Are we just really posting selective parts of this video? I could have sworn that when journalists / the media do this everyone is up in arms about bias and creating a narrative, but when we do it I guess it's fine?
It’s called “entertainment”. You know, as opposed to serious journalism. If you ever watched any LMG video, you should know all about this particular distinction… ;)
I don’t think this is meant as a replacement for the original. It seems like the creator just wanted to clown on LTT for their subpar and disrespectful response to the controversy.
Gamers Nexus (another highly respected tech YouTuber) called out LTT for their mistakes and performances over the last few years, the overall point being that they're moving too fast and causing multiple mistakes in their content.
There's a current controversy with a company called Billet who gave LTT a custom water block to test and instead of testing it properly with the 3090 it was made for, they tried it with a 4090 card (and it obviously didn't work)
Linus doubled down on their results saying it wouldn't have mattered anyway because it's a rubbish product and no one should buy it (which came across very poorly, why even agree to test a product if you know your going to trash on it)
The whole situation specifically looks like it's triggered some upcoming changes in LMG and hopefully the outcome is better, more accurate video content
Look - you just don’t get it. It was a hit job so using the actual hardware as intended didn’t matter. Why can’t people just understand that and be okay with it?
The Billet stuff is even worse because he trashed a startup company (that could be crushed by bad press from someone with so much reach) for his own mistakes, then doubled down to avoid blame saying that they couldn’t spend a few hundred dollars to test it correctly with the right card (despite having millions of dollars) and that the results wouldn’t change anyway (though it clearly would). Then, LTT auctioned the block off without Billet’s permission, then tried to not pay Billet for it.
Billet also sent them a 3090 Ti with the block and they lost it. They had the hardware and they screwed up, and then just went “we’ll just talk shit about it because it wouldn’t have worked anyway, right? trust me bro”
Seems the general discussion burries what I sense is perhaps the more agregious part; LTTs business ethics.
It is inexcusable to become too big or too busy to care about how you represent those you partner with. Steve poiniently outlined significant instances where LTT took actions that negatively and unfairly impacted the vendors that expected more of a partnership in the exchange.
The Madison info just heaps onto the poor business practices.
The worse part is that the GN video was triggered by someone in LMG name dropping GN trying to cast shadow on their journalistic integrity and methods during a video and then indirectly by Linus himself during a wan podcast. GN only did the video as a self-defense roast to stand their ground. Accidentally happened to blow a giant hole on the top of the company. Because that’s how bad they are as an organization.
Colin said in his tweet that the prototype sale “has an element of occam’s razor” (he really means Hanlon’s razor). So it would seem to be the former.
However Linus’s reaction to the incident was the latter. He should have put his company on the line, bought it back at whatever ridiculous price would have convinced the buyer, and sent it back all expenses paid to Billet Labs. That’s how you own a fuck-up.
Tbh you should do your own DD and form an opinion on your own rather than listening to what randoms on the internet have to say about something they aren’t directly involved with.
Everyone can’t learn everything. When you watch the news, do you fly down to Maui to interview victims and analyze the state of power lines yourself?
You have to remember where you got something and learn to evaluate the bias of a source, but going on an active forum full of people with various levels of knowledge on the topic is the best way to get a complete picture in a reasonable time frame. They’ll call out inaccuracies in reporting, give background that might speak to problematic motivations or conflicts of interest, and argue bad takes.
Is it perfect? No. It’s DD though, more and more usernames are quoted in the news - hell, even in this video forum posts are referenced frequently
Oof, you wanna TL;DR half a week of “influencer” drama? I’ll bite.
On July 28th, Tim “Big Bald Mouth” Holowachuk decided, of his own volition, during the LTX labs tour, to entirely undeservedly diss friendly tech youtubers GN and HUB in a MurfsGaming video released the same day (timestamp: 8:30).
During LTX, a full copper block, artisan prototype owned by Billet Labs (apparently their best performing), previously inaccurately (of course) “tested” by Linus, was fraudulently sold on the silent auction.
Linus responded within hours essentially reading “Yeah, you don’t really deserve an answer, be happy you got one privately. As for the guys we wronged, they don’t matter, and they made an absurdly atrocious product, so who cares. And I didn’t sell it, I auctioned it to profit a charity; plus we already have an agreement on how to compensate Billet Labs.” (that last part was a lie).
Madison Reeves (@suuuoppp), seeing the tide turn after 2 years of silent suffering, decided to publish everything (apparently) she had about her horrible experience (TW: outrageous abuse of authority, humiliation, self harm, sexual harassment & abuse) at LMG. Unfortunately, being mostly ignorant of OpSec, she apparently did not manage to collect much proof. Fortunately, Colin Worobetz (@DubMFG) chimed in, corroborating her version of the facts, and adding a much needed third party confirmation (reddit thread about it).
