Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Alex T88]

1 minute ago, Pixelated Fudge said:

College freshman ethics class type beat

Wish I were that young, to be in college… Just how things are really. But sure, every body is entitled to their own opinion. That does not make it the truth though.

[maxstuff.net]

3 hours ago, manikyath said:

so.. steve is making a stink over something an LMG employee said, without the context of what they were talking about, and the environment they were talking in...

 

i feel like there's a strong vibe of "everyone is handling this the wrong way" here...

 

this is the point where i watch the entire GN video to make sure the above statement is correct...

 

there's a lot of truth here.. but the general tone of the video seems.. unnecessarily nitpicky and vindictive?

 

steve ripping on the framework investment being conflict of interest for doing laptop reviews.. is also just unnecessary. linus is aware of the potential conflict of interest, it has been brought up to the community at the time of him considering it, and is mentioned in each laptop review he hosts.

also this:

is a very important distinction. you cant talk about the budgets of a corporation, and then talk about someone's personal investment as if they are one and the same.

 

i'm actually at the point where i'm getting annoyed at steve putting far too many out of context quotes into his video. it seems almost purposefully disingenuous on his part to cut things to make them seem worse.. when the full story is already less than favourable.

 

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.

 

it *could* have been a wakeup call for LMG, but instead the entire video just feels like steve going as hard as he can without openly hard cutting his own ties with LMG in case he needs linus to call someone at youtube for him.

 

actually.. this has been an issue i've had with steve's videos in general. i like steve, i love what he stands for, but every time i bump into a video of his he seems to be unnecessarily vindictive about everything. it's just exhausting at this point. steve's usually right, but he loses so much credibility to me by inflating facts almost into the field of alternative truths... life is crazy enough as it, let's not inflate things any more and try to fix things for once.

 

PS: a TL:DR here in case someone is gonna pop in to call me an LMG shill.. i 87% agree with steve on the topic, i just also 99% disagree with the way he voices his opinion on said topic.

He does often skim over the investment disclosure would be good to have a full explanation in text on screen for new viewers.

[Moortu]

It feels like a lot of people are just here to get in on the drama or something.

 

No constructive critisism, just "you bad, me smarter".

 

Yes LTT has made mistakes, even a giant one or some.

If you know anything about growing companies then mistakes are to be expected.

It's why they have a new CEO to get on the right track.

 

Mistakes are human.

Again, they aren't blameless, but put the pitchforks down and offer constructive critisism.

[BondiBlue]

48 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 feel that calling this response a massive disappointment is an understatement.

 

You're saddened at the reaction from the community? Is the strength of this reaction somehow misplaced? A lot of people are upset about the Billet Labs issue, and rightly so. How is it possible for a miscommunication to be so bad as to allow a prototype item that you don't own to be auctioned off, despite previously agreeing to send the item back to the owners? Do you seriously not see why this would make people so upset with the way your company is run? I'd be concerned if people didn't care about what happened to Billet Labs. 

[RazielKanos]

As I posted in the comment section of the GN video:

"What I usually wonder with these types of videos is: how hard is it to grab a phone and make a call, see if things get better and if not, THAN release a video..."

BTW, it's hilarious to see all the GN Fanboys jump on the forums and create an account just to post their hate. That says enough about the type of community GN has...

[post_screen]

6 minutes ago, Ex14 said:

I think he handled it okay or even well. 
 

With exception of the video quality concerns. The tone and general message of his repo sense is what I expect of him and for the most part.so alls good for me. I do think they might need to do abit more on the part of billet and maybe talk more openly about the video quality concerns but Yeap mostly answered for me

Prototype auction issue I think he handled well. I do think that it was a mistake, as I don't believe anyone would do something that illegal knowingly. 

 

The part I think could be handled better is correcting to their mistakes better and taking more time with the videos. Someone could have seen the review of Billet Lab's product and forever think that the company makes bad stuff that isn't worth their money. I know they addressed it on WAN show, but that mistake was something that was caught before video release. It goes back to quantity vs quality. That is the only thing that needs to be resolved in future

[the-last-englishman]

3 minutes ago, A_Mediocre_Kangaroo_Farmer said:

Even though he made it clear in the video and in his first response to this thread why he thinks the water cooling solution is not a market worthy product (has nothing to do with performance) it seems many consider the negativity to be related to the poor testing methodology. This is bad simply because it's bad practice, but it wouldn't affect the commercial viability of this product. The coolness factor might have been negatively impacted but he does praise the product where it deserves praise, other than performance (we don't know if it's actually good though, that's the bad part).  

