Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[dynastes]

2 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

its the best counter move get billet on wanshow talk about this make it known there is no hard feelings and we are moving on

 

will take the teeth right out of Steves Little video and make all the hyperactive pitchforks sit the guy fawkes down 

 

 

Why should there be a "counter move"? Linus said it himself, this should not be about sniping at each other. Even asking for drama like that is ridiculouly childish.

 

Bring on Steve instead. Talk about the issues (which ARE present, there is no denying it, especially on the quality of review data and annotations in post) and commit to resolving them. It would be most satisfying for the viewer, too.

[JoshuaScholar]

This situation isn't going to harm LMG, and it may improve it.

There's no reason to be angry at Steve.  He did Linus a favor.

[Deedikjepijn]

10 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.

Informative and unfortunate. I'm unsubscribing my Floatplane subscription!

[Nuzicx]

Hello LMG / LTT

 

 

I hope your reading this and taking in whole-heartedly what Gamers Nexus is saying.

I support GN's views and opinions. He is a credible source, one without bias and expert in his field.

Thank you GN for putting out this well put together video.

 

What were you doing selling of billet labs prototype? This may destroy this company and legal action may pursue.

Why do you constantly get specifications wrong?

Why do you inaccurately provide advice?

How could you let a bias inflect your content? Whilst objective it is a well raised concern, Promoting your own vested interests in a company on your channel without notifying us, feels a lot like insider trading

 

I also miss pinned comments and you shouldn't rely on text quotations on videos for your corrections, yes i do zone them out or not have my window in the foreground.

 

Due to the mass postings on this topic. I will not be replying to any quoted forum posts, I have noticed LTT getting things wrong for years, they are kinda like a joke to me now and I cross check all their reviews.

[Legitsu]

Just now, JoshuaScholar said:

This situation isn't going to harm LMG, and it may improve it.

There's no reason to be angry at Steve.  He did Linus a favor.

No No No PLEASE GOD NOOo no no NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

he did him self a favor he did this for attention because there is no good normal nice human reason todo this other then to cause drama 

its a egotistical power move at best 

[JamesC87]

5 minutes ago, Major_Hylton said:

I’ve been a fan of LTT / LMG for more years than I care to remember however I decided to join the forum today simply to post this. 
The GN vid has many good points and Steve delivered the key messages in a well produced way however I think some contributors here need to take a step back. Every member of this forum joined because at some point they enjoyed / discovered / learnt something from an LTT / LMG video. 

I’ve worked in data for many years and it’s easy to make a mistake, it’s also easy to miss the mistake – when you’ve been staring at a spreadsheet for a period of time with a deadline, things are missed and this is where QA / QC come into play, which Linus has already said many times is constantly being improved.

The company is moving into a new area with the Lab (more granular analysis than previously needed for a one time review) and it’s going to take time to find their footing – as already called out many times there is still work to be done here on many counts and hopefully this helps steer the ship in the right direction.

What happened with the Billet Labs water block is terrible and I feel for them – however it happened, someone missed an email (which is easy to do) and someone from the LTX team wasn’t aware they couldn’t auction the item. This was not down to Linus; it was down to the team in charge of the auction.

Linus has already stated he is going to compensate Billet Labs and while that won’t put the company back in the same position (they’ll need to use the compensation to remake the prototype which takes time) hopefully it will help Billet avoid any further lost opportunity.

 

I’m not an LTT / LMG apologised – I’m just a fan who understands that mistakes happen and fearful that the forum is turning into Reddit.
 

But Linus’s response to this has been similar to other controversies. Yes it’s hard running a growing business, but if he hasn’t learned from the past PR mistakes, he hasn’t listened to his employees, or the majority of the community, how long is his fairly close knit audience going to stick around?

[Legitsu]

2 minutes ago, Nuzicx said:

Hello LMG / LTT

 

 

I hope your reading this and taking in whole-heartedly what Gamers Nexus is saying.

