Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Legitsu]

Just now, VisibleXela said:

Isn't pointing at products and saying "naughty naughty" literally the entire goal of Linus Tech Tips?

go away now you are just reaching

 

[XHG Tech]

4 hours 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 is a very knee-jerk response with little thought put in to what Steve was actually trying to suggest to you, and frankly, some plays at sadness/crocodile tears at the end to avoid criticism you really REALLY should heed. 

 

I've been a fan of yours for nearing a decade now, and seeing this type of reaction to a video very kindly suggesting that you fix the fundamentals, and thereby is warning us, the viewers, that misinformation is awry on LTT videos, really really disappoints me. I would have expected more care put into sage advice on something you personally built from the ground up, but clearly my view and understanding of you was misinformed.

 

The combination of cited issues with your channel given by a respected member in the tech space, and your response being essentially "nuh-uhh," "look at my 2 newest videos," and "*cry* our team members are people too and you hurt their feelings!" in order to avoid taking real responsibility says loads about how much you actually care.

 

I'm disappointed. And I hate to say it. 

[ThousandBlade]

6 hours ago, Ekin said:

I was already disappointed by the "Trust me Bro" shitshow. Even if Linus is now publicly stating that this wasn't a great move, there is still no heartfelt apology.

So, I will again hope for the best but only expect a “RIP Billet Labs” t-shirt on WAN show. Which is kind of sad. ☹

TBH I personally didn't mind the "Trust me Bro" shitshow, I agree mostly with Linus regarding that, making the t-shirt was funny as hell.
But if they did the same with Billiet Labs incident, that would be in extremely poor taste.

[Legitsu]

Unpopular Opinion: 

Linus should CnD the shit out of steve for this blantant mis use of there IP in a attempt to libel and slander

/s 

[jitteryzeitgeist]

Just now, ThousandBlade said:

TBH I personally didn't mind the "Trust me Bro" shitshow, I agree mostly with Linus regarding that, making the t-shirt was funny as hell.
But if they did the same with Billiet Labs incident, that would be in extremely poor taste.

Didn't they?

 

"OH THE RESULTS WOULD BE THE SAME ON A 3090, TRUST ME BRO, ITS GARBAGE."

[Domi060288]

4 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

If you're new to the channel, I understand why you might not know this, but we are extremely committed to improving our accuracy to the point where we are building out a $10M+ facility jam-packed full of equipment and engineering know-how. It's taking time, and this kind of aggressive expansion has been a learning curve for us, but to frame our recent actions as "sacrificing accuracy" is misleading at best. 

We need to make a lot of process changes to get to the point where everything is water-tight. That's a big part of why we added our new CEO Terren to our leadership team, but once again... things take time. He's been full time on the job for less than a single quarter and he's getting up to speed on all the things we are doing right... and yes... all the things we are doing wrong.

 

Trust me, we know. But we are making major investments in improving all of this and we won't stop.

making mistakes is one point but letting them out online public and dont put a video down its a joke ...

[jpsulisz]

17 minutes ago, HaughtonBothered said:

Correct me if I am wrong, do you think this was an LTT video? The clip of Tim saying that stuff about GN and Hardware Unboxed was from someone who visited LTX and filmed the walkthrough tour. 

 

If that isn't the case, I might just be misunderstanding your argument.

In GNs video they have the user above LTTs name, I got confused with it. My b. I have updated my original comment to strikethrough that statement

I did - I thought it was from a LABS tour. I was under the impression it was a snippet from a video they released.

Updated my original comment with a strikethrough on that statement, my bad.

Edited August 15, 2023 by jpsulisz
Details added for previous comment

[Aldonist]

6 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

If you're new to the channel, I understand why you might not know this, but we are extremely committed to improving our accuracy to the point where we are building out a $10M+ facility jam-packed full of equipment and engineering know-how. It's taking time, and this kind of aggressive expansion has been a learning curve for us, but to frame our recent actions as "sacrificing accuracy" is misleading at best. 

We need to make a lot of process changes to get to the point where everything is water-tight. That's a big part of why we added our new CEO Terren to our leadership team, but once again... things take time. He's been full time on the job for less than a single quarter and he's getting up to speed on all the things we are doing right... and yes... all the things we are doing wrong.