 

It's really unfortunate that the prototype was auctioned off. Linus probably had nothing to do with that personally, but he gets the blame and the bill.

 

I'm curious, what would you consider "making this right" though?

May I suggest giving time to a future Billet Labs product if it's video worthy?

After all that's why they got the first video to begin with, it was a really special product.

 

I suggest a serious review focusing on the cooling potential of the product, who cares if it doesn't fit in a case which is commercially available, this type of block would only be used in a custom built case anyway.

[Qyygle]

Honestly, having watched both channels for a long time, I hope that Linus will take Steve's criticism at face value and learn from what he's saying here. Because, he's hitting the nail pretty dang center.

 

LTT's informative value for me has dropped a lot over the years. They truly have become the Top Gear of tech channels, where you don't watch for actual reviews, you watch for fun, while GN, HardwareUnboxed, and several others have taken the technical lead. 

 

Another comment noted that it seems Linus has built a team which does unfortunately tend toward this attitude. LTT has other voices, like Luke and Ivonne who have more neutural takes, but more and more, they seem to be taking a back seat to the actual content being put out. It's fine if you want the channel to represent these kinds of views, but having put a lot into LTT Labs over the past year, realize that you are moving into a space where that neutral tone is not only expected, but also necessary. If the point of Labs is to provide hard data, it has to be accurate.

 

Some of this almost feels like it's Linus's past of not finishing his degree coming back to haunt him. He has a very intuitive feel for how to shoot videos, write scripts, get views, but the hard technical side has always eluded him. By comissioning the Labs and claiming all the things he hopes it will accomplish, this is exactly the kind of thing he's not equipped to manage. There's a lot to be said against the need of a college degree in the current world, but for science and engineering roles, you definately need some kind of background there, or at least show the willingness to put the time and energy aside to learn it. I just don't think Linus has that patience and it really holds him back sometimes in understanding why a lot of the hard techy audience cares for the accuracy and methdology that someone like GN has really focused on over the years.

GN's not perfect either, but they're constantly showing they're taking steps to improve or learn more. 

 

I haven't seen that level of commitment from Labs yet, and every video released with yet another mistake, or typo, or rushed mis-step only pushes it further from that level of respect LTT is striving for. In short, I think the tech audience in general accepts that everyone all make mistakes. But show us you're also willing to learn from them. You can blame GN for not giving you a heads up, sure, but that's not addressing his points, which are pretty clear and concise.

Do better, and we all win here.

[swimtome]

I thought people had a lot to say here, but Reddit has 2347 comments already, wow

[IndustrialBananaBread]

1 minute ago, Moortu said:

It feels like a lot of people are just here to get in on the drama or something.

 

No constructive critisism, just "you bad, me smarter".

 

Yes LTT has made mistakes, even a giant one or some.

If you know anything about growing companies then mistakes are to be expected.

It's why they have a new CEO to get on the right track.

 

Mistakes are human.

Again, they aren't blameless, but put the pitchforks down and offer constructive critisism.

Steve seems to have already laid out all the constructive criticism LTT needs.

[borus87]

1 minute ago, bright_things said:

I see the issue as one of connotation, criminal compared to careless. An accusation of selling the block would mean that he purposely sold illegally for profit, which didn't happen. For an auction shows me that they were careless, but not criminal.

I see an issue that (while I know they didn't do it - I'm not an idiot or delusional) someone could orchestrate a situation where the item in question is auctioned, money goes to charity so potentially there is no profit, but the buyer is set up, buys it, pays off the seller after the auction ended. Or the company auctions the item to someone within the company and takes the product for themselves for IP infringement. Or the buyer is just a middle man between the real buyer who then pays off the seller.

[E2C2]

There are 2 hardware reviewers that I've frankly stopped watching reviews for and LTT was the second. I noticed just too many astrics and comment correcting errors well before the 40 series launched that damaged my perception of the videos that are data focused. Ltt always felt too unserious to trust for things like exact measurements for comparisons. GN just does it better with fewer wacky edits, fewer astricts, and genuinely higher standards. Ltt was never the go-to spot for in-depth hardware breakdowns. They claim to do so, but I don't feel like labs have done much at all to change how I felt about them for a while now. I am a regular viewer of both channels. I don't think this will change that. But Ltt just doesn't hit the same after all the blundered opportunities to be the #1 in pc hardware. 

[Space Reptile]

17 hours ago, LinusTech said:

we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype

will you also compensate them to the irreprable damage to the brand that your video that has (as of writing) 1.4 million views caused?
the video where you mess up the testing and report garbage data and then arrive at the "DO NOT BUY" wich later in the wan show comments you doubled down on

maybe those 500$ of manhours are rather cheap in comparison to a company getting its entire reputation destroyed because a man refused to read instructions or retest the device after doing it wrong 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Space Reptile
spelling/word

[the9thdude]

16 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.