I support GN's views and opinions. He is a credible source, one without bias and expert in his field.

Thank you GN for putting out this well put together video.

 

What were you doing selling of billet labs prototype? This may destroy this company and legal action may pursue.

Why do you constantly get specifications wrong?

Why do you inaccurately provide advice?

How could you let a bias inflect your content? Whilst objective it is a well raised concern, Promoting your own vested interests in a company on your channel without notifying us, feels a lot like insider trading

 

I also miss pinned comments and you shouldn't rely on text quotations on videos for your corrections, yes i do zone them out or not have my window in the foreground.

 

Due to the mass postings on this topic. I will not be replying to any quoted forum posts, I have noticed LTT getting things wrong for years, they are kinda like a joke to me now and I cross check all their reviews.

@echo on 

 echo echo 

 echo echo

 echo echo

pause

exit 

you said effectively nothing you mearly parrotted steves video title 

and we are suposed to take you seriously or care ? 

[filpo]

8 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

it seems like anyone spending $800 on a water block would at least check before buying it.

Almost makes me think I'm more experienced than them

 

Almost, obviously I'm not

3 minutes ago, Deedikjepijn said:

Informative and unfortunate. I'm unsubscribing my Floatplane subscription!

Wow, I care

 

It's not like LMG are gonna acknowledge that you unsubbed

3 minutes ago, Nuzicx said:

Hello LMG / LTT

 

 

I hope your reading this and taking in whole-heartedly what Gamers Nexus is saying.

I support GN's views and opinions. He is a credible source, one without bias and expert in his field.

Thank you GN for putting out this well put together video.

 

What were you doing selling of billet labs prototype? This may destroy this company and legal action may pursue.

Why do you constantly get specifications wrong?

Why do you inaccurately provide advice?

How could you let a bias inflect your content? Whilst objective it is a well raised concern, Promoting your own vested interests in a company on your channel without notifying us, feels a lot like insider trading

 

I also miss pinned comments and you shouldn't rely on text quotations on videos for your corrections, yes i do zone them out or not have my window in the foreground.

 

Due to the mass postings on this topic. I will not be replying to any quoted forum posts, I have noticed LTT getting things wrong for years, they are kinda like a joke to me now and I cross check all their reviews.

 

3 minutes ago, Deedikjepijn said:

Informative and unfortunate. I'm unsubscribing my Floatplane subscription!

 

5 minutes ago, Godiwa said:

1. You made a huge F-Up and should own it, not try to disown the messenger

2. No they had no reason to contact you for a comment first, did you contact them first when you spoke badly about them (without mentioning a name) even though most people knew exactly who you talked about?

3. No SoP changes even though you stole/fenced a one off proof of concept for a tiny startup company that could ruin them... WTF is wrong with you? There should be a "EVERYONE IS HERE NOW - MEETING" so this NEVER EVER happens again...

4. Have you gotten the cooler back from the illegal sale (call it an "auction for charity" again and think it makes it any better and you deserve for all the viewers to come smack you over the head...) and delivered it back to Billet Lab? I know you paid "some" compensation to them... Did you just sit back and felt all chummy then or did you actually put in some effort? Get the cooler back, pay the buyer WELL for your mistake and have it shipped to them instantly... I don't care if you need to pay a personal courier to pick it up at the buyers place and handdeliver it to Billet Labs... JUST DO IT NOW !

5. Writing this arrogant post on the forum most of your viewers never visit it not "enough" you do need to go out publicly on your main channel and fes up... With a VERY public excuse of your misconduct and illegal behaviour (and when I say you I talk about LTT) and you will explain very clearly how you will make sure this doesn't happen again and you will also (off camera) have a very serious talk with everyone in the chain of custody of the cooler and find out where it slipped and make sure they know they fucked up... I am not asking for you to fire someone... and to be honest Terren should actually do that not Linus... If there is severe lack of judgement then yes you can fire someone but we all make mistakes and firing someone isn't something to take lightly...

