What do we do now?

[Uzrathixius]

3 hours ago, DroopyBird said:

Even if they did own it, and billet hadn't asked for it back I'm not sure about the ethical implications of selling a prototype if billet felt there was significant IP there. 

If you don't want the IP to get into other people's hands, you don't tell another company they own something. 

[Davikar]

4 hours ago, Kees1234 said:

Hi there, I’m new to this forum but been a viewer of LTT for many years now and I feel the need to say some things. 
 

To clarify ->

- I’m not a hardcore LTT cult member and I don’t wake up with meme pictures of Linus burned into my brain.
-  I read the complete Madison thread (her messages only)

How come A LOT OF people completely seem to forget about innocent until proven guilty when it comes to the allegations Madison made? I have read straight up personal attacks on Linus for something he at this point (for obvious legal reasons) can’t protect himself against. Imagine his children going to school and having to defend themselves for their father because some other children start a discussion about it, it’s incredibly sad but you know it’ll happen. Attacking Linus doenst just hurt him, it hurts everyone attached to LTT. It pains me to see some people just turn into complete senseless maniacs when they are given any reason to, those are the people who ‘have become the villain’, while trying to be the league of justice or some ****. 

As a lawyer I can speak from first hand experience that these kind of allegations aren’t always true. And in my opinion LTT is doing exactly what they should have done by hiring an independent company to do research into these complaints. And to be clear, I am not in any way saying Madison MUST be lying and is responsible for LTT being hurt right now. I am only saying that concluding ANYTHING from Madison her thread is by law (and least here in Europe) nothing but injustice, until proven to be actually (even partly) true. 

Have we all forgotten about the hundreds, maybe thousands, of LTT content and (alleged to be) waterproof shoes ads?? Doesn’t all the entertainment LTT brought to all of us nerds deserve some empathy compassion and to the love of god a week of patience without being literally cyber bullied?
 

And about all the mistakes in the videos ->

 

Let’s not make it more complicated than it is lol. the company grew too much and that caused issues. I’m sure they would’ve been fixed gradually overtime when workflows are optimized and weak links (not talking about people LOL) in the workflows are found and fixed. 
 

If Linus only cared about money why did he not sell the company for 100 mil and retire to then spend all that money buying tennis (I know it’s not called that) rackets?

I believe even the most unreasonable people understand that for that reason alone a company with over 120 employees, over 120 families connected to it, doenst need to be vaporized into thin air. 

 

LTT is doing an emergency stop right now trying to fix all issues, what else do you want them to do? LTT hasn’t committed mass murder, they only committed mass drops of expensive stuff. THAT is the only crime Linus is actually (at the time of this message) guilty of.

 

ps. English is not my native language so please excuse me for wordy sentences filled with possibly non existing words.

You are saying pretty much everything I am thinking right now.

People need to put down the pitchforks and wait for more information. This issue is being delt with the proper way.

 

[David_NZheretic]

Any expanding company comes with growing pains, but

Linus Sebastian's haphazard attitude has become a growing pain.   

 

Quote

Horace Greeley (1811-1872), from whom we get the phrase "Go west young man", stated thirty years later in 1871 "This Daniel Boone business is about played out.".  The days of Daniel Boone are over and Doc Searls' IT Garage.

 

[WyreTheProtogen]

the video feels way to corporate the only bit I really liked was Luke's he was the only person who felt real except for the 69 joke that wasn't great Linus bit was ok but he got a little too defensive 

Edited August 17, 2023 by WyreTheProtogen
I was being an idiot and commented before finishing the video

[Dracarris]

So we are not allowed to add a reply to the pinned comment?

[YellowJersey]

Just watched Steve's take on it. All I can say is, "OOF!"

[Harpo]

Vid tldr: "Not only was Steve right, but the entire LMG is a complete sh*tshow.  We promise to do better."  Linus: "Sorry not sorry".

[Kaas0001]

Its just odd to me they still self plug stuff, try to be funny in a very serious video.

