What do we do now?

[Yenkij]

I really like the video. If you don't, consider this: it's not just an apology video. Apologies mean nothing if things don't change. This video is all about the actions being taken to actually improve the situation, and that's what counts.

Linus and the others aren't begging for forgiveness with sad eyes. They're saying, "We know we messed up, and here's how we're fixing it."

[CrowTheRobot]

8 minutes ago, SoulSunder said:

Seeing that they didn't even bother to delay this a bit to try and get in Maddison's whole separate debacle to me feels like they are trying to get out of this the fast way, not the correct way.

I think you've got a skewed sense of how allegations of those sorts work.  Even though Madison is saying all of these things openly (and I do not fault her at all for it), there are guidelines to how things like harassment/sexual harassment would be responded to, and chief, this ain't it.  I don't know what you're expecting, but most if not all of an investigation into her allegations would be done, at best, with solely a sentence or two to acknowledge that it would be investigated.  Never guarantees that we would get any sort of information out of it (outside of internal leaks) or anything else.  It's a whole other ball game than what the video was actually addressing, as that shit isn't an HR minefield.

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

1 hour ago, 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. 

Yes, let's instigate thought and private conversation policing, that's sure to improve the work environment.

 

As to the asshat remark, may I suggest a mirror?

[Rey Christopher Torres]

what GN did was not point out what linus did wrong, but paint a picture that LTT was deceitful company, especially now that the company is getting bigger, and more specifically, overlaps what GN does. yes i do agree about having the same standards if LTT wants to join the party....

 

still, for all those years, would really think LTT to be that type of company? come on...
 

what GN did, regardless of how "technically right" that video is, for me, is a low blow....

[HeavenAT]

5 hours ago, LinusTech said:

 

ridicilous to see what happened, i thought i could trust your provided data and purchased products based on it. Wont watch again.

[Baron_Samedi]

2 minutes ago, Madpaatch said:

You're entitled to your opinion. I just pointed out that the second statement is imo not up to the basic standards of crisis management communication - if you look at my previous post you might see why (not mentioning the first honest reveal by Linus :p). That's all there's to it. We'll see if this second statement is sufficient to put the lid on this screw up.

 

I'm also sure that the employees will not be as docile as they were prior to this event especially after the former employee has come forward (personally having managed 200 people I treat this with certain disbelief but then again I remember #MeToo and Alex Afrasiabi).

In Portugal we have a popular saying that goes like this: "Only those who live in a convent know what goes inside." 

 

One thing I've learned over the years managing Tech Support teams is that you can never take the part for the whole.
As in this forum there will always be dissatisfied people. Some rightly and others not so much.
I've been part of teams where I had colleagues who spoke horrors and I loved it.
We live in moments where we discuss how many sexes there are and whether the Earth is flat or not. I am not at all surprised that there are those who feel abused by being asked for more attention or more commitment.

I reiterate once again that I have no idea what the environment is like at LTT.

[CrowTheRobot]

5 minutes ago, Parthros said:

I didn't act as if nothing was ever going to change.  I was pointing out one of the things that needs to happen going forward.  You can't forget the past, otherwise you'll never learn from it.
This is an action plan: "Linus needs to get his behavior and emotions under control, or LTT will continue down the same path."

You said we needed a lot more than what we've already received, based on Linus' past actions.  What we got was a lot more concrete than just "Linus needs to get his behavior and emotions under control, or LTT will continue down the same path", because it rightly pointed out that a lot more people were involved than just Linus and fixing Linus' baggage wasn't going to solve everything.  And they weren't forgetting the past, they literally pointed out what was done wrong in the past and how they wanted to start fixing it, and clearly are not leaving Linus to spearhead the whole thing regardless of how much responsibility he's taken for it.

[Woddell]

7 minutes ago, jaskem said:

They were happy to let LMG keep the item because they already ordered a new one.

 

Thats' my point. If they were happy for LMG to keep it, why did they and GN say that their production has been affected due to them not having it? 

[schmism]

Working in the engineering field I have worked at an office that took pride in its ISO 9001 quality procedures.   I have personally been responsible for crafting SOP's to be filed as 9001 docs.  (I wasn't thrilled with having to do it, because it meant that I could be held accountable to having to follow all the steps I put on that page, but it did also meant that we had proper documentation for new hires to follow and could hold everyone to the same standard)

I look forward to hearing how you have adopted either ISO9001 or a similar rigorous standard for new SOP's in order to stamp out the careless mistakes that has resulted in having to make this video. 

and @LinusTech for the love of god man,  please learn to use a PR dept!   I love getting a behind the scenes hot takes on WAN show but..... when its written responses to the community,  you got to learn to transition to "the public relations statement"!

