Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Dillykins]

Just now, filpo said:

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

it was a joke.

[Major_Hylton]

1 minute ago, JamesC87 said:

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?

I agree with your sentiment here - I didn't necessarily want to touch on Linus's response within my post as he has already taken one hell of a beating within the last 24 hours.

 

I learnt a long time ago that when you make a mistake (which I've made many) you'll be judged more on how you react. Linus's response here wasn't great but it may be the case that it's an emotional quick-fire message simply to address what just happened.

 

I think Linus needs to step back and take some time to digest the entire situation and come back with a full, honest and most importantly transparent response.

[VoidX]

7 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

This is the crux of the problem.  LMG is 100% putting its own corporate profits over factual information for the consumer.  Even as a consumer, you seem to be okay with that.  Many of us are not.  Making less money won't put them out of business.  They haven't always been like this.

I genuinely believe they only go for as much profit as necessary to stay afloat and build the lab. Otherwise they would have gone public by now, there are many ways to make 5-10x. Greedy companies are never this open. I'm OK with the fact that these minor mistakes happen in this quantity at this production rate. These happened in a time span of many years, and many will be fixed by the lab. They seem to accept it and not censor threads like this, others (like idk, The Verge, lol) might.

 

I've worked for a similarly sized company in the past that lost 1 customer out of 10 equally paying ones, it's like losing one channel for Linus. 120 of 160 jobs were lost in the follow-up.

[filpo]

Just now, Dillykins said:

it was a joke.

In that case, I'm sorry. *insert gif to ease tense*

[Dom1252]

16 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

he didn't say anything directly he implied that he agreed it should  have been re-tested

but again and I can not belive I need to keep saying this

linus was right it was dumb nobody other then somebody that works at nasa is doing to care 

 

that's the stupidest take on this yet 

 

problem isn't "the product makes no sense" problem is they dismiss the whole idea of it because they are incompetent 

there's literally gold plated fittings being sold, they make no sense price wise, yet people buy them... 

this product wasn't for masses, but Linus did everything in his power to make it look much worse than it is

[JoshuaScholar]

For some people here, the issues of a company in Canada aren't really what's important I guess.

It's all about their parasocial relationship with a content creator.

 

Ok then.

 

I don't have anything more to say!  Good night!

[Elinzar]

1 minute ago, Dillykins said:

it was a joke.

"why you haf to be mad" vives right here lmao

[filpo]

1 minute ago, Major_Hylton said:

24 hours.

surprisingly it's only been 14 

[IrishDiem]

Tech Jesus has turned into Tech Judas. He seems to think he is a journalist now cause of the Arteisian build expose (which was well done but loitering outside a locked building isnt highly investigative). Sure, do a massive opinion piece if you want but opening by saying you arent taking money for this video cause its an opinion is a delusion of grandeur that GN doesnt deserve. 

The Billet Labs issue was a car crash of a video and should never have been published. It was like an Alex jank video without the skill, script, idea or even clearly desired outcome. On someones actual product. Adam let Linus down by not prepping the video and topic properly and Linus let himself and Adam down by actually going ahead with the shoot. We have seen this before from Adam and Linus - like that video about putting a PC in an X shaped object. Not reading the room is an understatement. The video about doing Crytomining when there is a graphics card shortage due to cryptomining is not reading the room. A 100% bad video that also then, as almost a side issue, took a dump from a great height on a prototype was just bad. If GN has done a response video back then I could get on board, but this seems a much more emotional video. 

Everything else in the GN video is just a salty jealous take. No reviewer is 100% accurate. This issue is what is done to correct errors. Every employee has a background in different companies (that was a low blow). Every tech company that has some investment money invests in other companies and products they are interested in. GN reviews of pre-builts should, logically, be rejected because GN get sponsored by manufacturers of devices in the enthusiast space. Thats a conflict of interest right there. See how that works?

 

 

[squid4016]

11 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.

@LinusTech Linus, I'm really disappointed by this reply and how you handle this situation to put it very mildly. I've watched you from starting as a comparably small channel on YouTube for years and sadly I've stopped watching more and more over the years. I just created this account because I wanted to let you know that while I enjoyed the content for a long time, the quality of tech-reviews has declined over years and moved more and more into an entertainment style, which is not for me. Even though this is the case I subscribed to Floatplane, because I very much believe a format like the WAN-Show is of value and needed in a more and more tech-focused society. There needs to be a place where these things are discussed. I'm not happy with it however and given this latest incident I've chosen to unsubscribe. Not only do you often take it too far with your hot-takes imo, which is to be expected from a show of this format to some extent, but you arent very reflected when critisism is voiced. These points, in some cases, would very much be valuable to the show and it's integrity, thus to the value it can bring to the table in this important field.