 

Trust me, we know. But we are making major investments in improving all of this and we won't stop.

So is this a commitment to improving processes because right now they're kind of in shambles given the resources at disposal.

[Karl Mern]

You cannot make this up, even more errors, EposVox on youtube calling out ltt latest video, link to comment -

[Legitsu]

1 minute ago, jitteryzeitgeist said:

Didn't they?

 

"OH THE RESULTS WOULD BE THE SAME ON A 3090, TRUST ME BRO, ITS GARBAGE."

finally one of the fresh members says something that makes sense

 

hes right trust him is IS GARBAGE anybody with any engineering expereience would take one look at it and say "WHY?" 

[bandainamcofan]

5 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

If you're new to the channel, I understand why you might not know this, but we are extremely committed to improving our accuracy to the point where we are building out a $10M+ facility jam-packed full of equipment and engineering know-how. It's taking time, and this kind of aggressive expansion has been a learning curve for us, but to frame our recent actions as "sacrificing accuracy" is misleading at best. 

We need to make a lot of process changes to get to the point where everything is water-tight. That's a big part of why we added our new CEO Terren to our leadership team, but once again... things take time. He's been full time on the job for less than a single quarter and he's getting up to speed on all the things we are doing right... and yes... all the things we are doing wrong.

 

Trust me, we know. But we are making major investments in improving all of this and we won't stop.

This all sounds lovely but when you explicitly say you won't take the time to do a review properly by putting the block on the card it was made for it raises the question of why even build the facility at all.

[VisibleXela]

2 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

Unpopular Opinion: 

Linus should CnD the shit out of steve for this blantant mis use of there IP in a attempt to libel and slander

/s 

What motivation would Linus have to send Steve free toilet paper?

[Luscious]

3 hours 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 got four words for you Linus - slow the fuck down!!!

 

You are like that kid in high school who could never pay attention beyond 5 minutes, exhibits all the symptoms of ADHD and is a handful for parents to manage.

 

As for Steve's video, I feel it was a long time coming to finally address many of the issues. These hit personal to me too as for many years I was doing the same job - reviewing tech gear online. The big difference in my work routine was I adhered to one golden rule - NO DEADLINES!!! I would take however much time I needed with a product to look at it properly, test it, review it, take it through its paces and form an educated, hands-on opinion before sitting down and start bashing away at the keyboard.

 

And while I was nowhere near pushing out multiple articles a week, the work that I did do was well put together, accurate and detailed. I honestly cannot recall where I needed to get back and significantly redo a piece because I had made a serious error, and you would be hard pressed to find a piece where there even is an "EDIT" remark - and that's across over 100 credited articles.

 

To be honest, I have stopped watching LTT videos this year. It's just not worth my time any more. The clown-show antics, the ads, all your fucking segways... I don't need to hear it. If you are that desperate for ad revenue then you are doing something wrong, more so when other tech reviewers survive without all the nonsense sprinkled in.

 

Case in point - for years I have been bashing you guys over your horrendous laptop reviews. Not once has Alex criticized a manufacturer when they sent him a laptop with a horrible keyboard layout. Not once!!! How the hell can he call himself a serious laptop user and expert critic if he is missing those glaring deficiencies??? I have been using laptops for 22+ years and can immediately tell if a keyboard layout is rubbish or not. Alex has no business reviewing laptops when he doesn't even know his way around keyboards!!!

 

The result of this lazy attitude from leading review outlets - manufacturers become lazy too. In shopping for a replacement laptop I have found it next to impossible to find one with a proper keyboard. They either mash the cursor keys together, screw up the zero on the numpad or place the damn power button where the delete key should be. Try editing a document where instead of replacing text you power down your laptop - an absolutely maddening experience!!! In years past I would have expected BS like this from the likes of Clevo and Acer/Gateway but today even the big names like HP and Alienware have decided not to give a shit when it comes to placing a proper keyboard on their $2000+ products. And when manufacturers become lazy that's when consumers suffer.

 

So yes, what Steve did had to be done, because when reviewers get complacent manufacturers follow, and that's never good for the consumer.