I dont feel indifferent about the whole team because of a couple mistakes tho. But the auction thing was wild man. 

 

Even this video seems rushed. Transparancy this and that. Just slow down.. like the whole team said

Get it all in line

[lscott05]

21 hours ago, exsin said:

Made an account specially for this

 

I'm done with LTT since they completely fobbed me off when they didn't require 3D secure for my CC payment which is mandatory in the country where I live... They pretended it was Shopify's fault whahahaha.

That would be.

[speedingcheetah]

Saw this video posted on YT? And very confused. No idea what this is about. Just some interviews?  Description mentioned Billet Labs, i see a video posted June 24, on some waterblock. Censor price? uh, the price is listed on the company's website. 

 

Could someone post a link, or just TLDR what this drama is about, so i have some context as to what the heck this video is about. 

( I not goona read through 48 pages of this thread)

[Jignesh Chauhan]

In my opinion sales/business development should not be in charge of HR. Colton and team should manage HR responsibility. Skillset and attitude for HR and sales are different. HR function

[Andrei Chiffa]

20 minutes ago, speedingcheetah said:

Saw this video posted on YT? And very confused. No idea what this is about. Just some interviews?  Description mentioned Billet Labs, i see a video posted June 24, on some waterblock. Censor price? uh, the price is listed on the company's website. 

 

Could someone post a link, or just TLDR what this drama is about, so i have some context as to what the heck this video is about. 

( I not goona read through 48 pages of this thread)

 

Had the same question @McGherkin did an excellent write-up in response: 

 

12 hours ago, McGherkin said:

 

1. Gamers Nexus posts a video titled 'The Problem with Linus Media Group', which I'd advise you to watch in full, which basically makes two main 'allegations':

  Allegation 1: LMG is rushing its content creation which is creating unforced, obvious errors which should be failing a basic sanity check . GN provides various examples of mistakes, of which there are often multiple per video (mainly benchmark results, graphs and statistics, although there was also a bit on the recent mouse review where LMG left covers on the sliders on the bottom of the mouse making it hard to move around), and essentially diagnoses the issue as the team rushing to hit a tough upload schedule, quoting various members of LMG staff from the recent 'What's it like to work at LMG in 2023?' video who all say they wish they had more time to work on videos.

Allegation 2: LMG recieved a sample of a combined CPU/GPU water block from Billet Labs, which they covered in a video. They lost the GPU the block was supposed to work with, and used an RTX4090 instead, which resulted in poor temps and essentially a 'do not buy, but it's quite well made' recommendation from Linus. They asked for it back and using one of their other prototypes with the 4090 discovered that there would be serious fitment issues from using the wrong GPU which caused the poor temps. They asked for the return of their prototype after the video was released on two seperate occasions, and were assured that it would be, before finding out that the water block had been auctioned for charity at LTX. GN also then shows a clip from the following WAN show when viewers have brought up that the wrong GPU was used, and Linus essentially says 'I wasn't going to spend the 200, 300, 400, 500 dollars in staff time' to retest it with the right GPU and produce an accurate result.

The tone of the GN video was mainly 'you guys are starting a big fancy lab and pitching yourselves as accurate and a rival to GN in that regard but you guys need to do better and you need to make Billet whole' piece.

2. Linus then posts on the LTT forum after a thread is started on the GN video, essentially saying the loss of the water block was a mistake, but it was auctioned, not sold, and we know we had some minor issues but we've fixed them, and I'm really upset that the community has been told to be upset about this and Steve should have got in touch with me before posting. It was a much longer post and it was mostly a non-apology to be honest. Linus also implies that they've got a price from Billet to fix everything, which Billet quickly deny.

3. This causes... tension. GN essentially covers the response with a 'wut', releasing more info from the email chain with billet, clarifying timing and pretty much showing that the scramble from LTT to sort Billet's missing block out came after the release of the initial GN video. Linus gets in touch with Billet again and basically says we'll sort whatever you want, just let us know.