6. accuracy and factual facts is important when you are a tech reviewer and no a small 1 second blip on the screen is not good enough (it can be fine for a minor spec sheet thing like the cache issue) but retake a clip if needed (TAKE THE DAMN TIME) stop rushing stuff it's BAD... or do a voiceover... if there are several "oops'es" in the same video... remove it, reupload... yes it sucks... but spreading bad info is BAD INFO and BAD BEHAVIOUR and such a large company should really have someone checking the manuscript... and checking the video... because "shiz happens" but if you throw all QC out the window and just go 100Mph down the road then you will crash eventually... take GN's video as a "hey bud, wake up" and actually LISTEN do it... notice the clips from your OWN employees? Yeah? Maybe listen to them too? I stopped taking your "reviews" seriously "a while ago" simply because they were not useful, they were rushed, inaccurate etc. etc. now I watch you now and then as a "haha funny" channel just like people watches Tik Tok... but you say you want to make great stuff with the LABS and all... PROVE IT!

To all the "bla bla ignore him, he just made a new account to hate on our king" this is an OLD account... I just don't post here much... But I felt this was important enough to dust it off and voice my opinion... I am not a "fan" of any channel... I very carefully chose who I listen to when I make hardware choices... If people know they make mistakes and just brushes them off because "reasons" then I stop watching them, then they are no better than russian propaganda... If small channels can put in the time (and money) to do it properly, then a huge 100+ million dollar channel can do it too... and make it right the first time, then you don't have to do it twice...

Now come with a proper and PUBLIC response... then lets all move into the future together with a stronger and better LTT...

 

6 minutes ago, Garud said:

@LinusTech You need to understand that there is no 'Team Media' around you. LMG is big enough to make other tech youtubers feel antagonistic as seen with the HUB response over Twitter and now GN's video. And the current climate tends to automatically support the smaller creator. I think you need to consider that no other tech youtubers are your friends or colleagues. They are out for blood and will turn every lapse, every miscommunication into cannon fodder against you. So, you need to stop expecting others to fact check with you before publishing. LMG will never be criticized in good faith as that doesn't bring any value to others. All criticism will be levied with bad faith or at best, neutrally.

 

To the forum members waiting to finish reading this before telling me how wrong I am and what a piece of shit of a human being I am for taking LTT's side, I am not. Neither am I taking GN's side. I have noticed the drop in quality but as someone who has their own startup, I am aware of how difficult it is to grow as a company. As such, I have a lot of patience in this situation and am hoping that they finish the Lab setup/website soon. As for the billet's lab fiasco, I am sure there is more to it than anyone is talking about. And for the conflict of interest, where were you guys when Linus was taking community feedback over his decision? I personally don't find any CoI and wish Linus would invest in more consumer friendly tech.

With this, I will be turning of notifications, so that I don''t ruin my mood reading the horrible things you folks are writing here.

 

6 minutes ago, SoldiersFortune said:

No, Linus, this is not a case of you "reading the room wrong". This is about how you treated a small company's product with blatant disrespect because you couldn't be bothered to test it properly to achieve a fair review. And the reasoning for this decision appeared to be entirely monetary from your comment on the WAN show. It just wasn't worth your team's time and money to go back and run the tests correctly, regardless of the damage your video could have done to Billet Labs reputation. They trusted you with their product and you broke that trust by refusing to give it a proper trial.

 

Your company is making a huge deal about the launch of the Lab, yet you don't seem to be connecting the dots. How are your viewers supposed to trust your testing/review methodology coming out of the Lab if you are going to be flippant with going back and redoing flawed tests on products that have been entrusted to you simply because you decide they aren't worth your time or you believe they are a bad value?