Appreciate you clearing up the Billet Labs situation as that's the only one we don't really have much insight into. That being said, I don't think it's your place to decide whether a company's product is market-viable or not given that it's literally not your business. If it fails, it's on them, not you. You should have reviewed the product based on it's performance and said, "eh, not my taste, but here's how it performs and here's how much it costs."

 

Regarding mistakes, we get it, the people who work at LMG are people and mistakes happen. What Steve is calling out isn't just a simple mistake or two, but a repeat pattern of mistakes caused by what appears to be standards that cannot be met. Standards set by you. And it's not just one person or channel, but company-wide. Much of this community trusts you and your team to deliver high quality, informative, entertainment. We trust LMG to do their due diligence to look over the data or information, scrutinize it, and ensure that what you're telling us is accurate and for a lot of LMG's history, it has been... until recently. Your relentless push to meet the quota, on time and on schedule, is a threat to your company and Steve is trying to tell you that it is.

 

I understand your need for many of these projects to start generating returns. I know about the clock, the one counted in dollars, as I am an aspiring small business owner myself, but your goodwill and trust among the community is worth more than rushing out bad data and information. This also includes product manufacturers. You were/are (I'm still a bit confused) the CEO of a widely known entertainment company that you claimed is valued at over $100 million. It's time for the "we're scrappy and are prone to making mistakes" phase to be over and I know you've said that's why you've brought Terren on, but this is something that needed to happen yesterday. It is something that you can address, right now, because it is you who is setting the standards on your employees. They are telling you what they need: they need more time for videos. I don't know that that means, but you need to sit down and talk with them to figure out what it does mean, because everyone is watching what will happen next.

 

This is why you should go on WAN show or do a video addressing these problems. Not everyone, whether it be a viewer, a manufacturer, media partner, fellow tech journalist, or even someone who likes the merch, is on this forum reading your response. Sure, you can iron things out one on one via email, chat, or whatever, but this is something affecting over 15.6 million subscribers on YouTube, you should address this directly and explain to them, to us, how you plan on addressing these concerns.

 

I don't envy your position Linus, but I do look up to you. You are one of the most ethical business people I've had the pleasure of knowing of, and that is why I implore you to not see this as us jumping onto you. What we're telling you is that your community's trust in your products and company is at risk. I know you're concerned about the reach of a video response, but that should be a secondary concern. Once we lose our trust in the company, what will that do to views? What will that do to merch sales? WAN show live viewings? LTX? We, the hardcore tech community, the ones who Steve is talking to, are usually the first ones to catch your videos when they publish, subscribe to Floatplane, and buy merch, are the bedrock of your community. Once you lose us, what do you do after that?

 

Please Linus, take some time, talk with the team, and address Steve's concerns in a video. Even if it performs poorly, you can point to it and say, "this is the official statement from LMG regarding these problems brought up by Steve." Whether that succeeds in rallying our trust in LMG or not depends on the statement, but at least it would put the matter to bed.

[Dom1252]

40 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.... 

can you please provide which details he missed? 

 

I mean... is he wrong about anything at all regarding this? or are you just mad he didn't write you in advance so you could prep for the mess that the video is causing? 

 

"You need to slow down and think.... " would be a great advice for several LMG channels 

[bright_things]

Just now, fArGo1911 said:

LTT management it is time to eat your own dog food. Steve is right and you are wrong. I would also recommend a big portion of humble pie. 

Steve has some very good points, but has issues himself. His video didn't get Linus's comment/context, which made it one sided, calling for LMG to produce a video, perpetuating drama. I want to get both sides of the story without needing to wait for the drama train to make the other company put out a video clarifying incorrect points that could have been corrected if communication were present.

[IronArm]

56 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 comment actually made me decide to make an account, instead of just lurking. 

While, I am sure that you do a significant amount of self-reflection, this comments doesn't show much in the case of the responsibility that LMG/LTT/you have in the space. Proper journalistic practice standards do discuss "collaboration", but when the individual/company being viewed is showing flaws in ethical behaviors - the collaboration attribute often is removed - instead the focus is shifted towards "trustworthy" and "honest" information. The fact that you "auctioned" the item instead of "selling" it wasn't the important context of the piece - though, it is information the viewer should have. The significant piece was the improper handling of the review, the miscommuncation with your team - or the lack of internal communication. You have critiqued companies for putting something out or handling of a situation and spoken many times about how you will/are different - yet this is an example of the opposite and instead of immediately owning up to the errors (which everyone makes and your fanbase understands that) you respond like this. 