 

Regarding the whole quality of the videos, especially the testing of the monoblock, I was very shocked that you went through with the video even though you noticed the incompability of the card used. In the WAN-Show you said you have a lot of experience, which I think is evident, but even though you have the experience, you chose to go through with something like this. This was really unexpected and shocking. You must be aware of the kind of impact this has on the results and the scope of the video. That you doubled down in the WAN-Show is another thing and I really disliked the way you chose to take stance on the matter there. The auctioning of the prototype cooler is outrageous and I don't know why you specifically state it was auctioned, not sold. Gamers Nexus specifically said it was auctioned in the video, so mentioning this didn't make a whole lot of sense. In the end, auction or not, you effectively sold a prototype unit of something that is a very specific technical product to someone who might be or forward it to a direct competitor of the company in question. This is a very real possibility as we all have witnessed the extent people scalp products to make a dime with them, like you also covered in your videos. Someone bidding in the auction and contacting potential competitors with an offer isn't that unlikely if there's money, even a couple hundred bucks, to be made. What bothers me even more about it is that I clearly remember you talking about a prototype backpack of yours, that was given to one of your staff members, ending up in someone elses posession through a donation or whatever. You were very bothered with how this could happen and said you'd need to take this into account regarding prototypes going forward. We are talking about a backpack here - not a highly technical product like the monoblock. You are very clearly aware of how important prototypes and their confidentiality are but still you are taking this seemingly very lightly when it comes to the monoblock auctioning issue. To be frank with you, the prototype auctioning would be an issue for which I would pick up my phone on a late sunday night and give my lawyer a call to inform him/her that we're having a situation. Yet you are stating that you will pay for the cost, but it still has not been handled. Given all this context I am really disappointed about your handling of this whole situation.

 

I hope you can get this whole thing right, focus more on your quality and own up to the problems currently affecting your production and communications. I might sub again, but not if this is the way it will be. You were very real when you started out and I could very much relate to you, but things took a turn to a coporate-like environment here.

[RejZoR]

As much as I like LTT and Linus, I agree with Steve. LTT needs to address this however mean this "attack" might seem. One thing is being entertainer and showing numbers that are sometimes wrong. When you have a huge lab and you want to be super scientific, you need to follow on that and be precise and triple checked before being published. I hope Linus understands that his whole lab is worthless if no one takes it seriously. So, what's the point of having it then?

[JamesC87]

1 minute ago, Major_Hylton said:

I agree with your sentiment here - I didn't necessarily want to touch on Linus's response within my post as he has already taken one hell of a beating within the last 24 hours.

 

I learnt a long time ago that when you make a mistake (which I've made many) you'll be judged more on how you react. Linus's response here wasn't great but it may be the case that it's an emotional quick-fire message simply to address what just happened.

 

I think Linus needs to step back and take some time to digest the entire situation and come back with a full, honest and most importantly transparent response.

I think that’s part of my point though, historically he does this emotional quick response and it hasn’t work then and he didn’t learn from it. I think getting a quick emotional response from Linus is just as likely as Linus dropping something in a video it’s gonna happen, but it remains to be seen if after taking a step back he can actually address the communities concerns or if he just looks and viewer numbers and if they haven’t dipped just move on 

[Lagonas]

17 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

you said effectively nothing you mearly parrotted steves video title 

and we are suposed to take you seriously or care ? 

It's too funny that you don't even see how hypocritical you are. You have been saying exactly what Linus said for the past 20 posts, and now you are attacking someone over the same thing? I think no one here has been taking you seriously anyway, with how you portray yourself. 

[dynastes]

11 minutes ago, IrishDiem said:

Tech Jesus has turned into Tech Judas. He seems to think he is a journalist now cause of the Arteisian build expose (which was well done but loitering outside a locked building isnt highly investigative). Sure, do a massive opinion piece if you want but opening by saying you arent taking money for this video cause its an opinion is a delusion of grandeur that GN doesnt deserve. 

The Billet Labs issue was a car crash of a video and should never have been published. It was like an Alex jank video without the skill, script, idea or even clearly desired outcome. On someones actual product. Adam let Linus down by not prepping the video and topic properly and Linus let himself and Adam down by actually going ahead with the shoot. We have seen this before from Adam and Linus - like that video about putting a PC in an X shaped object. Not reading the room is an understatement. The video about doing Crytomining when there is a graphics card shortage due to cryptomining is not reading the room. A 100% bad video that also then, as almost a side issue, took a dump from a great height on a prototype was just bad. If GN has done a response video back then I could get on board, but this seems a much more emotional video. 