4a. Meanwhile two things are happening. Firstly, LMG is in lockdown mode, with no outward communication to the fans who are by now mostly highly pissed because everything GN said is factual, and Linus essentially hasn't apologised and has doubled down in defense of some of it. At some point Linus is given a talking to by the rest of the company who start putting a plan together to fix this, and they start filming an apology video.

4b. Secondly, Madison (the girl who was hired after her ROG Rig Reboot went viral) spoke up on Twitter/X about her time at LMG. I highly recommend you go find that too - it's disturbing. She was taken on, immediately snowed under with work, called various names and ultimately treated poorly as an employee, backing up GN's allegation that the staff are being rushed to do too much and this is affecting both them and the content they produce. But Madison's allegations go beyond that. She details multiple examples of sexual harassment, being asked about her sexual experiences, being asked to twerk, being forced to operate LMG's Onlyfans despite saying no, but most importantly claiming that she was groped on multiple occasions. She was ultimately so worried about staff coming up behind her that she asked for mirrors to be installed at her desk so she could see behind her (they were installed, but only after other staff got them two months earlier than her), and she ended up cutting her leg open in order to have an excuse to have a day off.  This thread comes out a few hours before....

5. LMG posts their apology video. Well, I say post, it's put on Floatplane as a paid for exclusive. When the community immediately explodes at this, it is then published on Youtube. I highly recommend you find and watch this too. The entire leadership team, from Terren through Yvonne, James, Colton, Gary (head of the lab), Luke and finally Linus all have segments where they describe what will change in their departments. It's a good apology video and the changes announced are severe, with several staff members clearly visibly upset, and reveals Colton did attempt to email Billet earlier and gives some more info on various topics, but it does also come with yet more unforced errors - doxxing the cost of the Billet prototype which they had specifically asked to be anonymous, making some LTTstore/screwdriver/Dbrand references, and Luke making a 69 joke which would have probably landed better if it weren't for the emerging news about Madison. The video makes no mention of the Madison claims as it was filmed before the claims arose.

My personal take: The GN video was a gee'up for LMG to say you need to slow down and do this better, and the claims made were accurate although I do believe that the Billet waterblock probably got forgotten about on a shelf somewhere before Colton found it and put it in the auction, not realising that Billet had been emailing someone else asking for it back. LMG should have just apologised and held their hands up there. However, Linus's response made the situation FAR worse, and even in the most recent video he fails to apologise to GN for essentially lashing out at them for posting valid criticism of LMG's processes etc. The apology video swerves a few things (Linus still seems somewhat unapologetic), and makes yet more mistakes (understandable, personally, given the pressure, aside from the decision to make it FP exclusive which is a classic Linus foot-in-mouth moment) but is ultimately a good response to the need to improve quality at LMG. However, Madison's testimony is severely damaging, and LMG likely won't be commenting on it due to legal reasons. If it's found to be true, sponsors are not going to want to associate themselves with LMG and essentially the whole thing is done.

As for the fans, there are four levels.
1. LMG Bandwagon, GN Steve is doing a hit piece, Madison is making it all up (seriously, some people are terrible here)
2. Neutral but hopeful that LMG will turn things around with a big reset
3. Neutral but unable to see how this can be fixed given the seriousness of the claims.
4. hahahahaha I just want to see Linus burn this is what you get

Thankyou for coming to my TED talk, I hope you got the information you needed, and please now arrange yourself into one of the four fan groups as outlined above.

 

 

[Volanaro]

oh ffs. imo, im been following ltt for yearrrs i mean YEARS, stuff happens, everyone makes mistakes. look back in your own life, and when you have loads of people sharing the responsability for things its 10X harder things get lost, misread, misplaced, etc etc, tbh ltt did not have to make a whole video to address an issue to.... the public. things happen, imo its not a big deal, linus and group, are amazing at what they do, think about how long ltt has been  "here" what they have built, imo its not a big thing at all, and if linus wants to speak his opinion, then go for it, its not just a business but his life, legacy if you will

 

 

LTT guys you are killing it, keep doing you, things do get hard, you guys all know that, but what ever happens ill be supporting you got regardless. 