[TapFork]

3 hours ago, Jazmodo said:

I'm equally amused that so many here find a differing opinion equal to a lack of understanding - "you can't have watched the whole thing" or "go watch more than 5mins".
 

In summary of the GN Video:

• LMG is rushing too much, creating mistakes - Weak opinion. ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking is far more detailed than either GN or LTT. Does that make AHO "better"? Debatable.
• LMG employees agree - Sure... snippets to try and prove a point. How many LMG employees would go work for Steve/GN? Employees may not think it's perfect, but clearly agree with the ethos, else wouldn't still be working for the company year after year
• This isn't Drama - No Steve, it really is. And he loves the drama, which is why he goes in for it again & again
• Bad data - Sure, and as previously stated not a problem in itself. Corrections are made, and just because they don't meet Steve's 'self-imposed' standards, doesn't mean they're not acceptable corrections. Poor editorial QC is all this part of the GN proves, unworthy of the 45min rant
• CPU Coolers - GN cherry-picking data to shout about how they do superior quality testing, and have superior methodology
• PSU Error - a literal typo? Weak argument there from GN
• Asterisk Errors - This is a video, if you can't read the text, don't believe everything you hear. You don't have to 'cut it' or 'correct it in video'. That's what Steve would do, that's not what EVERYONE has to do. Supremely arrogant attitude from Steve.
• Ethical Concerns, Irresponsible actions - All about Framework & Noctua. This is a complete non-issue. The framework investment is mentioned repeatedly, and Noctua were an LMG favourite well before the screwdriver, so why the big deal? Not everyone has to follow Steve's 'Ethical Guidelines'. 
• Ethical Concerns, Billet Labs - Reeks of a story told from a 1-sided point of view, with cherry-picked comments. Was the review sloppy? Yes. Did it harm the business of Billet Labs? Definitely not. Being exposed to tens of millions of people is no bad thing, and anyone taking a YT video as gospel is frankly deluded.
• Ethical Concerns, Pwnage Mouse - The most valid argument of the video, but hardly work a 3/4 hour rant. Again, I doubt Pwnage suffered at all from this huge exposure.
• Unacceptable & disturbing community - Steve knows he's going to get heat from this latest cry for attention, so tries to get ahead of any criticism. The only disturbing aspect to the GN video, is Steve's worrying lack of editorial direction, if he thinks this kind of content is going to do him any favours in the long run.
• Unfair to everyone - Nope. LMG has done wonders for the tech industry, and to suggest otherwise is follow. GN thinks it's an editorial, scientific review journal. LMG IS an entertainment outfit. At least LMG knows what it is. 

 

Made the account specifically to reply to this. Lots of takes, nearly all of them are bad.
LMG Rushing - Foundational premise. If even your own staff is saying that there's little to no review process, that's important to know. If the staff is saying that they're rushing to put out content, that's an indication corners are getting cut. This isn't an "weak" opinion; these are important distinctions that are correct to point out early. Could someone argue this was cherry-picked? Maybe. That doesn't take away from the point being made that there's little review and the staff think they're going too fast.

"Employees may not think it's perfect, but clearly agree with the ethos, else wouldn't still be working for the company year after year" (Emphasis mine) Irrelevant, Out Of Scope. Just because you work with someone doesn't imply like or agree with everything. This is like saying that all of Congress, even the staffers, agree with every piece of legislation passed. You know that's not true. This Maybe the pay is above industry standard (making leaving a risky choice), maybe having LTT/LMG on your resume is good for a later position; there's no evidence for this point. A person can have conflicting thoughts on something. You can both love working somewhere AND wish processes and procedures were better. Moving on.

