What do we do now?

[Philfreeze]

28 minutes ago, dogwitch said:

been following the white paper on it. its already on design 3...

i really want to know how the hell it went so far.

i do think nvidia got stuck with already manf parts thru... also my guess pci sig did not take kindly to nvidia pointing out a out right dangerous design

If you think that is bad you need to go look at the changes for USB-C over the time, its absolutely insane how badly the specified the protocol and timings, a lot of things were literally just up to interpretation. This is the reason why some old laptops with USB-C really struggle with more modern USB-C equipment, they just happened to interpret it 'wrong'.

[MartinTheActor]

The video, was a good step in the right direction. However, the Head of Labs saying that they'll release stuff on Floatplane. Here's the thing: floatplane has failed. It's got a miniscule number of subscribers and really is failing to compete in a marketplace where Standard (the company) and Nebula (a streaming platform with a one subscription, netflix style model) has shown what can be done. Floatplane's way doesn't work for the subscribers, and the complaints about it not being a single subscription model are a huge part of that.

That however is just the one little niggle. It is encouraging to see the various staff step up and speak to this. Yes, this was a PR press statement, but that's a good thing people. That's how grown ups communicate. That's how companies communicate. It is a method designed to stop and prevent reactionary comment from employees (or owners). 

Time will tell if the quality actually changes, or improves. I hope it does. I don't think any human being sincerely wishes that another human being will fail. For my part, I can see the problems from a business standpoint. Before creating Labs, the leadership of LMG had a decision to make: be entertaining or be as objective as possible. The investment made into labs represents an attempt to be objective. However, what LTT has always brought us is entertainment (bordering on infotainment). Finanically that investment isn't one you can just walk back and say 'nah decided against it'. If it were me I'd be strongly wanting to ditch labs entirely right now.

Personally, I have been dipping in and out, half watching, and barely interested in LTT and it's sister channels for a while. Not much will change here. I hope, truly hope, that improvements happen, because trust in the accuracy of figures stated is important. Replacing videos wholesale cannot be the answer to factual errors - most people will never know that happened - Youtube doesn't tell us after we watched the original that an edit has been made. Replacing videos cannot and should not be an option going forward. 

I said in my post on the other thread - I don't care about the billet labs thing. That's an error, a potentially costly one for them, but not my problem. I care about the factual inaccuracies and the poor way in which they are addressed. I care about the idea that I have no way of knowing if I watch videos on my Roku if the video I'm watching is one containing errors, or one that has been replaced due to factual inaccuracies. This more than anything else is the issue of concern here people. Not the myriad drama that has spawned up around this (Billet, Madison, Linus as a person etc) but the factual inaccuracies. That alone is a breach of trust that has brought down massive media corporations previously. I'd hate to see that happen to a family-owned company.

[ShadowedFox]

4 minutes ago, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

Yes, let's instigate a witch hunt against an employee who said something on what was basically a private tour that was never supposed to be put online. >_> 

Regardless or not of it suppose to be public online.. He still said it, the least he could do is apologise for been an asshat. 

[SpaceCorgi]

Thanks to all of the LTT team members involved in producing this video, I said in the thread that it has become Twitter 2.0 -- LTT has an important choice to make; THIS was the response I was expecting.  

[Serinus]

2 hours ago, Hamrat said:

How to drive a man insane. You cannot expect 1 person to do all of that without a lot of stuff falling through the cracks

The key issue in all of this that they didn't address is that they're pushing too fast.  There have been many red flags about Linus pushing people too hard to get stuff done too fast.

 

It doesn't matter what kind of "new processes" you put in place if people just don't have time.  And you can't expect every employee to work as though they have 20% equity in the company. If you put more than 30 hours of work per week onto a full time, salaried employee, you're not going to get their best work, especially in creative or expertise-required jobs.

 

To do their best work, people need time to breathe. They need time to be able to talk to their coworkers about a problem without worry about pulling them away from their own work for 15 minutes. They need time to grab a drink or a sandwich while they step back from a problem and consider it from a distance. They need time to decide their previous work wasn't good enough and to go back and redo it. They shouldn't have to ask.  Having to ask is a problem. Getting "no" back as an answer is an even bigger problem.

 

If you try to account for every 15 minutes, you're going to get shit quality product pushed out the door.