[exsin]

10 hours ago, Barkermn01 said:

That is Shopify's fault, if you knew anything about how it work the entire payment system is handle by shop pay, shop pay is Shopify's technologies and i have had that exact problem on other sites and reported it to Shopify.

I am not responsible for figuring out each merchants shopping platform provider.

 

LTT always orates about security but apperently uses a platform that doesn't use 3D-Secure. How is that the customers problem to figure out the platform behind the store. NO. Just NO. LTT with its high horse security attitude should use a secure shopping platform. Sim-ple

 

Edit: Also according to EU law, I am dealing with LTT/Creator Warehouse, not Shopify, at all. The merchant is solely responsible for the functioning of it's store and complying with regulations.

[SamKirk]

17 hours ago, RichardBirch said:

Are you taking the piss? GN pointed out with evidence valid issues and yet they are responsible for the public discourse?

 

You say they’re responsible for toxicity then go right ahead and call Steve SaltySteve in your next paragraph.

 

No. GN did nothing wrong. Rabid fanboys like yourself are responsible for the toxic environment you see in these threads. You are the problem, blindly defending someone even when there is fairly presented evidence against them. 
 

Finally, don’t generalise and lump everyone in as ‘the community’ that demanded more videos. I certainly didn’t.

JFC the number of people here who need to get some perspective is frankly staggering. You gain nothing by mindlessly supporting someone regardless of their actions. Linus himself has surely alluded to this before. Don’t be a sheep.

 

Reading through some your comments, I would say that you are dealing out your fair share of toxicity yourself. Glass houses et al

[Khalkotauroi]

TBH I feel kind of sorry for Linus. We put him on a glass pedestal and boosted him into the sky, and then brought him crashing back down to earth. Not that it wasn't justified, but still...

[RichardBirch]

33 minutes ago, SamKirk said:

Reading through some your comments, I would say that you are dealing out your fair share of toxicity yourself. Glass houses et al

Citation needed.

 

I will freely admit that in one comment I made I lost my cool with one particular user due to their disgusting misogynistic takes, but having realised my comment wasn't helpful I removed it.

 

I stand by other posts I have made however and I invite anyone to look at my post history and give me constructive feedback on what I have said.

Edited August 17, 2023 by RichardBirch
improved wording for readability

[Guest]

Made an account just to come here and say this...

 

If a company made hardware with the same QC as LTT reviews - LTT would absolutely slate them.

 

 

[LinuxGeek18]

You guys are so negative against a simple mistake that they fixed just fine.

[speedingcheetah]

2 hours ago, Andrei Chiffa said:

 

Had the same question @McGherkin did an excellent write-up in response: 

 

 

 

Thanks for the info.  Was not aware of the errors in the graphs and videos... but isn't LABS still all new and just getting going? They always still working on it. 

 

The fact they are a pushy, deadline heavy company, been known about, and showed for a few years now, that is nothing new.  YT demands it, as has been said by Linus and others many times.  But, with all the crew interviews last year, yea, it does seem like, they were maybe pushing too hard, and really needed to re-think things. They do now have a huge company to manage, and the big push to get things done they been doing all this time, may not be so necessary now with all the staff.

 

Internal communications issues, also, no surprise and a common issue for a growing company like them. But seriously, that whole thing with the waterblock, seems overblown, the miscommunication of it not being returned, it happens. The whole thing of Linus failing to properly test it, and expecting it to work on a different card, yeaa, that is bad, but it came across to me as, his type of comedy and fit in their style of videos. Some take it to serious?