 

Furthermore, the block that Billet Labs provided to you was a Prototype; a proof of concept. Of course it wasn't going to be a good value to the average consumer! It was literally 1 of 1. Products become cheaper when they are mass produced and this was nowhere near the finished product. If the intent in providing LTT with their only working prototype was to build interest in their design so that they could launch a cheaper, more refined version later on with broad name recognition, your video effectively killed that goal by never showing what their design's full potential was. Small companies live and die by this sort of publicity.

 

Your message to Billet Labs was you aren't worth my time. And that attitude isn't going to make other vendors want to send you their products. And it certainly isn't going to instill trust in LTT's review/testing methodology.

 

7 minutes ago, SypherX said:

If it is true that GN didn't reach out to Linus or anyone else for comment/better understanding prior to writing the video, then I'm seeing this as more of hit piece from GN. They have motive too.
 

LTT and GN could live in the same space when Linus was seen more for entertainment value in the tech space, rather than the scientific testing that GN does. Now that LTT is going down the route of LTT Labs, this hurts the smaller YouTubers who built their reputation on rigorous and less-mainstream testing. With LMG now occupying both spaces, it potentially takes a chunk out of what GN are doing already or their future audience.

 

GN also come off as the good guys here, since they didn't monetize this video and mentioned it prominently, since they knew this would cause a stir. It positions them as a true, consumer-friendly alternative to LTT Labs saying that LTT testing is already bad/inaccurate.

 

Has LMG made mistakes here? Oh, 100% buddy.  Am I concerned about the quality of the videos lately and how a prototype was incorrectly sold? Absolutely. But the fact that GN has accused LMG of bad practices, lack of ethics and a proper investigation (testing) when they didn't do that prior to publishing a hit-piece video says quite a lot.

 

8 minutes ago, RWxAshley said:

This is a very poor response, and you NEED to watch the GN video. Not once, not even twice. I think you need to take the time to fully watch it through like its the  documentary on your life because this will become LMG's reputation if you don't start steering the ship back on course Today, and publicly show exactly what you are doing to correct these issues. No half hearted corporate statements, no blowing this off like it'll be fixed eventually. No saying your still a young company growing into it like someone in their 40s living in the basement of your family home.

You absolutely have the time to take on this genuine criticism head on and realize the ultimate conclusion of Steve's video. This isn't some random forum troll, or the subreddit. This is one of your peers that could be using this chance to let you sink your own ship, and grow themselves beyond your channel that has choosen to make it public so that its harder for you to ignore. This is someone that I think knows if they talked to you on the phone you would've nodded your head, and kept going like nothing is wrong because you honestly don't see anything wrong with the direction of your channel when there are serious enough concerns bubbling within your company that its grown, festered, and ultimately begun hurting those companies sharing the same space as you. That LMG has, in a way, begun growing into a youtube, or a twitch. This company is at risk of growing into the very thing you yourself have criticized in the past for mishandling, and hurting smaller creators that exist thanks to you. You aren't ltt with less then a million subscribers anymore. You don't get to have this young tech start up attitude that you'll fix things at a Laissez-faire pace, and expect throwing money at people to solve breaking of personal trust, and business relations. You need to actually sit down, and listen to the folks around you saying that something has gone horrible wrong.

Linus's stress levels must be going through the roof. Either that or he's having his signature power nap

[JoshuaScholar]

1 minute ago, Legitsu said:

No No No PLEASE GOD NOOo no no NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

he did him self a favor he did this for attention because there is no good normal nice human reason todo this other then to cause drama 

its a egotistical power move at best 

Steve has a career that is as successful as Linus' in his own way.  He has different priorities.

And this piece will hopefully improve priorities at a company in Canada too.

[Legitsu]

1 minute ago, JoshuaScholar said:

Steve has a career that is as successful as Linus' in his own way.  He has different priorities.

And this piece will hopefully improve priorities at a company in Canada too.

do you really belive he accually cares about improving anything other then his own view/subscriber count

are you really that gullable ? 