LMG decided to then publish a sort of “Apology” video (sort of, because not only they managed to sound nauseatingly bland, dishearteningly corporate, incredibly unconcerned, they also plugged their merch, and threw goofy jokes with sexual references around, proving the absolutely laughable extent of their seriousness).
Freeman decided to make a video montage of the much worse, much more boring, much longer video released by LMG, and posted it here. And he’s right. That’s all you really need to see.
Maybe you pull your apology video with sexual innuendo in it and remake parts without it if you end up cross-posting with SA allegations, just saying it’s not a great look
I keep seeing people saying that the LTT video came out first when all I can find supports that Madison’s tweet came out first. Its likely LTT made and released the video before they were aware of the tweet.
The timestamps I can see (in my local time of -7) Madison’s tweet 11:09 PM · Aug 15, 2023
Madison’s tweet came out 4 hours and 24 minutes before the video was published.
Additionally the Verge article states a similar timeline.
Linus Tech Tips posted its latest video at approximately 7AM ET. However, last night, at approximately 2AM ET, a former employee, Madison Reeve, posted a thread on X
I will not try to summarize these different events, since that risks not covering all of the finer details in the issue.
Then there is also some very recent issue that has been raised about a former employee at LTT that allegedly has been the victim of sexual abuse, and very harsh working conditions, but I’m not fully read up on that yet.
Good Lord bro. Imagine having self-awareness. With the Madison stuff also coming to light, they would have already been in the pit regardless, but this ‘apology’ video is kind of insulting.
Yes I also watched the whole thing and still found it equally as insulting as the highlights.
My wife and I watched the whole thing, and I’ve frequently watched LTT in the past. We both agreed that the humor wasn’t really well placed, given the situation and came off a bit cringey in my opinion. I know some folks are saying damned if you do, damned if you don’t, which is fair. However I think that if they kept the humor out and it was a “generic apology video” there would be less criticism about it. But again, that’s just my opinion.
I found it very tone deaf. I do think this was written and shot before the harassment allegation came out so they wouldn’t have had that attitude given the video had been delayed for 24 hours.
That’s just it for me. At this stage there really isn’t much more to do than to give a generic apology and the promise to investigate, improve and make up for things. Nobody (should) expect to see any instant consequences.
The bar is so low and yet they can’t even do that. And GN even showed them how it is done in their video. Specifically calling out that this is a matter that should not be monetized.
Yeah no they’re not salvageable. Linus is a clown. My friends even told me, but I didn’t see it. That’s the consequence of growing up surrounded by toxicity: you think it’s normal and don’t see it.
Linus is a clown. Literally. That is his brand of entertainment, clowning around with tech.
That’s where he fucked up with Billet labs - he argued that he was defending consumers because nobody should buy that thing - but that’s not the job of a clown, a clown is meant to entertain people.
I’m not saying Linus is a clown as an insult, I mean that’s genuinely his brand and how he entertains people - memes, jokes, laughs, that’s great stuff most of the time but when you arbitrarily switch lanes it better be for a good reason.
Otherwise, stay in the clown car and make people laugh.
I find it a little bit hard to enjoy the content, now that I know how to interpret it.
It’s kinda like when you find a great restaurant around the corner, go there a lot, enjoy the food, and then you realize they abuse their personal, lie to everyone about what is in the dishes (allergens etc), and so on. Can’t really enjoy the food anymore. The taste hasn’t changed, but it hits different.
Big mainstream appeal though. Even to otherwise quite smart tech normies. I have some scientist friends (scientists but very much not computer people. Mac fanboy types) who love him.
GN did have their merch on display in the video. They didn’t ANNOUNCE it or make any direction to it. But they still had merch ON DISPLAY. Not trying to dampen the shit that is going on with LMG, but I feel it’s an important thing to make clear.
They literally used the green screen set with custom backgrounds instead of one of their dozen physical sets around the LMG studio. They could have easily cut out that part as well if they wanted to.
There’s a pretty big difference in having something on display as part of a set in a video about issues at another outlet, and calling out a link to a product to be purchased in what is supposed to be an apology video by said outlet. LMG also originally had this video monetised and had links to their store and products in the description before finally removing those. GN did none of this because they understood the seriousness of what they were doing - they even called out that the video wouldn’t be monetised at the start of it.
I get the point you’re trying to make, but it’s a bad one.
Yeah I actually agree it’s a bad one. I completely misread that person’s comment lol. I made so many people pissed off accidently judging by the downvotes. My bad
It is a good point to consider. Too bad it was made by someone who represents themselves as a 12 year old on the internet. Did you come from Reddit too?
I don’t know about anyone else but is stuff makes fairly good background noise. They bring up a lot of tech news on wan show that I normally wouldn’t seek out, and at least there you have Luke to kind of be the f****** voice of reason, right? Most of that show is just sitting in the background for me waiting to hear Luke call Linus out.