 

BUT, people crucifying LMG for this, toxic work environment, they push too hard, impossible deadlines,  has never worked in retail, or for shipping places, like Amazon, or many other fast place jobs. Having worked several years at MicroCenter (one of LTT's sponsors) as a tech, minimum wage too, where one tech has to do the job of 4 people, and deal with a repair que of minimum 20 computers, all overdue contact, and answer the phones, and work the counter, work the sales floor... etc.  Where all their "Home Office" cares about is repair complete numbers, taking shortcuts to get repairs done faster, getting write ups to techs when a customer complains they had to wait in the checkout line too long on a busy holiday and other things not related to repairs or tech duties, dealing with a Work Order system (Astea) that always crashed and was designed for use by a HVAC company, being forced to come in on your days off, stay after shift, be expected to help customers even when u are off the clock, be overridden and told to break policy by the managers, in the name of "Customer Satisfaction", only to be yelled at by the store manager that I did not follow policy,   and as an employee, you are not allowed to buy anything while on the clock, and if off, you are expected to let other customers go ahead of you if it busy.... I can tell you, LMG is a freaking paradise compared to most high pace, pushy workplaces out there.

I understand workplace burn out. BUT, a big point here, that a ex employee that claims she had to harm herself, to get a day off, seriously, that is NOT the fault of LMG as a company. That is a mental issue with said person. That is not a thing a normal person would think of to take a day off.  And, can be used against her, purposefully injure themselves to claim work comp or to as evidence against an employer. Her other claims, well, that is a whole nother thing. 

 

Overall, drama be drama.  They will work things out.

[BigFatTeddy]

5 hours ago, mikaelus said:

I think it's time to move on now. Not because of the apologetic video, as nobody can really trust its sincerity, particularly given Linus' original response. It's damage control - which is understandable, of course.

 

But LTT has suffered enough and Linus personally needed - and received - a pie in his face to show some humility. Reputational damage will last for a while but it's still up to them to improve and shake it off down the road.

 

Financially it's a gigantic hit.

 

Lost Floatplane subs can cost them as much as $300k in revenue per year. But cutting down their publishing schedule will be an even bigger blow.

 

If they reduce output by just one video per week out of the main LTT channel, they stand to lose at least $5-10k from Youtube alone, given that they get roughly 2 million views per clip + probably at least the same amount in lost sponsorship spots. So, that's $10-20k times 52 weeks - easily half a million to a million bucks, depending on how specific videos perform (some, as we know, made them tens of thousands of dollars from YT alone).

 

And that is, let me reiterate, just one video less per week. What about other channels? Surely they bring in much less per clip, but it adds up.

 

It's enough, it's not like they poisoned a local water supply, after all.

Sir, without a doubt, Linus and Yvonne have a plan and a strategy for the company. And now they have a professional CEO at the helm.

 

Also, without a doubt, Linus and Yvonne know how to run a media company. And also, without a doubt, the internet will focus on other things in two or three weeks.

 

Your maths are your maths, maybe those numbers apply and even if they're ten times the amount you just pointed out, I'm pretty sure Yvonne knows how to handle the numbers in this case. I am very very confident that LMG will do fine in Q3 and Q4 and will continue doing fine in 2024.

 

It's just a storm to weather. I'm not saying it's not a problem for them, I'm saying that I'm pretty confident that the actual impact will not be substantial to them.

[Noobs Inc.]

LINUS WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?

 

You need to leave for awhile.

treating Madison like that just cause she is not from Canada is 110% wrong. You guys destroyed her life, i hope you get sued and that asshole who abused her goes to jail.

Sadly we all know NOTHING!!! is gonna happen, i wonder how much your gonna pay to shut her up?

The community needs to back up madison and make sure LMG knows this treatment of woman is not acceptable at all.

 

You are so lucky this is not the USA you would have already had the studios raided and probably worse.

 

Your just a silver spooned creep now.

 

You better make this right, your not far from a boycott.

you became the assholes you were trying to fight against, 

SHAME ON YOU @LINUS.