Everything else in the GN video is just a salty jealous take. No reviewer is 100% accurate. This issue is what is done to correct errors. Every employee has a background in different companies (that was a low blow). Every tech company that has some investment money invests in other companies and products they are interested in. GN reviews of pre-builts should, logically, be rejected because GN get sponsored by manufacturers of devices in the enthusiast space. Thats a conflict of interest right there. See how that works?

 

 

How exactly is it delusional to not monetize a video? Sure, they know that they will get exposure regardless of ads running on the video, but they still lose quite a bit of money, viewership on that piece is quite good.

 

Otherwise, yeah, no reviewer is 100% accurate. That is a strawman argument. The point is that every reviewer should "strive" to be - the greater the reach, the larger the team, the bigger the claims, the more this holds true.

And yeah, much is about how errors are corrected - you get GN's point then, correction is done in subpar ways or not at all. That *is* an issue and saying so is neither salty nor jealous ^_^

 

GN purchases the pre-builts themselves by the way and are not sponsored by the companies making them. Sooo ... what is your point there?

 

Sorry, I am not a native speaker, I might simply not get you properly. Seems like nonsense on the face of it though.

 

  

6 minutes ago, Lagonas said:

It's too funny that you don't even see how hypocritical you are. You have been saying exactly what Linus said for the past 20 posts, and now you are attacking someone over the same thing? I think no one here has been taking you seriously anyway, with how you portray yourself. 

Like one of my favorite youtubers tends to say: "Self-awareness in the f*cking negatives." You are right, he is behaving beyond ridiculously.

[dragonuck76]

11 hours ago, Middcore said:

 

If you've pre-determined that everything in the video is just an "attack" and refuse to open your mind to the possibility that criticism is warranted, then watching the rest of the video would be pointless. 

No you forget why I watch videos on youtube, it is for info and what ever I want to watch on the day.  LTT, NASA, Hipyo Tech, Switch & Click, Byte My bits, Nerdnest, NetworkChuck just to name a few are who I subscribe to... I watch them from wanting to know the latest game, tech, kit, what ever and I enjoy their content, but if any have a post on youtuve like what GN had, I would skip, which is what I did, as I am not interested.  It is his view and he can have it, but I do not need to watch it.  He does not work at LMG or know them well enough to know what has gone on in the background, as what seems to be the theme among many on here.  LMG have gotten things wrong, and they will say so, appolagies, and them move on, but for some reason that is not enough for some on here and that is distrubing,

 

So again I will not watch GN video as it is pointless, it is just all attacks, from someone who breif what he went on about... so yes skip, its just a attack video with some good points the manner I do not agree with -- I will say, it sounds to me that GN are affraid of what the LAB will bring at LMG, and esepcially with the new structure at LMG with new CEO etc... as Linus and LUke etc have said, they know where things are wrong, and will fix it, and it takes time

[Error 52]

In general I think that LTT does need to step back and slow down their schedule a bit, and be more willing to reshoot or can a video if it goes too far off the rails or has too much wrong with it. And the Billet thing, yeah that was a pretty bad fuck-up.

 

But at the same time GamersNexus is kinda rubbing me the wrong way here, feels more like a petty grudge at than than HARD JOURNALISM TRUTH. I mean the not asking for a statement thing, they've done that for other companies so them not doing it for LTT feels less like "We're treating them like anyone else" and more like singling them out for attack.

[DeerDK]

Just now, Error 52 said:

In general I think that LTT does need to step back and slow down their schedule a bit, and be more willing to reshoot or can a video if it goes too far off the rails or has too much wrong with it. And the Billet thing, yeah that was a pretty bad fuck-up.

 

But at the same time GamersNexus is kinda rubbing me the wrong way here, feels more like a petty grudge at than than HARD JOURNALISM TRUTH. I mean the not asking for a statement thing, they've done that for other companies so them not doing it for LTT feels less like "We're treating them like anyone else" and more like singling them out for attack.

yeah, there has definetly been an aura of cold air between the two outlets for some time now

[Andres_Uffert]

I mean this is weird to write here, i have watched LMG for like 10 years or so, and GN also. and others. 