You often mention how much you stress the diligence in your work, but if your team (and we see this in your own team's comments and those shown by GN) it appears that your team is being stressed by the self-imposed video quantity each week. If producing a set number of videos per-week is the top priority, the other attributes, such as diligence will lessen. I can't speak for your employees thoughts though, this is just what it seems like based on the their own comments. 

 

As far as "pitchforks" being raised because of this. I've been watching this thread since it started and there are almost no pitchforks. Most of the comments mention that the Billet situation needs to be addressed and that the quality of video or number of errors have increased? Is there a few comments that really go after you/LTT/LMG sure but there is also just as many that go after Steve and express that y'all haven't done anything wrong. 

 

I honestly don't see how the majority of feedback expressed can be considered "jumping on" y'all. I can imagine that this is a frustrating/emotional time as someone who you consider a friend (at least I know he warned you when your channel was hacked) made these statements and a significant portion of your fanbase agrees with him - but there isn't ill intentions. I believe most people, including Steve, want LMG to continue to grow and provide a space in the industry. 

 

As any company beings to grow (especially one at the speed in which LMG is) there is going to be growing pains (as you have mentioned) but its still important in a service industry to take the feedback from outside perspectives, while knowing our internal biases will always be there. 

 

Anyway, I hope you are doing well and I hope LMG continues to improve and keeps to those principles that made so many people fall in love with the channel. Best of luck to y'all.

[E2C2]

You're not alone in how you feel about Ltt labs not hitting the marks stated by Ltt and Linus himself,

[Akuen]

2 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Hrmm... feels like someone has been rolling out new influence bot systems. This thread is kind of interesting on the new account angle.

Just thought I'd  comment on this too.  

 

I've never made an account here as I occasionally check the forums if I'm tracking down some information on a problem I'm running into or something similar. I generally watch LTT more than GN because I find GN to be rather dry, to put it politely. I also watch Jay and several other channels. This was just the first time I had a reason to actually make an account. 

[dedhed333]

42 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

Even before seeing any response from LTT it stuck out to me as bad practice for them to not have got any comment from LTT. Its very common for journalists to note that they "reached out to X for comment but didn't receive a reply" and the absence of that from the GN video is bad.

This is not to be taken at all as a defense of LTT or to say Linus' response is enough surrounding all of these allegations but you need to hold GN to the same standards of diligence they are trying to hold LTT to. Investigative reporting and stuff like that is something they clearly are wanting to grow into and I know in the past they have reached out to people for comment but the lack of it here either shows this video was ironically rushed in its own right or malice in them not wanting to tip there hand to LTT that the video was coming. Both of these are bar journalistic practices.

[ThunderGodNick]

11 minutes ago, abazaba said:

Dumb drama. If Steve is homies with Linus this should have been discussed internally and Steve should have questioned his actions as a fellow creator. This video is reminiscent to has-been celebrities commenting about an old incident to regain their 15 minutes of fame. Be a man Steve; Linus, don't be such a harsh businessman. Leave the drama to the Kardashians and Twitter 

I'm willing to bet my left nut not a single one of you reading this has personal investment in Billet Labs.

- Whether or not folks here have a "Personal Investment in Billet Labs" is 100% wholly irrelevant in every way. You don't have to have personal investment in something to understand what may have happened to them was immensely shitty.

- Money doesn't fix everything. This is a pretty big goddamn "Whoopsie" that requires a bit more of a "We fucked up, bad, here's how we're going to fix it" kind of response rather than just a check. However, if Billet Labs have said "All good", that's all that's really needed at the end of the day as far as making them whole.

 

Additionally, everyone saying that this is personal to Steve...likely? I mean, I'd imagine it has some level of personal tinge to it. You don't get to know people in an industry and not at least have some emotional attachment to them. To say that doesn't happen at all is absolutely wrong.

Stop speaking in generalities as a response to the video either way. If you're wanting to watch the video only to hate watch it and react (in either direction), back off the keyboard warrior mentality for a sec and think it through. There's a hefty amount of fast reacts going on here one way or the other and y'all need to step back and take stock.

 

Thinking you're rebutting a 44 minute video which CLEARLY has a lot of data to it in a simple forum post is folly.

Take time to digest. Sheesh.

[Gianluca Angeli]

Just now, Moortu said:

It feels like a lot of people are just here to get in on the drama or something.

 

No constructive critisism, just "you bad, me smarter".

 

Yes LTT has made mistakes, even a giant one or some.

If you know anything about growing companies then mistakes are to be expected.