"This isn't Drama - No Steve, it really is. And he loves the drama"(emphasis mine) No evidence. That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Even if there were evidence, this is irrelevant. This is an attempt to dismiss the whole thing on account of ego. Video isn't monetized. In spite of the flaws - which are often imperfectly phrased objections - objectively correct criticisms are laid bare. Even if this were drama, it's drama with legitimate points made

"Bad data - Sure, and as previously stated not a problem in itself" (emphasis mine). This is prima facie a terrible take. Bad data is bad data. If you are given bad data in a data set, you disclose it. If data is bad because of human error, correct it. If data is bad because it was arranged poorly, you clean it. If data is bad because it is faulty, you do not use it. If you suspect your data (quantitative or qualitative - like calling a card a TI when it wasn't) is bad you get rid of it. If you don't get rid of it and post it anyway, you're unethical. There's harm-inducing unethical behavior and non-harm-inducing unethical behavior; each instance is up for debate. Bad data can be caught with careful preproduction (wait, they're rushing content) or in post (oh wait, they don't review their own work; you think that's a "weak opinion").

"CPU Coolers - GN cherry-picking data to shout about how they do superior quality testing, and have superior methodology" (emphasis mine) Comprehension Error. Steve stated explicitly that LTTs data could not be duplicated. That's the point. GN uses a different methodology. At no time does Steve say or hint that GNs is better. They said that the errors they suspect LTT made are eliminated with careful pre- oh right, you think that's a weak opinion. When you have a fan that is outperforming another but there's an outlier that's over 10 points in favor of the competitor YOU DOUBLE CHECK THAT. In the specific instance of the Noctua vs Assassin, LTT owed it to itself to check that again. That's an AMAZING outlier, even if it's repeatable (no one has been able to repeat it). 

Asterisk Errors - If I had a week I couldn't list all the ways in which this take is intellectually dishonest.  

Ethical Concerns, Irresponsible actions "All about Framework & Noctua" (e.m.) - You actually didn't listen, then because they also said ASUS, and mentioned this was an issue because LTT offers blanket statements "ASUS GPUs are always good" (that's the quote from the cited video, while LTT mentioned there had been issues with ASUS GPUs, AND ASUS sponsored LTX. Does this alone indicate a systemic issue? No. Does it raise a legitimate issue? Yes. Is it malicious? Doubtful.

Billet Labs "Reeks of a story told from a 1-sided point of view, with cherry-picked comments"(e.m.) Ironically, this is cherry-picked. When you make this allegation, do you mean the ACTUAL comment from the ACTUAL people who made the prototype? Linus' comments were covered. Billet Labs' comments were covered. That's both sides Linus didn't make ONE incorrect comment, he made MANY incorrect comment. The prototype was made to work with a specific piece of hardware that Linus refused to make available. So Linus used an incorrect piece of hardware, tested the prototype on THAT, then attacked THAT performance. This is Strawman Argument Made Physical. Why Linus can't admit he was wrong about how he tested it is why this whole thing started. This was not "sloppy" as you called it. "Sloppy" would have been more apt if Linus eventually stumbled forward and tested it correctly. (I just checked - the offending LTT video, the instructions are EXPLICITLY for a 3090 Ti FE, and they rigged it on a 4090 ANYWAY).

This was "incompetent." The facts of this screwup don't turn on something mundane like "we only said 4 quarter screws and you did 3." This was "Our part is specifically designed for a 3090 Ti FE. Linus used a 4090 and didn't see an issue at all. Linus' insistence that this is a bad part needs to be better-founded on information he hasn't told us. Because if all the facts of the matter are in how he tested the GPU cooler, this has actual, substantial, legal consequences. Which brings me to:

"Did it harm the business of Billet Labs? Definitely not." (again, e.m.) All the ways this is wrong. Prototype injury, minimum viable product, etc. There is an ocean of Intellectual Property issues here.  We can talk about Fraudulent Misrepresentation where Linus - more times than he ought to, has insisted it's a bad product when he didn't follow directions, we can talk about Trade Secret Misappropriation (both for leaving a design prototype out in public at LTX and for allowing it to be sold), if Linus' opinion of Monoblock is entirely informed on the performance during that video that's False Advertising. That's the tip of the iceberg. LTT/LMG is seen by the public as THE top of the game in the consumer tech space. People listen to Linus (I do, you do clearly). To poorly test a product, and say the product is bad (even if we're going with "sloppy"), the harm done to Billet Labs isn't 0. We'll never actually know. Should they sue Linus? Yes, and this would be an easy win.  

