buddy can lead to unfair treatment of others. Lording your role over someone can lead to deeper arrogance and lack of introspection. Your response oozes "abusive boyfriend" levels of guilt-tripping, attempted emotional/psychological manipulation, deflection, and gaslighting while not even accounting for more important aspects of the criticism. If this is your reactive response to fair and factual criticism, then I worry for you, your staff, and honestly your family. Your response sounded like the typical non-pology video from the likes of Artisian Builds. Your response to something like this should never be anything but professional, factual, and humble. Claim there won't be any discussion about this on the WAN show all you want; your response here should effectively be void after all the self-reflection you need over this. There will be discussion on the WAN show, or at least a direct video response of some kind. If not... well... Rome may not have been built in a day, but it fell far faster than it was built. LMG will too. Don't turn this into The Fine Brothers trademarking the word React.

Thank you kindly everyone who read this.

[Kolchak]

2 minutes ago, Drone971 said:

Let me quote linus here ok? "criticism is needed in tech space for companies to improve "

So yeah, people like this are actually more needed than the "trust me bro, its ok" people

The comment was not constructive criticism.

[ILikeHardware]

3 minutes ago, ScoggsUK said:

Its not in the hands of competitor though, they confirmed themselves.

It's second hand information they got from LMG, the same people that lost an overview of what they auctioned to who.

[aaradorn]

5 minutes ago, ScoggsUK said:

Its not in the hands of competitor though, they confirmed themselves.

They confirmed it was sold to a private party, who says that individual didn't sell it to another company? (also, they are missing the auction sheets so.....)

[faluff]

Hi everyone,

I've been a quiet LTT viewer (and floatplane subscriber) for years. I did never watch a GN video before.  However, the video from GN just pointed out red flags we've all seen and ignored for a long time. The response from Linus was very disappointing. I think LMG could have come out of this stronger and better, if they accepted the criticism and actually cared about it. LTT nailed the fun in the videos for years, making them more accurate would be a huge plus!

 

I really, really, hope, their new ceo will have a look at the processes and remove some stress from them, so the fun and quality of the videos can increase.

Madison's twitter-thread made me post this, as a work environment like this is unacceptable.

 

Linus, please don't take any of this as a personal attack. We want you and LMG to succeed! But we also want your employees to live a healthy life, while giving their best to deliver the wonderful work they do. Although today will suck, I don't see any other way how we as a community can make you listen to the criticism and improve what went wrong than adding reply 5746 to this thread. 

 

I will trust you, bro - but only if you now redeem yourself and make your own company do, what you stand for.