What do we do now?

[loganluke07]

I believe you're making the right choices to fix this, but at least for a while I will not recommend or trust LTT/LMG videos. y'all got work to do there and your reputation is almost completely ruined. your video was a Band-Aid to the problem and you should have been working on it before this, but Terren Tong's response felt good and trustworthy, As long as you keep working to fix things.

Edited August 16, 2023 by loganluke07
grammar and correct response

[Woddell]

17 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Billet was going to let Linus keep it for testing, until he said it was crap and didn't want to use it again because he claimed it would cost too much to use the block. Billet of course wanted it back if LMG had no plans to use it, and they even joked at least it wasn't going to sit on a shelf after they sold it.

I've seen someone use a car analogy, its like letting someone borrow your car, they go ahead and use it for a while, then say its crap and sell it without telling you even though you asked for it back, then the person says they didn't sell it they auctioned it.

It doesn't matter if it was crap or not because you lost time and money on having to get another one.

 

It's not really like that though. To use the car analogy it would be more like telling someone they can use the car indefinitely, then request it back because they didn't want it. Then tell everyone that they sold your car and now you can't get to work because they sold it. Them selling it is really shitty. But they claimed reliance on something they originally agreed to give away. That's the part I don't like about all of this, BL/GN claimed LMG caused a slow in production by selling the item. But why on earth would BL tell LMG to originally keep it if it was a core part of their production process? It doesn't make sense.  

 

[Woofer21]

7 minutes ago, dw95_ said:

Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation.

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Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation. Please address the Madison situation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You wont get any more than this, its more of a legal matter. Source

[mikekow80]

What seems to be miss communication between vendors gets blown up into this.  This stuff happens all the time in the real world when sending demo products around.  There were probably lots of different little errors on both sides, they forgot to ask for it back or give a timeline, LTT didn't note right it needed to go back, wrong person on the email, or all the other little details. Totally normal but usually it's fixed with one phone call between the right people.  For people to think they were trying to "steal" from them is nuts.  Stuff happens all the time and sounds like they did the right thing.  Sorry, we messed up, how much do we owe you?    Seems more they didn't like a review and decided to cry about it, which nowadays snowballs into a trainwreck.  

 

People today also can't separate entertainment and characters from real life and it's clearly getting out of hand.  "Mom the funny guy on YouTube told me I have to buy this or you'll die"  Like come on people it's a TV show!  Sure they are using data from their lab but silly TV man needs to make it entertaining cause no one just wants to read graphs and it might not always be perfect.  If you are looking for super accurate specs, details and performance you need to check many sources and do research, not just silly TV man!

 

I'm no superfan boy, but you've got my support.  Just like Dbrand has got you, which shows how great they are standing behind you.  I'm going to go buy some stuff from Drband just cause.  I'd buy more from the LTT store but waiting on screwdrivers!!!!

[jdh009]

13 minutes ago, Woddell said:

"We originally said you could keep it because we thought it would be good for you to have it for future builds". 

 

I've said this so many times in this thread, I didn't say it what LMG did was ok, it's not. What I'm highlighting is that If BL really needed it, they wouldn't have offered it to LMG in the first place. 

Don't take my post the wrong way or that I'm criticising you, i just understood it like this and that conflicted with what i knew and asked for more info. The text was more meant in general and my view on the matter and not pointed/aimed at you.  

[naylor2006]

8 minutes ago, Quirkz said:

A LTT staff member made an off hand statement that belittled the testing of Gamers Nexus and Hardware Unboxed, implying that labs was much better.

 

GN and HUB got more than a little annoyed (understandable), but it became a bit personal.

GN released a 'hit piece' video detailing LTTs many mistakes in various videos (with facts to back it up), that demonstrates why the testing comparison was unfair and hypocritical. They also then dug in to a lot of dirt with allegations around bias towards certain suppliers, and poor behaviour around certain reviews of some companies products, where they did not test properly, then trashed the products, stating they were terrible.

 

Linus responded unaplogetically.

 

Community goes apeshit, split on both sides in massive war.

 

LTT releases damage control video, but ALSO do discuss real things they're going to do to address the concerns around high video turn around and crunch resulting in factual errors in their reviews.

 

You're up to date.

Thank you very much sir.

 

Saw some Maddison stuff also, thought I hadn’t seen her in a while.

 

I watched a LTT video about what they thought it was like working for Linus just the other day (I’m rarely up to date, I get around to videos when I can), quite a few folks all said we want more time to work on stuff and and not have to release so many videos in x amount of days.

 

I’ve never really paid much attention to the review stats I guess, that’s why this has perhaps passed me by, I only watch for entertainment, mostly Alex and cooling vids is what I get most excited about. When they are using an AC unit to cool a CPU I’m not really worrying about how it might influence my purchase!