Pwnage Mouse. "I doubt Pwnage suffered at all from this huge exposure" Out of scope. "Aunt Margaret loaded food in her Samsung fridge but didn't think to close the door and she blamed Samsung for it and blasted Samsung in front of 500K followers. But Samsung didn't suffer harm." Again, LTT commands a huge audience. They listen to LTT. If they say "mouse is bad" that will have an impact. The error was that the reviewer (that's what it was, let's not kid ourselves) didn't complete Post-Delivery Inspection, and the device suffered because of it. It was a VISIBLE error that MANY PEOPLE immediately caught. LTT's response: meh. IDK how you come to this conclusion of "no harm is done," but your lack of knowledge in the matter is rooted in fundamental misunderstandings of how "harm" works, what "harm" is, and reputation management (Linus', LTTs/LMGs, Pwnage's and Billet's).

Unacceptable & disturbing community. You made Steve's argument.

Unfair to everyone.  "Nope. LMG has done wonders for the tech industry, and to suggest otherwise is follow" You either meant "[GN] suggest others to follow" or "...to suggest otherwise is [fallow]" which is not how the world "fallow" is used, OR "...to suggest otherwise is [fallacious]" and because that fits better, I'm going to presume that's what you meant (for those that don't know, this is called a "friendly amendment" or "considering a debator in THEIR best light" Jazmodo didn't do this for GN, but I'm doing it for them because I'm not a hack. I don't presume Jazmodo is a hack, but they did employ 'hackish' behavior and I want everyone involved to do better).

BTW, not attacking you for spelling/grammar because that's a weak argument and improperly tries to take away from your point. Here's why you're actually wrong: False equivalency. Assumption that criticisms of LTT/LMG/Linus means no one should listen to the same, which isn't what Steve/GN said, and you know that. LTT/LMG position itself as an "entertainment" group. Maybe in the most strict sense. A more correct word is "Infotainment," or presenting info in a way that is entertaining. 

When you make reviews, definitive sweeping subjects positioning yourself as subject-matter experts, lab tests...Who do you think you're fooling? No one would look at the time, detail, and expense LTT/LMG is spending on lab work and says "you're an entertainer." A reasonable person will look at LTT/LMG and believe that they are experts running information channels. The idea that they are entertainers is something I learned today and I've been an avid watcher (obviously I haven't seen everything). I'm a rather observant person and missed this. It's reasonable to say that a "reasonable person" would have likewise missed it. Even if they DID catch it, Linus speaks with such authority that it legally is a "distinction without a difference." Linus et. al, presents themselves as arbiters of consumer tech. 

It is not immoral, unethical, or otherwise improper to look at the people on top and say "You're doing it wrong, and this is what I see." Steve did an imperfect job of this, but his criticisms have been a long time coming. A proper video of this kind would probably be more akin to Hbomberman 2-hour long, multipart, exposes (which BTW Linus, IS LEGITIMATE JOURNALISM). 

I like Linus. I bought a Deepcool because of data I saw from LTT and GN. I have a CPU with bent pins, and an LTT video is why I decided to pool what I have and try it myself! I restored a Ryzen 5 5600! I spent $40 in parts I didn't already have to save $80-130. I wouldn't have thought that CPU pins were a SOLDERING JOB. Thanks to LTT. There is a TON of value in watching LTT/LMG. 

There are valid criticisms, too. Moral absolutism (you said things against something I like, I hate you) is dumb. It's a dumb way to run your life. It's a dumb way to lose friends and opportunities. "So and so is my friend and you can't criticize them" Yes the heck I can, Yes the heck I should, and Yes the heck I will! If you are really someone's friend you want them to be the best version of themselves. You do yourself AND your friend a disservice by blanketly and blatantly ignoring valid criticisms. Linus screwed up. Linus refuses to admit he's making mistakes in real time. Putting his head up his butt is the fastest way to make this worse. 

No one has said LTT/LMG ought to go away. GN didn't say that. Maybe some extremists are saying it; idk, I don't listen to them. But don't veil yourself in logical fallacies and ignorance and pretend there isn't a problem here.  TapFork out. 