 

protip: anybody that vitru signals that hard likely has a giant ego or a agenda ... or both 

 

[Elinzar]

3 minutes ago, Garud said:

To the forum members waiting to finish reading this before telling me how wrong I am and what a piece of shit of a human being I am for taking LTT's side, I am not. Neither am I taking GN's side. I have noticed the drop in quality but as someone who has their own startup, I am aware of how difficult it is to grow as a company. As such, I have a lot of patience in this situation and am hoping that they finish the Lab setup/website soon. As for the billet's lab fiasco, I am sure there is more to it than anyone is talking about. And for the conflict of interest, where were you guys when Linus was taking community feedback over his decision? I personally don't find any CoI and wish Linus would invest in more consumer friendly tech.

From me, not Really, since the first "we treat LMG as a company now" video it felt that they are going out for blood, but i also think the same from LMG as well when they decided to step into GN turf with the lab, so you could argue LMG shot first breaking the status quo

but honestly it doesnt matter, it is beyond clear none of the Stevers or LMG are friends with eachother

what really matters tho is what happened, adress what has been pointed out as problems and try to find a solution

[Sdogga]

2 minutes ago, Garud said:

@LinusTech You need to understand that there is no 'Team Media' around you. LMG is big enough to make other tech youtubers feel antagonistic as seen with the HUB response over Twitter and now GN's video. And the current climate tends to automatically support the smaller creator. I think you need to consider that no other tech youtubers are your friends or colleagues. They are out for blood and will turn every lapse, every miscommunication into cannon fodder against you. So, you need to stop expecting others to fact check with you before publishing. LMG will never be criticized in good faith as that doesn't bring any value to others. All criticism will be levied with bad faith or at best, neutrally.

 

To the forum members waiting to finish reading this before telling me how wrong I am and what a piece of shit of a human being I am for taking LTT's side, I am not. Neither am I taking GN's side. I have noticed the drop in quality but as someone who has their own startup, I am aware of how difficult it is to grow as a company. As such, I have a lot of patience in this situation and am hoping that they finish the Lab setup/website soon. As for the billet's lab fiasco, I am sure there is more to it than anyone is talking about. And for the conflict of interest, where were you guys when Linus was taking community feedback over his decision? I personally don't find any CoI and wish Linus would invest in more consumer friendly tech.

I think not reaching out for comment is a problem no matter who you are. If I want to sue my ex wife for the kids, and I don't try to ask her to talk reasonably about it first, there's a good chance my court case gets dismissed or a much smaller result because I haven't done due diligence.

Now if she ignores me, tells me to go to hell, or hey even agrees - I've at least tried. When I then to to court, I can say "she never responded" and now she's being scrutinized, not me.

 

I think the same applies here. Even if GN was LTT's biggest enemy in the world, not reaching out for comment even when the act of emailing makes you want to burn your business down is just not good enough. You can disagree with their response, eat some humble pie when they're right, or choose to ignore it entirely - hopefully, they don't respond, as it only backs you up more - and continue, but at least then you've done the process.

[Mr_Guillotine]

I hope this can all be worked out and I hope that you and Steve can discuss things, but you have to be open to criticism, which, honestly, sometimes you don't seem to be (though, sort of understandable, but sometimes I feel like you take things too personally when all someone is trying to do is to help you understand something from a new perspective...and I believe you've admitted as much on WAN at least once), but in this case, it would be good to just listen and then give honest answers to any questions, clear up anything that was incorrect or a misunderstanding. From your post, I sort of got the impression that you were saying that Steve didn't contact you at all before this video released. If so, then despite what some seem to think, that is actually not how journalists tend to operate, maybe it's a tech journo thing, but typically, a journalist will contact the subject of their story to discuss it, to let them know what facts/evidence they have, and to seek out any clarifications (with supporting evidence of course) to ensure that they are presenting both sides of it to the best of their ability. So if Steve didn't contact you at all before this, and simply released the video without warning or opportunity to weigh in, then that would be bad journalism on his part...