 

Thanks for the break down, very kind, I’ll check out this GN video see what’s up! 

[Woddell]

Just now, jdh009 said:

Don't take my post the wrong way or that I'm criticising you, i just understood it like this and that conflicted with what i knew and asked for more info. The text was more meant in general than pointed/ aimed at you.  

 

Sorry, you were literally the 4th person I had to reply to about this issue in the last 5 minutes. 

[joaopt]

can we trust liars? Linus lied before. At this moment i would trust her over him.

[icqcorsair]

I watch LTT for over 5 years. What went wrong? As a guy who handles crisis for a living and work very close to a lot of fintechs, some that became large companies and others that go south, I can say that: The most critical point is not starting the business or getting investors of some sort. Where many fails is exactly in the transition from a small few guys team, to a corporation, but keeping their DNA. As a large company (LMG IS A LARGE MEDIA COMPANY), your accountability bar will be higher, you need better process to not downgrade your quality, some "jokes" and behaviors are not tolerated anymore...and, because of that, what I see many times is the company dying because to have a compliance compatible with their new size, they lost their "mojo" implementing those new processes.

However, the most successful ones are those who planned their growth, creating those new and necessary compliance processes as they grow. 

LMG didn't make the cut. But it's not too late. They were lucky that a GN, the community and others shows them what is happening.

That video was a very good crisis handling and calculated one, and I bet was a CEO decision, as any seasoned executive as the new CEO knows how to handle crisis and make damage control.

I honestly believe LMG will pull this off. I like Linus energy and creativity, but step down from CEO is the smartest decision he has made for the company. LMG is BIG - Hire a Professional Executive. Since he is emotionally involved - of course! And he should! - he is not the guy to handle crisis, on paper, wan show, posts, whatever. He is the frontman spokesperson, CVO, responsible to keep their DNA intact, but situations like that should be handled by seasoned professionals. I learned far ago that when a crisis came on the front door, our emotions needs to leave by the backdoor at the same time. 

 

[Bacchus15]

2 hours ago, Bacchus15 said:

Well in Best buy, one of our Pillars is: Learn from challenges and change, that is where LMG is at now. Learn from this, do an introspection and come out better. Companies screw up all the time, it's how they handle things in the end (fix things) that matters.

 

People need to put water in their wine and chill, give them a chance! You cant erase years of good things because a one (a few) bad things that happened. They are not evil, they majorly screwed up, give them a chance to fix it instead of throwing them in the fire like that!

 

My opinion!

 Ok i just found out about the whole Madison thing, im speechless! LMG, you need to rebuild yourself, that is really bad!

[Woofer21]

1 minute ago, joaopt said:

can we trust liars? Linus lied before. At this moment i would trust her over him.

There are 3 sides to a situation, side A, side B, and somewhere between them side C, the truth. Basically what i am saying is, we don't have all sides, and we don't know for sure what's going on, so its not enough to make a fully informed discission yet.  

[SebTH1]

This is a better response, and its not perfect.

I still wish to see less jokes/plugs, its a serious video, even 2-4 are out of place.

My only other thing is the lack of addressing the Conflicts of Interest The Noctua screwdriver for example, you review their products, so that to me screams a possible bias that could come in because now you have a monetary gain from promoting their stuff favorably

Also I'd like to have seen an apology to Steve from Linus for his initial response on the forum. Hopefully things get better as said, I'd like to trust Yvonne and Luke (they seemed the most sincere to me)

Also for Gary, the floatplane video to 'see how the sausage is made' I think should be not paywalled to FP subs, thats something that should be placed for the community at large. Even if its unlisted, if its publicly grabbable thats better than Floatplane. (Or make it F2W on Floatplane)

[joaopt]

2 minutes ago, Woofer21 said:

There are 3 sides to a situation, side A, side B, and somewhere between them side C, the truth. Basically what i am saying is, we don't have all sides, and we don't know for sure what's going on, so its not enough to make a fully informed discission yet.  

 

i made no decisions, only stated that by the facts, i know there is a liar, a man that imposed a toxic work environment on one side and on the other some women claims of sexual harassment

So without more data, i would not rule her claims out, i'm more inclined to believe her over him

[jdh009]

5 minutes ago, joaopt said:

can we trust liars? Linus lied before. At this moment i would trust her over him.

The accused is innocent until proven guilty. And yes, this can be said without victim blaming/victim blaming or not taking her story seriously, dismissing it, or when you are supporting her. Trial by media or being deleted (and forcing/bullying others to do the same if they do something else) seems to be becoming more and more of a thing. The only thing i can say for sure is that Terren Tong made a very good decision with his statement where he said LMG is hiring an outside investigator to look into this deeper and (hopefully, objectively).

