Linus' reponse to the Gamer's Nexus Video
Linus' reponse to the Gamer's Nexus Video
This is quoted from Linus on the LTT forums:
"There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.
To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.
To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.
Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.
With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...
I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.
Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip. I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.
Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).
With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient.
We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.
Thanks for reading this."
For me, this is the main point, GN has prided itself in integrity and making sure meticulous detail is done on every benchmark, LTT doesn't do that and only worries about pumping out 7-10 videos a week to keep up with the YouTube algorithms (which may or may not be a real issue). I'm inclined to be behind GN on this one.
LTT is trying to be reliable, but they aren't giving themselves the time to do it. Mistakes are made and aren't corrected or aren't corrected in the best way.
I'm not buying that, there's probably a little bit of truth in there, but honestly it's pretty clear what's happening. The higher ups require a certain amount of videos a week to be profitable, if they don't meet that quota then they're not making money or they think they're not making money. They're also pretty clearly favoring their sponsors and reviewing their products positively without showing actual credible benchmarks. It's the sign of corporate greed creeping in once again and someone finally called out their bullshit. Linus isn't taking it very well, and I can imagine why when someone you thought to be a friend or colleague is now calling you out with credible evidence that you're just bullshitting around and half-assing the product you build from the ground up.
If they aren't giving themselves the time to do it then it means they aren't trying to be reliable. After all, these are self imposed deadlines they set themselves. Actions speak louder than words, and despite the PR attempts the presentation says quantity is more important than being correct
Which is completely fine for entertainment content like building a flying PC, but there's different expectations for more serious pieces they are trying to sell to consumers as being trustworthy. Unless they want the stigma of the Verge of PC building when it comes to LTT product reviews. Where people say I just watch it for the jokes and product shots, but ignore the recommendations.
LTT is trying to be reliable, but they aren’t giving themselves the time to do it.
No, they are not. They are trying to pump out content, and don't want to be held accountable for their actions, period.
If they were trying ro be reliable they wouldn't bitch about fucking up a test, then having to spend $100-$500 in employee time to properly test.
They wouldn't blame their fuckups on everyone except themselves.
They may make shit right in the coming days, the sad fact was it took GN calling them out to get them to stop acting like assholes.
Linus is so wrong here.
"I expressed my disappointment that he didn’t go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable"
It's exactly the opposite, by not giving Linus a preview of the material, and allowing him input on it. Steve has secured the journalistic integrity of the content.
Linus had a chance to address the content publicly and is opting not to do it.
"Most of what I have to say, I’ve already said, and I’ve done so privately."
He clearly thinks we are not worth keeping informed so I'm going to be unsubscribing and no longer consuming any LTT content.
Overall this response sucks. No accountability, plenty of deflection and missing the point. Vague talk of being more accurate in the future, so I'm supposed to just wait and consume inaccurate content in the mean time? No thanks.
I think GN did a great job here and am disappointed in Linus' response, but it's worth noting that it would indeed be appropriate to reach out for comment while working on an investigative piece like this.
It's different from providing a copy of a review to a vendor before releasing. It's more about, "what's your answer to this?" as part of the due diligence. I'm surprised Steve never reached out and remain skeptical about the suggestion that he didn't try. That would be my only criticism of GN on this piece. Everything else seemed very well done.
I can see your point. But I'm the end Linus is still saying he's not going to answer to anyone publicly including his audience, he can do better. The rest of the statement is awful as well.
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Just finished watching and GN is totally valid on calling out a lot of bullshit that LTT is doing.
Either you are light entertainment that’s not to be taken seriously or you are a serious reviewer and are held to higher standards of testing.
LTT are becoming corporate shills and are trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Dude secret shops companies and posts a video about it one week, a week or two later he gets equivalent to being secret shopped by a fellow youtuber and is up in arms about it. The narcissism is palpable.
And when talking about companies fucking up, he always says the response to it is what matters most, his have been awful lately.
There's a bit of a theme with Linus, it seems.
Everything is explained by "trust my good intentions, ignore the end effects".