 

[pilotgallo2]

As someone with a hot head who tends to want to reply with emotion, I agree with most of the criticism of the GN video and Linus's response on the forum and the internet. I also try to remember something my wife tells me is that we all make mistakes to not rush to judgment based on one thing. I am in no way excusing what was done, especially with Billet Labs, and I hope, based on Billet's Reddit posts, that LMG makes the agreed-upon payment for the prototype.

I also think that Linus has gotten lots of internal feedback that the community is not privy to, and I hope we see lasting changes going forward. Looking back at this and other LTT controversies, I think bringing in an outside CEO is a good idea. I can't image what Terren walked into six weeks ago. As a manager of a small team of three at my company, I know that six weeks is not enough time to get up to speed. I hope Yvonne and Terren follow through on what they promised in the video. I think that the release schedule reduction is warranted. I love the Linus & Jake videos, such as the pool cooling video and the building of things in Linus's house, and I want entertaining videos like that.

On product review videos, I agree that attention to detail is super important. I hope a complete retrospective will help find and fix the broader company issues causing the amount of these mistakes.

I hope the community continues to watch and keeps LMG honest going forward. I know I will be watching to see going forward. 

[deblimp]

Good video. I appreciated the sponsor jokes, people complaining don’t get it. 

[poochyena]

5 hours ago, yobson said:

he actually decided to paywall it for a bit hahaha

wtf, thats kinda unhinged. Thats seriously just wow

[Nadim]

I think that it is in unbelievably bad taste to make jokes about sponsor segues and LTTStore, and to monetize this video.

[Madpaatch]

4 minutes ago, Baron_Samedi said:

In Portugal

I love Algarve. Affordable morning white wine, sandy beaches with the breeze and let's end this discussion with that

[Woddell]

Just now, Nadim said:

I think that it is in unbelievably bad taste to make jokes about sponsor segues and LTTStore, and to monetize this video.

They're trying to make a serious conversation a little lighthearted (as they're also humans and this is difficult for them too). Monetization is done by default. You still get it for free, whats the problem?

[CaptainDarkstar42]

4 hours ago, treestain said:

Madison is a he said she said situation.

 

Neither side have proof.

 

Both are acting idiotic.

What is wrong with you?  Most women, when they come forward, usually do so even though they know they are telling the truth and that they will face intense scrutiny for coming forward.  Does that mean all the details happened exactly as Madison said?  Not necessarily.   But, she obviously went through deep trauma that the company culture as a whole caused.  This isn't a "both sides"  argument, that is stupid.

[Nadim]

Just now, Woddell said:

They're trying to make a serious conversation a little lighthearted (as they're also humans and this is difficult for them too). Monetization is done by default. You still get it for free, whats the problem?

If you don't see what's tasteless in making a decision like that, I honestly don't think that anyone can explain to you why it is.

[SoulSunder]

4 minutes ago, CrowTheRobot said:

I think you've got a skewed sense of how allegations of those sorts work.  Even though Madison is saying all of these things openly (and I do not fault her at all for it), there are guidelines to how things like harassment/sexual harassment would be responded to, and chief, this ain't it.  I don't know what you're expecting, but most if not all of an investigation into her allegations would be done, at best, with solely a sentence or two to acknowledge that it would be investigated.  Never guarantees that we would get any sort of information out of it (outside of internal leaks) or anything else.  It's a whole other ball game than what the video was actually addressing, as that shit isn't an HR minefield.

I feel like you missed my point in that sentence though. They put this video out in less than 24 hours since Steve's response. They should have waited and taken more time to come up with a better response. For fucks sake people have already found issues like Colton's email not being blurred and them revealing the price of the prototype which means they are still rushing to get videos out. Giving this more time to sit on the brain usually helps people get a far more clear picture to the overall problem. Just putting out less videos doesn't accomplish anything if they are still rushing to an end goal.

[Baron_Samedi]

1 minute ago, Madpaatch said:

I love Algarve. Affordable morning white wine, sandy beaches with the breeze and let's end this discussion with that

Agree! 

[xg32]

just watched it late to the party:

 

it was on FP for a bit

i liked the bit from yvonne and pausing videos for a week

the bit from labs and james was disappointing

they were at least transparent about billet labs

for all his flaws, i agree with linus about people extrapolating (this naturally happens in almost any controversy

likely won't see/need a response to madison unless we see even one hard piece of evidence, and/or it's headed to court

[mikaelus]

I don't think LTT is going to crash and burn but I'm sure this has been a very costly blow that is going to take plenty of time for them to recover from, particularly as they have kept touting Labs as their next big thing for months now - and yet they not only made some very basic errors in testing but treated a prototype product with complete disregard.