[FFF]

7 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

If you're new to the channel, I understand why you might not know this, but we are extremely committed to improving our accuracy to the point where we are building out a $10M+ facility jam-packed full of equipment and engineering know-how. It's taking time, and this kind of aggressive expansion has been a learning curve for us, but to frame our recent actions as "sacrificing accuracy" is misleading at best. 

We need to make a lot of process changes to get to the point where everything is water-tight. That's a big part of why we added our new CEO Terren to our leadership team, but once again... things take time. He's been full time on the job for less than a single quarter and he's getting up to speed on all the things we are doing right... and yes... all the things we are doing wrong.

 

Trust me, we know. But we are making major investments in improving all of this and we won't stop.

You're the man that got me into PC building and I've been watching your content for over 10 years. Don't make LMG water-tight, it's super entertaining and fun when your water cooled builds leak. lol.. All joking aside, turns out, it's really hard to run a large company! People may be slightly overreacting. I support you my dude. There's always room to improve and you're acknowledging that head on

[jitteryzeitgeist]

1 minute ago, Legitsu said:

finally one of the fresh members says something that makes sense

 

hes right trust him is IS GARBAGE anybody with any engineering expereience would take one look at it and say "WHY?" 

But he has no engineering experience.  He used it wrong.  I don't trust him to figure out cooling properties, I'm watching him to test things properly.

 

My entire career is testing.  I spend hours going over methodology so I can get repeatable results, in proper form.  All Linus did was put the wrong cooler on the wrong card and claim it's not good, and then to cover up his ineptitude he went on a rant about how garbage it is, while the QA person in me was calling him every name under the sun, including UNPROFESSIONAL.

[suits]

6 minutes ago, Bleda412 said:

If you look at Linus' post, you will notice that he completely ignored the conflicts of interest raised by Gamers Nexus.

That's the only part of GN's video that I thought was mostly nonsense. 200k in framework is literally an "I support this" amount. The noctua screwdriver I could see, but it's something so easy to tell if it's a bad review it's meh at best. 

 

Those saying this framework investment clouds judgement I just don't understand the thought. 

[Coatesy]

7 minutes ago, VisibleXela said:

 

If a bad product is actively on store shelves, actively causing problems by fooling gullible customers, does LMG wait until the company responsible gives full context before a review is published? If that's the policy at LMG I need to start avoiding LTT videos.

You don't have to wait for a response but it would be in the interest of the public and wider story to understand the suppliers perspective or opinion.

In much the same way, GN could reach out to LMG with his observations and gain some more insight. It might not change the video at all but at least the is a deeper understanding of what has been going wrong and what the supplier (or LMG in this case) is doing to control for those issues.

LMG may have told Steve that while they don't agree with his assessment, they are aware their quality control has not been up to the standard we should expect (which Linus has admitted in his statement). That in itself adds significant value to the conversation which was missed in the GN video.

[AudacityTheEditor]

3 minutes ago, Karl Mern said:

You cannot make this up, even more errors, EposVox on youtube calling out ltt latest video, link to comment -

Pardon my asking, but I am not very experienced in audio engineering.  Why is a frequency response graph not a valid way to validate a microphone?  From what I understand, it seems like it would be a good representation.

[FairPumpkin]

4 hours ago, FadedSpark said:

Corporations don't care about your feelings. Corporations aren't people. Corporations don't get handled with kid gloves.

 

They get publicly discussed, and allowed to make their own decision on how to respond to that discussion.

 

GN talked with newegg before publishing their first video (talked virtually before the initial one and went to their HQ after it to talk some more). With LTT they just went for the kill because, other than the egregious Billet thing, most of the video are bullshit nitpicks - out of multiple hundreds of videos - which wouldn't get as much traction if they were in context. Like talking about framework, every video has a clear notice "hey we're invested in this!!!", fuck GN for bringing it up like some conflict that's hidden away.

 

I hope LTT learns from the billet thing to better handle press samples and improves labs processes before the lab is officially live (continued retests also help there, similar to what rtings does where they update stuff), the rest I don't really care. I watch the videos to take my mind of work, I don't plan on buying 99.9% of the stuff on videos and their data is on the right ballpark.