Controversy about employee payments? "Those who know us understand we have a testing period first! We surprise them with great bonuses after a few months!"
Controversy over warranties? "Nooo why you need a clear contract? Don't you trust me? I'd totally replace your product!"
Controversy over Labs data being grossly wrong? "Nooo it doesn't matter, trust our conclusions! They're made with the customers interest in mind!"
Controversy over partnering with a shady brand? "Nooo we looked into it and trust me, the CEO changed!"
I could keep going. Linus' thing is a "trust me bro" approach that absolutely does not hold up to the level of investment the Labs is. If you've invested millions into industrial testing equipment, and you'll release data for free... I very much do not trust you, bro, unless you specify exactly how you're monetizing it and how exactly are you going to keep good relationships with parners such as Dbrand, AMD and similar if you're now in the business of testing products and releasing data. Will they pay you to silence results? The last time this was answered, unsurprisingly, the answer was "trust me, bro"
As much as I think they need to get their shit together in other areas. I don't believe they will themselves be biased by sponsors. They have repeatedly ragged on their own sponsors or quit using them if they turn out bad. Like Anker with the eufy camera debacle or there recent review where they rate their sponsors.
Linus has his problems certainly. Hubris being the worst. However, bias towards sponsors is one I personally don't believe.
Linus' does have the best intentions and usually does his best to try to meet them in my opinion. However, you have to know that ahead of time. That doesn't mean anything to most people who aren't familiar with how he roles. Which is not good if you are trying to be a reliable source of information for anyone to randomly go to.
I know I basically repeated what you said, but I don't have a good answer for what they should be doing.
I disagree - you can clearly see a difference in treatment if the brand being evaluated is a sponsor. This very video demonstrates this by showing how the ignore Noctua's thermal problems.
They only drop sponsors after severe community backlash, and even then, we have examples when they kinda didn't really admit the sponsor was wrong.
They do make a LOT of effort to try and convince you this isn't the case - their recent video "testing the customer service" of their sponsors is purely for this goal of "look LTT tests their sponsors! How trustworthy!"
Linus was very generous in the ratings he gave his sponsors while testing their customer service. Everyone is susceptible to these kinds of biases, which is why it's important to minimize conflicts of interests as much as possible.
Hold on hold on, there aren't any warranties on merch? Isn't he the guy that tells everyone to look at the warranty length before you buy something?
What an arrogant response, Linus is a prick.
Always has been.
Blaming Steve, bunch of we're sorry it'll get better, and utterly absurd reasoning for tanking a love child project.
I kind of expect that LMG will very slowly disintegrate (it might take years), as many of their staff are concerned with the tight schedules and are probably under a lot of stress. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of their current staff opening up their own smaller channels later, independent of LMG.
I'm not going to unsubscribe, I still enjoy much of LTT content, however as soon as I'm serious about buying some specific hw piece, I always watch GN and Hardware Unboxed videos first.
That's how I feel. I don't watch LTT for reviews I watch them for the videos where they do dumb shit with servers or water cooling or whatever and the WAN show is nice side monitor content on my Friday nights.
If I am genuinely interested in a product like a GPU I usually look at multiple sources for benchmarks. Trusting just one is creating a single point of failure.
"my bad. ...anyways about them screwdrivers!"
I don't personally feel this is the correct response, but what do you think?
It absolutely is not the correct response. LTT and GN are very public and the suggestion to take the conversation private is bad. There is no backroom conversation that can "fix" shitty data.
I agree with Linus taking accountability for publishing bad test results. That is a good thing. Talking shit about GN and refusing to walk back on that is bad. That is unprofessional.
I've never watched a video or paid attention to these guys but it certainly didn't sound like he was taking accountability for bad test results. He spent quite a while explaining why accuracy wasn't important.
It would have been kind to linus to do it directly, but honesty to the audience is what matters the most. The criticism has to go both ways if you are going be honest and reliable journalists. Would Telling him in private really change things for something that is a core issue with the business? I don't think so. The audience will tell you if your work is good enough or you fall from your failure to comply.
What part about that was talking shit about GN? I haven't seen the video, but the vibe I'm getting is GN was talking shit about LTT, and LTT didn't want to start a shit flinging contest?