I think this sort of split personality - on the one hand doing YOLO, fun, janky projects where stuff gets flooded and everybody has a laugh, and on the other aspiring to be a precise testing powerhouse - is one of the causes but also one of the problems going forward. Striking balance between them is a difficult act.

 

Financially it will be very costly - in terms of sponsorships, user subscriptions and video frequency (a decrease of which directly reduces both YT and sponsor revenue). Over the course of a year it could easily be six figures if not more. Ouch.

 

But the biggest lesson from it all is that it wasn't GN's video that was the biggest hit - it was Linus' response to it. Yes, Steve pointed out a lot of bad stuff and the story with Billet Labs was egregious but these things could still have been contained if Linus came out and just owned it all.

 

Instead he wrote a whiny post as if he was a victim of some conspiracy, and tried to shut down the controversy by openly saying there will be no follow up video - likely hoping he could avoid drawing even more attention to it (particularly given how much bigger LTT's subscriber base is).

 

Well, it backfired spectacularly and made a bad situation even worse, sparking more outrage from the community that I'm sure is going to remembered for very long.

 

It's very nearly as bad as Bud Light shtstorm in the US, though I think LTT stopped just before the point of no return. But the process of getting public trust back (especially in terms of actual reviews/tests) will be almost as difficult and painful as getting men to drink a trans-beer again.

[hansthegerman]

Forgetting to blur the price of the prototype is just once again a mistake that NEVER should've happened, especially not in this video.

Colton admitted he made a seriously dumb mistake with the mail, and I don't think that's to blame. In this situation, mistakes are way dumber, but also way easier to make. It's probably the only mistake I could forgive. It's also the only thing I remembered from watching this video besides the silly jokes and money grabbing parts.

But making the video a FP exclusive for a few minutes, also monetizing it, is just DUMB. Also releasing it after the allegations from Madison instead of pulling it and re-shooting it, shows how little they learned. But it shows in the video itself. Yes, I loved the jokes, and I laughed at them, but my god, you can't put them in this video.

Here is what I think they should've made with this video so they would have had any chance of redeeming themselves:

- pull the video back to properly let Terren response to Madison's allegations (like he should contact her and get all the names and insights he need to smash everyone involved), then release it with this statement as the first one, and then make a blank screen saying like: everything else was recorded before this and is way less important (because it is)
- cut the silly jokes and sponsor/lttstore/floatplane parts
- check for erros like not blurring the price
- don't monetize it and don't paywall it on FP
- CUT LINUS for f* sake. The only thing he should've said was: "Hey, it's me. I f* up a lot, and I made it worse with my post in the forum. I am also once again incredibly sorry for how things went with BL and PWNAGE, this should never have happened. From now on, I will let the professionals do their job, while I seriously reflect on how I can improve myself." That's it. Blaming reddit and playing the: we are all human card once again made things worse.

jeeeeeez

[mikaelus]

10 minutes ago, Woddell said:

 

Thats' my point. If they were happy for LMG to keep it, why did they and GN say that their production has been affected due to them not having it? 

Because at that point they have already started working on the new one, so it made no sense to get the old one back anymore. Not something they would have had to do if they got the original returned.

[m0x]

The level of accelerationism here is absolutely absurd. Give Linus and team a chance to improve before you try and fan the flames even more.

Also, not to discredit the very concerning claims made on Twitter (or X, I guess), but who the fuck thought it was okay to flood their DMs to try capitalize on the existing PR crisis? https://twitter.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741

 

Quote

To stop the speculation and DM's I am receiving.

 

[SuperGnu]

5 minutes ago, CaptainDarkstar42 said:

What is wrong with you?  Most women, when they come forward, usually do so even though they know they are telling the truth and that they will face intense scrutiny for coming forward.  Does that mean all the details happened exactly as Madison said?  Not necessarily.   But, she obviously went through deep trauma that the company culture as a whole caused.  This isn't a "both sides"  argument, that is stupid.

Like JD and AH?

I Have lived long enough and seen and heard enough to know that unless someone actually get a sentence you can not take it for what it is. Way too many women lie about SA, way too many. "Believe all women" No, hell no. If it turns out she is right then i hope she wins a case against them. If she is not then she is lying and just throws fuel on a flame.