So i am not biased. But LMG has made alot of errors over the last 2 years and really alot over like 3-6 months that i started to rewatch videos because now i think there are fack error all over the place and i was correct and i first video i watched for testing was Lucid air video in chort circuit - it was about battery capacity and yes it had a correction from editor, but correction are in the every video by now, why. is there not a fackt checking part on the production side ? does Alex not research the can before and know that it is 170 not 107, and should there not be a producer who watches over and like 5sec part they refeilm it, i costs money yes, but video is wrong in facts. No other channel i have seen has it this bad, and you say growing pains, well you have 120 people, use them, like let them do the job, i see people don't have time for the videos, not to write them, not to check them and not to film and produce them. like .. why bother making it at all, "because for the consumer" no i don't believe it. Because no cunsumer and a LMG fan wants a video that is factually wrong, badly written has errors in testing is to frantic and i personal issues .. is like too nervous. and to many like frantic edits and cuts etc. i was getting nervous watching last video about the mic. and the last AMD upgrade was my opinion a mess, the pacing was wrong, all over the place there was no structure and anything, im sorry i was confused. i see it has alot of views but i mean its not a bad video, but for me it was not entertaining, iit was just a video. 
I mean i might not make any sense here, but what i feel is, it is not about the size of the company but it is the way it is run. As saw on the employee reaction that video told me alot, even still there should not be factual errors on the video. 
And lets not go to the water block issue, what was that, i you want to be taken seriously then when a product is sent to you and they say it is a prototype we want some exposure that it is a cool product because iti s and works, and some might want one.  
and they say it is for only 3090 and we need to get it back to the lab and retool it to 4090 and you think yea why not it does not work with 4090, so lets use that and see  IF it does not work so dont buy it, and we still dont know that does it work for 3090 that it is meant for, what i wanted  to at the first place, So the video was pointless and should not be released at all, phe prototype should habe sent back next day after filming and that is it. LMG should have told sorry we dont have a 3090 to make the video, send it  GN for example to make a fait point for the video, that was all that should have happened. And so what if it is 800 Euro, why does it matter, yes for future i mean it is a startup and it copper and it looks cool and it is a Ferrari of the water-block so it is fine, it stil should have a fair video and you saing that 100-500 retesting is more expancive than singing a whole compnay and losing a 800+ euro prototype and all of the time and money for a startup. what arrogance, im sorry but this is not thinking about the consumer and thinking about nääh this costs us something to do well, lets not do that. nop 
Im sorry but GN had to do it because all of us should know that LMG videos ad not factually correct and all of it is really bad and LMG should fixd it now, not in 20 videos that i still now fact check, for real i started looking ups specs and info about products now so see if they have errors on videos and i have seen a few already, its like a drinking game. That is fun yes for me because i don't trust LMG with facts now, im hoping i dont need to wait to long. but this needs to be fixed and now, and now CEO should step up now and fix this mess that Linus has created, was it intencional or not, does not matter, was it  Linus or other does not matter, Linus was the head of the company and was responsible for it. So for the love of god fix this now, i dont care, kill one day of release schedule or whatever, go to 5 day cadence form 7  just slow the f down and let people do the work they need to do to give us the content we deserve. 

Im sorry i don't hate you guys or anything I amd just worried that this will go to far. 
So all the best and do the right thing. And Linus, forum post did not do you any favours, that response isn't that good. and does not resolve anything, only excuses. You can say im sorry only so many times until words don't have a meaning. ... 

[Andres_Uffert]

1 minute ago, DeerDK said:

yeah, there has definitely been an aura of cold air between the two outlets for some time now

I feel the same, but then again, GN had the right to do the video and it was a good one and not a bad one. (i mean in a factual way and as per topic it was a correct one, where to make that type of a video) 

[Libertaz]

All hail the great Li(e)nus. Our tech overlord that is here for our protection. You need to remember that you can't criticize Li(e)nus because he's one of the good ones and I know that may sound bad but he's not one the bad ones that that try to present themselves as if he's one of the "good ones" -- he's actually one of the good ones that act like he's one of the good ones, remember that. If it wasn't for lord Li(e)nus we would be fighting on the streets right now. You have to rememeber all the sacrifices he's made, just look at that massive pool with the wrong color water he had to endure. TRAGIC! you Li(e)nus!!!!

 

I forgot to metion that you just have to trust him, bro.

[fartmuncher69_420]

I'm a minute into the video and something strikes me as off. I watched the WAN show that's quoted by Gamers Nexus (GN) and it feels like a massive disservice to cut the clip off so quickly. It makes me think they're either bad at interpreting what people say, or are being somewhat malicious. Let me explain.

 

Here is the relevant clip from the WAN show.

 

"I don't think it's particularly umm... journalistic to ignore facts, to ignore personal relationships that you have every opportunity to take advantage of to get more information. I don't actually agree with that, I think that's objectively not correct. especially where there is a large conflict of interest. However the point is not to dwell on that, good lord that was.. how long ago was that? we've made mistakes too. we've made lots of mistakes. everybody makes mistakes. I never even drew attention to any of that . Intentionally because it doesn't matter. I don't want to stir up drama"

 

Linus is saying that if you have a relationship with someone who you can use to get more facts to report on, then you should do that. 