Edit: Watched the video. That was brutal. The GN response was disproportionate to the quips, but at the same time justified.
Also, after watching all that, I feel the need to say Linus is super arrogant on the wan show and I never watch it.
like the fact that we didn’t ‘sell’ the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication… AND the fact that while we haven’t sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype
That’s kinda not better or a defense. Or even a clarification.
https://i.imgur.com/BFYsmdb.pngl
It looks like they are paying it back which was my biggest concern, and billet is defining the price here. Although according to his earlier response, LMG has yet to repay it.That fuck up is still massive, downplaying it as a "charity auction" is shitty and makes this 120~ person company look like amateur hour.
additional context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3byz3txpso
I was mislead and because how linus worded it, thought this was at least arranged prior to the whole situation and that this was not a quote or invoiced. According to billet lab this was not the case and they had yet to set a price as of that second videos recording.
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LMG are right assholes and deserve more to be punished financially for mocking and insulting a company across multiple podcasts before stealing and selling a prototype to, potentially, a competitor.
But I would not call this irreparable. Unless Billet sent a REALLY early prototype (I didn't see the original video, but it sounded functional... if the user weren't a womble), this is nearing production (to the extent a boutique product goes into production). If EK got a hold of it (and, to my knowledge, there is no indication EK would be the kind of company to abuse this), this gives them a headstart. But they still need to figure out how to manufacture it, what parts are worth stealing, etc. Which is probably order months for a product that likely would be launching in a few months to a year.
If it is a chinese knockoff company... yeah, there are serious worries there. But also, there are good odds the less reputable orgs already have the CAD files and machine code to manufacture them. Whether it is worth doing a run of is anyone's guess but... probably not. Again, this is a boutique product.
If there are truly unique heat pipe designs and internals? This is a problem, but it is one that would happen the moment it went on the market anyway.
Honestly? I suspect more damage was done by the LMG coverage than the LMG theft. Hopefully the GN coverage (and while he can be a bit of a dipshit, I am sure Jay is reaching out to try and get eyes on) will help negate a lot of that.
The biggest fault that was committed is that Linus didn't just take the L and admit they fucked up and they would fix the problem instead of doubling down. Blaming GN for not telling him about it personally is not how journalism is supposed to work. Friend or not.
This also isn't the "gotcha" LMG tried to make it seem at the intro in their response. They basically said "GN didn't get our side of the story so they are making us bad, they didn't know we repaid Billet Labs!"
It's inexcusable how they tested, handled, and then auctioned the block, doesn't matter that they agreed something at the end, what GN said still stands.
Its also worth understanding that Billet are a tiny (I saw "two people" but no citation) business going up against a 100M company that has already made it clear they will drag a business through the muck over... not anticipating what GPU would be on their shelf.
So I hope that Billet are getting money to build a new prototype and a big something for their trouble of having their prototype given to some random person (who may be in the industry). But... I would be pretty shocked if they didn't just say "Oh, yeah. No problem. Please don't mention us ever again"
LTT and Linus himself are just a bunch of clowns. And it irritates me that they call themselves tech experts or a tech channel. At the best they're tech entertainers.
The video that really made me do a double-take and start to notice how bad their content really is, was the one about their storage server screw up from a year and a bit ago.
It reeks of a bunch of amateurs messing around with tech they truly don't understand. Allan Jude talked on a fairly recent episode (can't remember which podcast, I think it was 2.5 Admins) about helping Wendell from Level1 with the recovery process on LTT's storage server. He was really trying hard (and in all fairness succeeded) in being professional in talking about it, but you can just hear in his voice that he felt like he was dealing with a group of rich teenagers out of their league.
I lost respect for Linus Sebastian a long time ago, but now I think he's a terrible and greedy person.
As someone who has worked with enterprise servers/networking for over 10 years now, I avoid any videos where they're talking about their servers or networking. I've watched a lot of them but the mistakes and odd choices make it unenjoyable for me personally. I have always chalked it up to them dumbing it down for their audience but maybe it's inexperience.