 

PS: no i didn't read all the thread and don't plan to lol, just came to see the official statement and found this nugget near it that was worth a reply

[Tyranzor]

4 hours ago, Moortu said:

Not returning the Billet waterblock and auctioning it.

So many people are calling it theft for some reason.

While occams razor would probably point to a HUGE fuckup but not intentional.

 

It's incredibly stupid and they need to make amends.

But think it's to early to get the pitchforks out.

 

I did dislike how Linus didn't properly test the block and said not to buy it.

You can buy equipment for the lab for thousands and ten thousands of dollars, but not spend 500 more per video to make them accurate?

 

The quality of videos has gone down over the time. They are funny, but a lot of times I wish a concept was better fleshed out into a video. 

 

I personally am  not a huge fan of the "going in blind videos", where the concept has been tested by someone but Linus then goes in mostly blind. A well constructed plan is more my thing but that's my opinion

 

 

Theft becomes theft when you are made aware that the product you have is not yours. 

In some parts of the USA even unintentional theft can be punished by law to nearly the same degree that theft with intention can be although most make a distinction there. 

It's being called theft because that's what it is, LMG kept a product that was loaned to them then auctioned it for charity. 

[Middcore]

10 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

If you're new to the channel, I understand why you might not know this, but we are extremely committed to improving our accuracy to the point where we are building out a $10M+ facility jam-packed full of equipment and engineering know-how.

 

But if you admit you won't take the time or (relatively small) amount of money to properly review products like the Billet block because you had basically pre-judged it, why should anybody trust your credibility?

 

All of the equipment and engineering know-how in the world won't produce useful results if the commitment to doing the work right isn't there. 

[Anorax]

4 hours 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.

Time to tighten up your ship. Step back and look at the quality (or lack thereof) of your video production and testing teams. You have over 100 staff yet it seems there is no oversight of the production standards of your content. If you want to be taken seriously as a hardware review site then you need to do something drastic and soon. On a positive note your screwdriver is excellent! 

[MiltownClowns]

3 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

If you're new to the channel, I understand why you might not know this, but we are extremely committed to improving our accuracy to the point where we are building out a $10M+ facility jam-packed full of equipment and engineering know-how. It's taking time, and this kind of aggressive expansion has been a learning curve for us, but to frame our recent actions as "sacrificing accuracy" is misleading at best. 

We need to make a lot of process changes to get to the point where everything is water-tight. That's a big part of why we added our new CEO Terren to our leadership team, but once again... things take time. He's been full time on the job for less than a single quarter and he's getting up to speed on all the things we are doing right... and yes... all the things we are doing wrong.

 

Trust me, we know. But we are making major investments in improving all of this and we won't stop.

You keep mentioning that all the problems will "take time" but keep skirting the issue that the lack of time on a per video is self imposed. And instead of adding more time per video the GameLinked channel was started. No statement at all is better than only addressing ones that appeal to your ego first and ignoring to 45 pages of valid criticism that you guys rush videos at the expense of accuracy to the detriment of your viewers. Get a new PR person, for the love of god, and stop commenting with this defend and deflect tactic.

 

"We know our videos actively misinform people but but they won't in the future. Trust me, bro." is not a valid response to this very valid criticism.

[Zephyrmoth]

Steve posting this and not getting a request for comment or talking to anyone internally is 100% drama bait; we may hear more but the Billet Labs stuff sounds like it was resolved before this was published. It is a tremendously embarrassing screw up but was almost certainly just a communication breakdown in a way that is hopefully already being addressed.

 

*However*, this does come back to the persistent feeling of content being rushed. I suspect part of this is the fact that Linus is basically making himself host every single main channel video. I understand part of it is Emily Young choosing to step back from hosting for obvious reasons and the other hosts being usually locked into ShortCircuit or *Linked, but there is very clearly way too much of a bottleneck for the pace of content such that reshoots or scrapping bad ideas is not possible. Not to mention the weird "cutting off videos mid thought" thing they've claimed doesn't matter because of retention numbers.

 

Robustness of testing is something I hope will be addressed by things like Markbench in the future; many of GN's raised issues were seemingly due to issues from only being able to test on one system to hit embargos and not having sufficient time or ability to pick out outliers.