 

Quote

Linus Media Group CEO Terren Tong also responded via email, saying he was “shocked at the allegations and the company described” in Reeve’s posts. He went on to note that “as part of this process, beyond an internal review we will also be hiring an outside investigator to look into the allegations and will commit to publish the findings and implementing any corrective actions that may arise because of this.”

 

[Woofer21]

2 minutes ago, SebTH1 said:

Also for Gary, the floatplane video to 'see how the sausage is made' I think should be not paywalled to FP subs, thats something that should be placed for the community at large. Even if its unlisted, if its publicly grabbable thats better than Floatplane. (Or make it F2W on Floatplane)

This here ^ I do not in any way like that they are pushing for transparency.... while being less transparent. Pretty much the only specific complaint I have.

[joaopt]

Just now, jdh009 said:

The accused is innocent until proven guilty.

 

 

 

sorry but that is BS. The victim must be protected in cases like this. Sure we all need more evidence to condemn someone, but we really know Linus is a liar and imposed a toxic work environment, those are absolute facts.

[McGherkin]

 

32 minutes ago, naylor2006 said:

As a part time watcher of the main LTT channel I have absolutely zero context for what I just saw, if someone can explain to me in a sentence what led to that really bizarre video that would be awesome?

 

Has there been some off the scale scandal they needed to apologise for or what?

 

31 minutes ago, Bobby529 said:

I need someone to help me what went wrong in ltt can someone reply or explain it to me

I have tried to be as level and equal as possible, the previous replies are somewhat biased, particularly Quirkz. Only update to it really is that Linus and Terren have made statements to the Verge basically saying we knew nothing of this, will investigate internally, and appoint an independent investigator too.

1 hour 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.

[jdh009]

 

5 minutes ago, joaopt said:

 

sorry but that is BS. The victim must be protected in cases like this. Sure we all need more evidence to condemn someone, but we really know Linus is a liar and imposed a toxic work environment, those are absolute facts.

Cherry-picking my post aren't we? 

 

Quote

And yes, this can be said without victim blaming/victim blaming or not taking her story seriously, dismissing it, or when you are supporting her. 

See my other post as well.

 

[Bobby529]

5 minutes ago, Woofer21 said:

cc @Bobby529

Gamers Nexus posted a 44 minute hit piece calling out LTT and some inaccuracies in their recent videos, their handling of Billet Labs only water block, and some "ethical" concerns they have about the LTT channel.

you hVE FILLED me in thanks

[joaopt]

2 minutes ago, jdh009 said:

Cherry-picking my post aren't we? 

 

 

i don't think so, the investigation part should have been done when she first called it out, not after the GN video. Doesn't that sound strange? is it just me.

 

this is whitewashing, more whitewashing. And to be clear i have no idea if it's true

[jdh009]

2 minutes ago, joaopt said:

 

i don't think so, the investigation part should have been done when she first called it out, not after the GN video. Doesn't that sound strange? is it just me.

 

this is whitewashing, more whitewashing. And to be clear i have no idea if it's true

There we agree, but that still does not change the content of my post and picking one sentence out of it without including the other one. Making it completely out of context.

[mikekow80]

27 minutes ago, jack20591 said:

Even very basic knowledge should tell you prototype products are immensely valuable and expensive.

 

A company would absolutely not just give away a prototype version of an unreleased product to a tech website. Ltt could literally just hand it to a rival company who would destroy them..

This is pretty common actually.  It's how you get feedback, you send prototypes, early versions, or samples to people for their testing and comments.  If you are sending something out to be tested on a popular youtube channel you aren't worried about a rival company stealing it as anyone could pretty much "steal" it from just the video. By that point you'd have patents in place if the item is new, or the breakthru is in the manufacturing side which you aren't showing off.  Usually once done with a prototype they either just let you keep it cause it's already been updated or they ask you to send it to someone else to test it.  Sometimes there are different NDAs or other legal things so you don't go tell everyone, but that doesn't really apply when you send it so they can make a video about it.

[joaopt]

1 minute ago, jdh009 said:

There we agree, but that still does not change the content of my post and picking one sentence out of it without including the other one.

 

i just said the "innocent until..." should not be a blank check in cases like this. We all seen what happened 2 years ago, they bullied her to shut up, and he let them, he didn't spoke against it. Public pressure needs to be applied. If it was done 2 years ago maybe it was already investigated, not NOW AFTER THE VIDEO FROM GN

[Woddell]

10 minutes ago, joaopt said:

 

sorry but that is BS. The victim must be protected in cases like this. Sure we all need more evidence to condemn someone, but we really know Linus is a liar and imposed a toxic work environment, those are absolute facts.

Got a source for those facts? 

[Woofer21]

1 minute ago, joaopt said:

NOW AFTER THE VIDEO FROM GN

What does this have anything to do with GN besides starting all of the drama in the first place?