What it doesn't do though is negate the majority of the claims in his video. I think it's become clear to a lot of us, that you guys are moving too fast. You need to take a step back to clean up the QA issues. Many us understand there are growing pains, but let's be honest, you do not want to start out with the Labs this way. Starting out and having too many corrections, errors, flaws in testing, etc is a very poor foundation to build the reputation of the Labs upon, and if you need to reduce the weekly video output to allow more time for your team to be more thorough, or come up with simpler video concepts if you really feel you have to keep up the same schedule, then that should be strongly considered if not adopted immediately. We've all heard you discuss how bad crunch is for the industry (tech, games, etc), and how it impacts quality, employee morale, and company reputation....you and your team can actually demonstrate a better way. So lead by example and show everyone how it should be done. Take more time, and strive to get it right. Will there still be mistakes? Sure, but if you slow it down, you'll have more time to make actual edits, add in proper corrections, and you'll build a better foundation moving forward. 

Anyway, I don't like it when Mom and Dad fight, so figure it out please 

[LickyLickyBumBum]

10 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.

Woah watch out, guys, @LinusTech didn't get to make an offer HUB and GN can't refuse! It's Joever! How will Linus Corleone cope with the fallout that's starting to brew? Make a few calls, make HUB and GN sleep with the fishes? Concrete shoes? Ask the Commission to approve carrying out a hit?

 

Or will Linus go the CIA route with 2 bullets to each of their heads?

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

44 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Even if it was on a weekend, then someone should have been made aware despite it being a weekend, LMG screwed up on selling it in the first place so they should've fixed it as quickly as possible.

And if you read back earlier, LMG has been in touch with Billet, but given LTT's typical communication channels this would most likely be addressed on the WAN show. And honestly, if my employer called me up in the weekend to make some sort of apology video I'd tell them to stick it where the sun don't shine. 

 

54 minutes ago, bandainamcofan said:

Frankly it never even should have happened, so being mad at GN for reporting it is just deflection.

Uhm, stop moving the goal post, what you did now is literally this:
A: "Why hasn't LMG publicly responded yet?"
B: "Because they literally learned about it just before the weekend."
A: "They simply shouldn't have done it in the first place."

  

32 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

You said management, so only one or two people would would have to come back into work, or it could be solved with an email or phone call.

Thats a weird take to defend LMG.

 

Which they did, have you actually been reading? Would said quote magically arrive if there had been no communication between LMG management and Billet?

Plus, you also assume Billet was available over the weekend, which is also highly unlikely.

 

  

48 minutes ago, Uzrathixius said:

Could you elaborate further? I've always thought his stuff was "fine", in that regard. However, electronics is not my industry so I am rather blind to what faults he may have in that content.

I stopped watching after the entire cringe Gigabyte PSU thing, but I remember the following grievances:

• "ZOMG WHY DOES INTEL CHANGE SOCKET SO OFTEN, LOOK AMD CAN KEEP THE SAME ONE FOR SO LONG" (ok, not like that but you get the point), while simultaneously failing to understand that a large part of AMD's I/O problems were probably caused by them trying to use the old socket. Signal integrity is very much a thing, and GN seems to have some trouble grasping that sometimes.
• Components change between production lots all the time, as circuit designer you indicate which parameters are important, and then you hope the purchasing and manufacturing department respects your choices (they don't). Meanwhile, GN explicitly stated that this is abnormal and should never happen, in reality it's the most common thing in the world to call up one of those distributors and ask them to give you whatever 47 µF 16V capacitor that fits on your footprint.
• Various bad takes on PCIe and USB at the hardware level.
• Failing to grasp that some of the things they don't like were done for reliability purposes, because maybe someone wants their device to last for more than a couple of months. You can't just toss things on a PCB willy-nilly and hope that they're OK.
• Going crazy over CPU temperatures, while failing to understand what's actually being measured, where it's being measured, how that's turned into a number on your screen, and what the actual impact on performance and longevity is.
• GN videos are a good example of how to not test a PSU, like I've never seen them do a proper stability measurement. But why not skimp over it, it's not as if your public will understand it anyway.
• Their takes on how a current limiter should behave were bad, really bad. 
• ...