[naylor2006]

Want to extend some thanks to the people on this thread for context, I had no idea what this video was about when it first popped up, I thought there had been some major sex scandal or something which prompted such a dramatic piece.

 

I checked out the GN videos and yeah it was kinda lame that labs said GN "dont do this kinda thing" but the way GN then laid out all the evidence was easy to follow and did suddenly give me the context I was missing. The comments Linus made on WAN about not spending the money to actually test the block properly were pretty lame, total contradiction considering how much effort goes into actually (or apparently) testing things properly, like the giant robot they have now to test PSU's and building an entire department to take care of 'testing'. So 500 dollars to give a startup a fair review is nothing to LMG. Yvonne clearly wasnt happy about this and perhaps Linus is on the sofa for a few weeks  

 

Its not to say that I havent noticed mistakes, mostly because there has been overlays added to videos by the time I get to watch them correcting on screen information, I also noticed that in a recent video nearly all the staff talked about how they wanted more time to finish things. Im not sure there has been deliberately misleading content, even if they are best chums with Noctua, my setup is all Noctua and their stuff is incredible, not sure I was swayed by Linus.

 

LTT videos have been an amazing past time for me, I only got into it when my daughter was born, sitting there for hours in the middle of the night in one chair whilst she slept I found LTT on youtube and watched hours and hours and hours, I owe alot to the channel in some ways helping me get through those early days. I find it hard to build any real hatred for the guys regardless if their content has become sloppy, I still only watch for entertainment really, mostly Alex and his crazy videos. Seems like a dick move on the whole waterblock thing though.

 

The Maddison stuff is allegations and pretty damning ones also, we will have to see where that goes. Anthony is someone who has been open about his mental health for a long time and recently is now Emily and said he has been fully supported. The treatment based on those two examples obviously differ. No one from the channel is going to address the Maddison stuff, its a bit more legal isnt it.

 

Anyway, we are nearly 50 pages into this now and I am super late so im not adding any value here but felt compelled to at least add my post.

[Andrei Chiffa]

44 minutes ago, speedingcheetah said:

BUT, people crucifying LMG for this, toxic work environment, they push too hard, impossible deadlines,  has never worked in retail, or for shipping places, like Amazon, or many other fast place jobs.

 

Tbh I don't think that such an environment should be accepted in any workplace (but I am also a European), but IMHO the problem of the LMG is that they build their image specifically as the type of people who would not be doing it.

 

Given the amount of shit Linus gave to other companies that did not do their work properly (starting with cancelling tours and booth visits stories on WAN all the way to Anker), fans listened to LTT's advice and used their guidelines to drive major purchases. 

 

GN's video basically suggests that in some areas they don't clear the bar they set for other companies they set, and Linus' initial response pretty much confirmed all of it, which understandably made a lot of fans with a Manichean vision of the world take LTT off the "Good little guy" list and put them on the "Evil large corporation" one. 

 

So basically GN video by itself could have been a "woopsie, thanks Steve for expressing your concerns and let us look into it and get back to you", followed up with a "yeah, we fucked up with the waterblock and the mouse; here is why it happened, here is how we are ensuring it will never happen again, and how we are making it up to companies that got hurt in the process", leading to  a teary redemption and even more Linus fandom; but instead became a spiraling disaster that cannot be blamed on anyone but Linus because of his knee-jerk reaction.

 

 

However at this stage it is much more about Madison, because LTT does have a reputation for a bro culture and when Madison left, Max (only other strong character young female public-facing employee before her) suggested that she left for the same reasons as Madison.

 

As far as LTT reputation goes, it's hard to do worse.

 

 

[Rupert P]

@LinusTech Linus and his team are and have always been a group of selfless, hardworking individuals who have worked their hardest to deliver the best products they can to an extremely demanding audience. I just wanted to say I stand 100% with LMG and look forward to this new chapter of the channel, even though it was brought about in unfortunate circumstances. Keep your heads up team; I'm rooting for you!