 

Madison brought this up. Employees have brought this up in videos. And Linus has raised red flags more than once. The biggest was with his equating doing things right to hours worked and directly to cash. That speaks to exactly this. People don't have time to do things right, and they don't have time to fix things.

 

The only way to fix this is to either hire more people (which you clearly can't afford), or allow your current people to put out less product.

[Quickstrike]

Now that tech Jesus has called them out LTT went "oh sh!t" but it's been brewing for a long time.
So first, as my mandatory joke, let me say this : Thanks Steeve!

This is my take a software dev, process analyst with 30 years in growing in medium to large organizations :

TLDR: LMG grew way too fast with novice management and it shows. It's been showing for the last two years.

Now some thoughts:
- Even with process review, the team reaching maturity will take time. That means team members senior should be more involved in Q.C.
- Slowing the pace is a good idea but setting a sustainable pace is a better one.
- There need to be an attitude adjustment in the team. This includes
   - Knowing when to joke and not to joke (the comments here speak for themselves)
   - Knowing when not to plug sponsors and Ltt store plug (the volume is just plain annoying and completely inappropriate in this video) 
   - Awareness this isn't just the latest crisis but an existential crisis. 
   - Some culture change in the writing room might be in order. 
   - Some humility and some therapy. Linus, especially on WAN show has been arrogant and his ego needs some reigning in. 
   - Understanding the road to Hell is paved with good intentions
   - Accepting LMG will take a financial hit while they get the house in order.

Beyond all this, they need to identify the root cause(s). Processes fail for a lot of reason. My primary suspect lack of cohesive management (managing the trees instead of the forest). Not just from Linus but his very young and very green team. The best example I got is his lack of formal training and the way he compensate in it. I don't remember the quote (was on WAN) be he learns what he needs to and leave the rests. The problem is what he leaves and what he doesn't know that he doesn't know. he new will help but there will need to be some serious adjustments and Linus may well push back.

Don't get me wrong, I admire LTT: their passion and dedication to employees is great. But pressing blood from a stone while giving it free snacks is still pressing blood from a stone.

There need to be a new dedication to the product.
The new CEO is a good move but it comes a little late. What I sense is a totally organic organization that needs some serious restructuring and adjustment of its values and needs to slow down.

LTT isn't a startup anymore, so startup mentality needs to go and some outside blood is sorely needed.

[nhand42]

Just now, ShadowedFox said:

Regardless or not of it suppose to be public online.. He still said it, the least he could do is apologise for been an asshat. 

And he's free to do so but you are not entitled to hear the apology and you are not entitled to demand it either. And this is what I mean about the toxic community. Whether an apology is even warranted isn't your call to make.

[Baron_Samedi]

25 minutes ago, Madpaatch said:

A proper apology vid would include:

1. Apologies for putting Billet Labs in the position LTT put them in by not testing the product properly with indication that LMG reached out to figure out settlement (not disclosing the £ value which should be kept private but rather indicating they would pay for lucrum cessans). 

2. Acknowledging GN claims to be true and THEN proposing the way forward.

3. It should have come from Linus directly as opposed to spreading the responsibility for the screw up to the team - he should own it as it's a direct result of him pressuring people to deliver quantity over quality.

4. Using other people in the video as support rather than scapegoats (Luke apologizing for not stopping Linus - wft? not to mention throwing Colton under the bus - going through this submissive exercise must have hurt his ego for sure).

 

The vid should have been announced as demonetized (as GN did) and not include cross promotion. This frequently repeated '... LTTstore.com' is really off-putting.

 

The latest LTT 'apology' vid meets none of the above criteria. Imo it has Linus wrath written allover it. Unless Linus is given a new project by the CEO he will damage the brand severely by his honest responses that will just show the people the state of mind he's currently in (blinded by money having lost contact with 'the room').

 

"A proper apology vid would include:" - The issue is exactly THIS! Who establishes what a proper response is!? If you asked all the participants of this forum about what would be the appropriate answer for this case, you would have hundreds of answers. The LTT team gave an example of what they certainly considered to be the proper response to this case. This answer does not satisfy you, no problem, you have every right not to be satisfied and to describe what for you would be the proper answer for this case, however it is just your opinion. And that's what we can't forget. We are all entitled to have opinions but that does not make our opinion more valid than another. This is not a subject where you can scientifically prove something is wrong with their answer.