 

Here's the clip from the Gamers Nexus video

 

"[WAN SHOW] I don't think it's particularly umm... journalistic to ignore facts, to ignore personal relationships

[GN] It is my job to ignore personal relationships, yeah. If LMG is going to make false accusations and wants to try and use personal relationships to gain favor so that we don't cover something we think is not okay it's not going to work with us we don't play that game"

 

Here Gamers Nexus seems to be entirely missing the point. The implication here is that Linus was suggesting that you should use personal relationships to stop someone from covering or criticising something. This is implying a malicious motivation to Linus suggesting people who know him should reach out to him for comment. In the first minute or so the video fails to provide proper context for the clip it's using. 

 

Most associations of journalists have something akin to a "Right of Reply". That is if you're making a story of a person or organisation, you put forward your questions for comment. I haven't seen anything in chapters on the YT video and going by Linus' post at the top of the thread, there was no attempt to get a comment from LMG. This is either because Gamers Nexus didn't journalism (it's a verb now) properly here, or because the video wouldn't be as spicy to include something similar to Linus' posts here.

 

[Stark_Source21]

11 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'm a big fan, Linus, but that's absolutely disgraceful that you've buried your response to this in the middle of a forum thread. It abolsutely confirms what GN was driving at. You corrections and ownings are muted as an * in a video, a pinned comment beneath a video, or a buried reply on a forum, and not what they ought to be - a republished video, a wan show reply. 

 

As far as I can tell, you're becoming defensive and starting to come across out of touch. 

 

For a start - how any prototype could be auctioned off against the maker's consent blows my mind. That was not your piece of kit, it should have been obvious it wasn't your piece of kit, and how you thought it was, even after the maker had informed you they wanted it back, deserves a much bigger apology than a "whoops we sold your prototype in an auction" in the middle of your own forum thread. At least give a better explanation of what happened if there is one. Anything less just feel callous and frankly rude.

Be better. 

Edits: typos and additionals

[Nuzicx]

This is not a black and white scenario and many members of this forum are creating flame wars, with bias opinions (not facts). GN's video where facts.

 

However facts are facts, opinions are everyone's got one and objectifiable.

I live in a world that I don't want to be billed for something i didn't pay for, just like I don't want to be told the wrong information when making a purchase decision.

We are talking about a LTT with 15.6M subscribers, not to mention how many unsubscribed people view his videos and that he is quite high in the algorithm. I searched nvidia 3080 and he was 2'nd below nvidia itself.

 

Yes I don't take his information much to heart and I get a second opinion 

Yes I think Labs needs refinement before it gets put in practice, consistency is key.

Videos need to be better vetted.

 

I don't think it will hurt linus to slow down the content machine, but i do think it will hurt his company if he proceeds to do quantity over quality.

[MotherboardsInThePark]

Congrats, fellow viewers. We have created a monster. This man's ego is through the roof. The roof of his enormous house that WE have paid for, that is.

 

Yes, WE, the viewers, have made all of this possible. Make no mistake about that. Without us, this guy would probably still be working in a computer store. And now he doesn't care about us anymore. Viewers can go to hell now that you've got buckets of cash, right? Who cares that some of us have been watching since the garage days? Look what we get for our loyalty...

 

I've been watching this channel for 12 years and I really regret it. It's gotten so bad that I wasn't even sad or worried when the channel got hacked and was actually a bit disappointed when they got it back. Yes, I was ok with Linus losing his channel and his "livelihood". That should tell you everything you need to know about the state of LTT these days.

 

LTT is the dumpster fire we can't stop watching. But we should. Vote with our wallets? How about we vote with our watchtime? This guy needs to be brought down to earth ASAP.

[Texbobcat]

1 minute ago, Stark_Source21 said:

I'm a big fan, Linus, but that's absolutely disgraceful that you've buried your response to this in the middle of a forum thread. It abolsutely confirms what GN was driving at. You corrections and ownings are muted as an * in a video, a pinned comment beneath a video, or a buried reply on a forum, and not what the ought to be - a republished video, a wan show reply. 

 

As far as I can tell, you're becoming defensive. 

 

For a start - how any prototype could be auctioned off against the creators consent blows my mind. That was not you piece of kit, and how you thought it was, even after the maker had informed you, deserves a much bigger apology than a "whoops" in the middle of your own forum thread. 

Be better. 

The fact that he expected steve to reach out for comment first is insane, he did make those mistakes, and he did degrade the company on multiple times, then in his response he then degraded the company again with snarky remarks.