So yeah, not a big fan.

[filpo]

Just now, Legitsu said:

do you really belive he accually cares about improving anything other then his own view/subscriber count

hey you can only hope that there are still some good people in the world

 

Just now, Legitsu said:

are you really that gullable ? 

that's just plain mean

 

2 minutes ago, JoshuaScholar said:

He has different priorities.

yes but no. I think the reason he made the video was because he was called out. Gamers Nexus wouldn't have done it otherwise

[JoshuaScholar]

1 minute ago, Legitsu said:

do you really belive he accually cares about improving anything other then his own view/subscriber count

are you really that gullable ? 

 

He has the mind of an engineer.

 

He's very consistent. 

[dynastes]

3 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

No No No PLEASE GOD NOOo no no NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

he did him self a favor he did this for attention because there is no good normal nice human reason todo this other then to cause drama 

its a egotistical power move at best 

Do you actually believe you own words? A power move? When LTT probably has about ten times the viewership of GN across all of its channels? And with a non-monetized video to boot? Yeah, sure ...

[treestain]

12 minutes ago, Goodminestrina said:

An acutal journalist, usually, reaches out to ALL the parties involved in a situation. GN did it for countless other companies too, and if they consider LMG on par as the likes of Gigabyte or Newegg, then they should have reached out to ask for comments too. It's as simple as that, it's not about "resolving it quietly" it's about integrity.

I wonder if GN will comment on why he never reached out to anyone asking for comment. I agree with a lot of what was said in the GN Video. but there were some moments that just semmed... strange.

[bandainamcofan]

1 minute ago, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

Uhm, stop moving the goal post, what you did now is literally this:
A: "Why hasn't LMG publicly responded yet?"
B: "Because they literally learned about it just before the weekend."
A: "They simply shouldn't have done it in the first place."

I, personally, have never made any statements on their response of the issue, other than if they're making it right, so be it. The fact remains that the piece never should have gone up for auction. It simply wasn't LMG's property to sell.

[Dillykins]

4 minutes ago, filpo said:

Wow, I care

 

It's not like LMG are gonna acknowledge that you unsubbed

bro thats like half their userbase

[Texbobcat]

Just now, treestain said:

I wonder if GN will comment on why he never reached out to anyone asking for comment. I agree with a lot of what was said in the GN Video. but there were some moments that just semmed... strange.

Why didn't linus reach out to Billet for comment.

[JoshuaScholar]

2 minutes ago, filpo said:

hey you can only hope that there are still some good people in the world

 

that's just plain mean

 

yes but no. I think the reason he made the video was because he was called out. Gamers Nexus wouldn't have done it otherwise

He was "called out" at such a laughable level that using that quote was just irony. 

 

Nothing to do with it.

[filpo]

Just now, Dillykins said:

bro thats like half their userbase

Floatplane? Are you saying 15 million subscribers is only half their userbase? They have about 40k subs on floatplane. Yes that's where they make a lot of their money but even if half the people who were on floatplane unsubbed it still wouldn't make a big enough impact

[idiotra]

10 hours 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.... 

Fair, but you didn't give that integrity to your comments about the cooler in responses to your criticisms highlighted in Steve's video, I know this is a harsh 'take' but you did screw the pooch on that one. What I've read in this sea of reeee that is this thread is mostly people asking for a competent answer to how can LMG stop making such mistakes in the future and accept their shortcomings without reacting with a 'I'm right you're wrong ' sentiment.