[Distinctly Average]

24 minutes ago, TechSwagPimp1337 said:

Then go spend your effort on those things instead of running defense for a multi millionaire that can't apologize without adding a "but" or a plug to his merch.

Not defending at all, mistakes have been made and they admit that. Moaning about a little humour, seems like priorities are all wrong. Life is far too short.

[Alex T88]

28 minutes ago, nhand42 said:

I don't think this level of apology is even needed because this whole thing has been a mountain out of a molehill. If you've worked in business for any length of time you'd see far bigger screwups that never get acknowledged or fixed.

Don't know many businesses out there with several YT channels that have amassed tens of millions of subscriptions and billions of views. Their massive exposure is definitely proportionate to the level of scrutiny they are subjected to and it was only to be expected in the case of something like this, in my opinion.

[Philfreeze]

29 minutes ago, nhand42 said:

I don't think this level of apology is even needed because this whole thing has been a mountain out of a molehill. If you've worked in business for any length of time you'd see far bigger screwups that never get acknowledged or fixed. And it's not like they didn't try and do right, they just failed, it's not deserving of this kind of drama.

 

LMG are being put under a microscope and held to an impossible standard.

The community - god bless them - is insane.

I have worked in the electronics industry for almost a decade now, I have worked in measurement labs. If we had generated this much false data we probably would have gone bankrupt.

Obviously a media outlet doesn't need _that_ accuracy but their current QC is extremely poor. This also isn't without effect, I personally know people that when thinking about buying some new electronic device go on Youtube and see what Linus or the others recommend. The data is part of the video and more importantly, it informs the conclusions the writers and hosts draw from it. So this bad data is misinforming the consumers in a pretty sizable way, which is bad.
Additionally, I did not make the claim they are moving towards more objective and data driven reviews, they did, its the whole reason behind labs existing. In that regard the bad data is even worse.

I do not think the standard of 'not every video should contain multiple errors, they should be one or two errors across multiple videos' is unreasonable for a media outlet.

[EyLuismi]

I have seen the video now, and here are my thoughts:

• Jokes are ok
• Lttstore and the product announcement were wrong
• The floatplane "premiere" was also wrong
• I accept the stop to try to fix this in the future better. Usually, ego and emotions are the things that destroy big YT channels.

I would have been "happy" with this video before Madison allegations. Now, I want an answer to this, and in that video, Jokes should be way out of the table. I know Madison said things that will be hard to prove by herself, but I think there should be some kind of official answer.

[jpc329]

I’m gonna keep watching and stay subbed I don’t understand why so many people are angry at this apology aside from a store plug which honestly made the video feel more personable. Understand from a monetary, algorithmic and social standpoint losing a WEEK of content is a massive blow to LMG’s bottom line and the fact that they are willing to do this says a lot about their character. Burnout is a thing we’ve seen from a lot of YouTubers over the years and I think honestly LMG as a whole is experiencing it. I have a feeling we will see some serious content improvements over the next few months.

[Distinctly Average]

12 minutes ago, Mondodimotori said:

Do you, by any chance, have a direct insight in the personal life of anyone participating in this thread?

No, and why should I? There seems to be a lot of anger and aggression, add in a certain amount of bullying by some and it all feels horrible. I just feel healthy and constructive criticism is a far better way. My comment is not directed at anyone in particular. 
 

And yes, I know what is coming and why you said that.

 

life really is too short. Anger is a choice, we can choose to whom we are angry at or choose to just get on with life. If we do the latter we can use the energy we save in better, more constructive ways.

[Madpaatch]

5 minutes ago, Baron_Samedi said:

. This is not a subject where you can scientifically prove something is wrong with their answer.

It kind of is scientifically proven - google 'proper apology letter'

[We_are_Borg]

Quality over quantity 

[Parthros]

I'm gonna call for an outright termination of the use of "asterisk corrections" in videos when a host misspeaks. They're detrimental to the community and quality of videos in at least 3 ways:

1. They're not accessible for visually impaired people, or people who play their videos in the background. They don't have a way to know the host misspoke.
2. Frequently, videos will end in a conclusion that is based on something the host missaid. This makes the conclusion invalid, and the viewer is left to figure that out... if they notice the "asterisk corrections" at all.
3. It is SO quick and easy to re-record a voiceover for simple mistakes (for example, saying "megahertz" instead of "megatransfers" when talking about RAM speed), so it is pure laziness and greed that the team has not been allowed to do those.