It's why they have a new CEO to get on the right track.

 

Mistakes are human.

Again, they aren't blameless, but put the pitchforks down and offer constructive critisism.

GN's video is the constructive criticism. Linus replied here saying that GN shouldn't have published it and they should've kept that private LOL. And he strongly implied that GN acted in bad faith.

 

Linus is undefendable right now. 

[Shah M]

It's slightly troubling that the response to all of this has been the standard LMG template. Claim it's a once off issue, our heart is in the right place, and move on. "Trust me bro" - once off, numerous errors fixed by fast moving editor notes (not just the GN ones) - all once off, pwnage - once off, billet - once off, Labs employee throwing fellow reviewers under the bus - once off and we're sorry your feeling got hurt, etc.

 

How many errors have not been called out? Listen I love Alex chaos videos, and random builds and challenges. I am a watcher looking for entertainment. I think it's foolish to rely on a single reviewer, but the reality is that with the reach of LTT it's clear that many people, especially young people, rely on the channel. As a result the constant errors need to be addressed with voice overs, not notes that can barely be read half the time. Rather than going my bad and going on the attack, the company needs to stop promising change and actually give us change. The company has made a profit based decision to have the video schedule it has, it's taken on this burden and so it should be judged by it. If you don't have the time that's the company's fault. Either make fewer videos that are better quality, employ enough staff to ensure that quality is possible on the current schedule, or stick to purely/primarily entertainment videos which are great and don't have the same burden.

In terms of the bias, it's the issue with all of youtube, you can't trust any of them, which is sad but as Linus stresses trust no company, even LTT (except when they tell you to trust them). I will mention one thing on the bias, I see that the laptop disclosure has gone away from non-linus videos, or is so hidden that I don't spot it anymore. One of the things linus promised with the Framework deal was that it would always be disclosed, it was a burden that came with the investment, and yet quietly that burden has gone away. It does make you wonder what else is being ignored.

This is the LTT forum, we all enjoy the content and want it to be good. Yes people are pissed but the company needs to understand this "get out the pitchforks" reaction is not because of a single issue, it's about numerous issues that it seems the company is not taking seriously. Trust Me Bro is a constant joke now, when it was a real concern that was very badly handled. Were not saying death to LTT, we're saying be better.

[bright_things]

Just now, Space Reptile said:

will you also compensate them to the irreprable damage to the brand that your video that has (as of writing) 1.4 million views?
the video where you mess up the testing and report garbage data and then arrive at the "DO NOT BUY" wich later in the wan show comments you doubled down on

maybe those 500$ of manhours are rather cheap in comparison to a company getting its entire reputation destroyed because a man refused to read instructions or retest the device after doing it wrong 

The block is overpriced as hell and needs a ton of work to put together a build that can use it. If someone had the money to spend, as Linus mentioned, nothing that was said would change their mind. The market is small. As Linus mentioned, I want Billet to make products that are marketable to a wider audience, otherwise they wont survive.

[Srius1]

The responses I am seeing here are quite frankly pathetic.

 

it’s clear half of you don’t have ANY CRITICAL thinking skills and are just flaming @LinusTech just to earn internet E peen points with your fellow haters (who trust me bro…don’t care about you). 
 

if you hate Linus that much WHY THE HELL ARE YOU even here?! Leave. 
 

About the pitchforks… he is right…I am seeing a ton of comments flaming everything he says and twisting it etc. also it’s hilarious to me when people say “omg Linus trying to take out X company by destroying their prototype OMG?!”. ITS literally comical how shit of a take that is. As if a 50+ million $ company is trying to take out some small firm who is INCAPABLE of making more than one of something is comical. it very clearly was a breakdown of communication and it’s literally impossible for Linus to follow up with every single thing that happens on his team.
 

Did someone on his team drop the ball? Sure. It’s CALLED BEING FUCKING HUMAN! not one of you is perfect and has never messed up at their Job. So stop throwing stones from your glass houses. Holy fuck some of you make me nauseous with your holier than thou takes.

 

LTT I’m sure will work with them to fix the solution and that’s it. 

 

Steve had ZERO need to spend prob 40+hours of work to make this video when a simple email or call to Linus would have sufficed. Going public with is shows Steve is that snake of a friend who acts nice to you then burns down your business. 
 

‘’it very clearly was done as Steve is feeling threatened by LTT Labs being started and feels it’s encroaching on his realm of content so he puts out this Bs hit piece on LTT. It’s frankly pathetic of Steve and as someone who has spent over $400+ at GN Store I won’t be buying anything else from him. 
 

with friends like these…who needs enemies