Either way, I enjoy a lot of their content but haven't used their reviews to pick out new products for a long time.
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Frankly, this whole situation boils down to exactly what I expected. LTT has always produced content at an insane velocity, and issues like these are the inevitable results. Miscommunications, errors that need to be tidied up, and compromises such as that water block video not being redone with the proper setup. LTT doesn't have the ability to reverse course on an emergency like that, they're already at breakneck pace so that they can't make a change of that scope without missing deadlines. If it wasn't this, it would've been something else.
Is that evil? I don't know. It's the business strategy they've gone with, and much of why they're in the position they are. An LTT that put out half the videos they do may have never made it to this position. This is a good wake up call as to the costs of that kind of operation, and it's up to you how you choose to react to this.
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Yeah, this certainly raises to mind the times I've heard them discuss on WAN Show how employees have inquired about reducing the release schedule, and how that's not considered a real option. That decision has costs...
I've never watched that dude, but I know who he is and what he does. At the end of the day, he's just another youtuber, just churning videos as fast as possible, using stupid thumbnails like everybody else. Just quantity over quality, because that's what produces revenue. I have more respect for the "jesus guy".
There forum is down from so many people posting. Crazy. The internet is so unstable right now, first with twitter, then reddit, and now a massive youtube company.
Can someone provide a bit more context? What's this in response to? What's the controversy?
It is in reponse to this video by gamer's nexus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGW3TPytTjc
tl;dr
LTT has produced a variety of videos that either do not reliably review their products, give accurate information, and other issues. As well as a major fuckup with a watercooling company. Having watched the whole thing, GN has a point.
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The video is not monetized and directly hurts his relationship with his friend which has more of a financial impact as LTT leads the tech review space. He shows the facts in his video, what is there to ask other than to do better?
The selling or auctioning thing really doesn't matter as it wasn't theirs to get rid of.
People will be unreasonable, that is unavoidable. LTT's actions are unacceptable for a review company. The audience needs to be able to trust them, but cutting corners isn't the way to do it.
I dunno man I smell a rat.
Absolutely not. All the relevant information is out there. There would be nothing to gain by reaching out first. In fact, Linus had already doubled down on his position when being called out. So his position is clear.
And the auctioning off the prototype speaks loudly as a dishonourable action.
Reaching out would have only given LMG an opportunity to get ahead of the bad press and try to spin something in their favour.
Reaching out first is fine when reporting on something already "released", but in this case it would serve no purpose.
If other news articles report on this situation, then they would reach out for a comment.
GN doesn't need to get Linus' opinion on this. No amount of Linus whining about stupid bullshit could have changed the facts presented.
Steve referred to it as selling because that's what it is. What they do with the profit after does not make the slightest difference to the company they crippled. I can't get away with stealing by calling it a miscommunication, why should they?
People raised pitchforks because pitchforks are deserved. You don't need to ask the most biased possible source if a proven fact is true or not.
Even if they auctioned the prototype due to miscommunication Linus is willing to do the right thing here, and the fact that GN referred to it as selling not auctioning for charity tells us Steve is biased.
Linus might be wiling to do the right thing but he isn't, he is lying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3byz3txpso
You clearly haven't watched the video, because Steve clearly states it was auctioned.
Neither side is fully in the right here, but that's just how the world is. Not black and white, rather gray. The question is, how dark is that shade of gray? I personally think GN should've reached out, but it is their choice. I can still think it's a mistake though. I also think LMG should have done a better job keeping track of things, whether it be information on videos or whether they can sell a water block or not. However, the fact remains that GN has points that are valid, but LMG also has a good track record of usually doing the right thing (even if it's not delivered/explained well), or at least trying to remedy the issue as best they can, so they seem to at least have a few people who care about doing the right thing (though hopefully/probably most do)
I kinda agree, and IMO Gamers Nexus has become more of a drama channel than a tech channel at this point (which was maybe called for during the Newegg RMA situation, but I think they got stuck in drama mode after that and it's been sad to see GN continue down that path lately).
The video isn't monetized. Its clearly a video they felt like they had to make, but didn't want to.