 

Off the topic of "asterisk corrections," my example of "megahertz vs megatransfers" is based on how Linus was called out for using the wrong term by another tech YouTuber, and on the WAN Show, decided to berate this YouTuber for the correction, essentially calling it pedantic (I'm paraphrasing here). Sometime after that WAN Show, I started to notice that the whole team had (mostly) switched to using the term "megatransfers" when discussing RAM speed. This quiet adoption of something that was openly mocked is an example of LTT's poor culture of being unable to take valid criticism, and how they try to sweep corrections under the rug.

 

Although I'm glad Gamers Nexus was able to finally light a fire under LTT's butt to actually address these ongoing culture problems, actions speak louder than words, and what we've seen from Linus over the past few years requires a whole Hell of a lot more than an "apology and short-term action plan" video to fix. As a team, you're starting at ground zero for rebuilding trust with the audience, and there's no longer room for error.

[Mondodimotori]

4 minutes ago, Distinctly Average said:

No, and why should I? There seems to be a lot of anger and aggression, add in a certain amount of bullying by some and it all feels horrible. I just feel healthy and constructive criticism is a far better way. My comment is not directed at anyone in particular. 
 

And yes, I know what is coming and why you said that.

 

life really is too short. Anger is a choice, we can choose to whom we are angry at or choose to just get on with life. If we do the latter we can use the energy we save in better, more constructive ways.

Then how do you know that people discussing here are not putting huge energies in their daily lives on other problems? This is just a really bad strawman argument.

[Nucleosynthesis]

Excellent response compared to Linus' childish initial reaction. 

 

If they play their cards right I think LTT will get out of this stronger!

[Baron_Samedi]

2 minutes ago, Madpaatch said:

It kind of is scientifically proven - google 'proper apology letter'

If you want to be pedantic, then I must remind you that we are talking about a video and not a letter.

[kyle880307]

This drama cause me to log in LTT Forum again after 7 years I guess it somehow promote the forum Lmao. Btw great to see they blur the value of prototype only after 500k people saw it lol.

[Blademaster91]

43 minutes ago, nhand42 said:

I don't think this level of apology is even needed because this whole thing has been a mountain out of a molehill. If you've worked in business for any length of time you'd see far bigger screwups that never get acknowledged or fixed. And it's not like they didn't try and do right, they just failed, it's not deserving of this kind of drama.

 

LMG are being put under a microscope and held to an impossible standard.

The community - god bless them - is insane.

I disagree, LMG has been making obvious mistakes for years, getting into to controversies like the backpack warranty that could have been easily avoided by consulting a lawyer first, or having a company meeting first, but Linus feels like he needs to have control over everything.

LMG is a large company now and they need to act like one, and the community needs to treat them like one and be willing to point out their mistakes. Linus and LMG aren't your friends.

[Ai Kyuu]

What's the big drama? Why does this video have no context?

I watched all the videos on the channel and still don't understand what they're talking about.

"We need to be better about out communication" @Luke

Yes, indeed.

[nhand42]

Just now, Philfreeze said:

I have worked in the electronics industry for almost a decade now, I have worked in measurement labs. If we had generated this much false data we probably would have gone bankrupt.

Yeah well I work in corporate IT and the companies I work with make far bigger mistakes and are still making money hand over fist. Minor mistakes in testing? Heck, they deliver products that don't even work. I've personally seen multi-billion dollar projects get canned after a change of direction from leadership.

 

The mistakes here on youtube are nothing. As I said before, they're being held to an impossible standard, far greater than any I've seen in 30+ years I've been working as an IT professional.

 

And don't even get me started on government.

[SuperGnu]

2 minutes ago, kyle880307 said:

This drama cause me to log in LTT Forum again after 7 years I guess it somehow promote the forum Lmao. Btw great to see they blur the value of prototype only after 500k people saw it lol.

Embarrassing is what it is. They are talking about exactly stuff like that and it should not happen and they will take steps to make sure it wont happen. And then it happens in that video. It is just bad. Really bad.