As far as reviews, It’s great to have an early look at a card here and there or some of the stuff at a trade show. because they get access to it, but watching them actually try to test something is like watching Mythbusters. None of their actual product reviews are trustworthy in my mind. They’re too wrapped around sponsors there’s so much content you lose track of what’s being sponsored and what’s not. Like him buying into that laptop company, then putting them on every time he gets a chance. Your average person isn’t going to properly compartmentalize the cool features of the laptop versus he selling it to you. And honestly he is pretty damned effective at sales.
It’s very low investment entertainment for me. If I’m in the middle of a show and my wife says hey can you go do blah blah blah I just stop the show and walk away it’s no big deal. If I don’t come back and watch the rest of that episode there will just be another 6 hour long episode a week later.
They simply tried to lower the tension. This type of humour is their watermark, they even mention in the video that they are available to make changes but not to take away the goofiness.
By lower tensions, do you mean deflect and whine about people questioning integrity, especially after countless videos from Linus himself chastising other companies for their poor crisis responses and/or inability to accept full responsibility?
It is a goofy time given that most people agree with parent. We could argue the morals of this until the cows come home but if you’re so bothered by this it’s probably better to just stop watching ltt rather than tell others what they can and cannot find funny.
At this point it’s a mea culpa. Even with the expected goofy angle. That’s at least 1000 times better than what basically any other multi-multi million dollar corporation would say or do.
Or is your only concern having a target for outrage?
I’m not saying they are forgiven, but it’s more than basically anybody else. And should the pressure stop? Also no.
The problem is that at LTT it’s always goofy time. If they just sit down and start talking, yes that is much more professional but at the same time it really feels disingenuous, coming from someone who has stated on multiple occasions that he wants dbrand to sponsor the video eventually made about his own funeral. I do think they could have gone for less jokes, but it’s hard to get the balance right, especially if the video in question is (somewhat ironically) rushed.
While I tend to agree, the fact that the video was initially monetized retroactively made all that stuff horrible. Like, they joke about being greedy money-grubbers, and then they grub the moneys.
Exactly this. I get everyone wants to dog-pile but the vast majority of the video was outlining issues and the steps they’re going to take to rectify it. It was a good video and miles above what other brands have done with other controversies (which is generally doing fuck all or putting out a basic tweet)
They simply tried to lower the tension. This type of humour is their watermark
Yeah, I agree with that assessment, but that tone is absolutely not okay in the current context.
If very dark humour is your “type of humour”, it doesn’t mean you can just go “business as usual” and make dark jokes around someone right after they lost a loved one, had a tragic accident, got SA’d, etc.
Linus tried to weasel out of the GN accusations by saying he “failed to read the room”. That was because entertainment is about reading the room, while reviewing is about accuracy and objectivity. Then, he failed to recognize that (but GN was there to remind everyone, fortunately).
In this case, however, when going with their usual “entertainment” vibe, he should have “read the room”. Which not only he failed miserably to do, but all of the LMG management (including the new “they’re gonna solve all the problems” additions) too apparently.
This does not bode well for LMG. It is proof they are clueless, do not have the skills to fix their problems, and aren’t to be expected to get any better. It’s a shame, because it was good entertainment. At least for as long as I had Linus in my blind spot. Now, I can’t unsee it, and I can absolutely imagine how much of a bully he is remembered being by people from his past (he mentioned that in passing here and there).
They may have made it before, but it was posted a couple of hours after. But still basically in the dead of night, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t noticed yet.
Edit: it is NUTS that this is so downvoted. You guys are absolute dummies. You won’t even check yourself, you just believe anything you’re told, without even asking. The data is fucking PUBLIC. smh.
Ok, I was wrong...I haven't watched the whole video yet, but the bits this video showed really does make it seem worse than the Spez AMA. At least Spez was smart enough to keep the answers short and concise, even if they ignored all the questions.
I really have no interest, honestly. I've watched one LTT video where they reviewed knockoff game systems, oddly enough right before all the drama started, and the main guy seems to be a bit of a douche. None of the drama is really that surprising to me, because he seems exactly the type to do all the shit he's being accused of. From what I've seen of the rest of them in the posted video, I have no desire to delve that deep into any of this. I'll just watch the ship go down in flames instead.
That was all of the cringy parts. The whole of the rest of it is basically fine. Just people saying “We messed up in these ways and we think it was for these reasons. We are going to do xyz to try to make sure we don’t mess up in similar ways moving forwards.”
Linus should have employed a professional CEO, Managers, PR and HR years ago, right at the start of the labs expansion.
Their problems in the last couple of years could have been avoided or greatly reduced with better management, and employees not afraid to be open when things go wrong, this will set them back years.
You are completely right, but I wonder how self aware Linus is. I haven’t been watching his channel closely, but I’ve binged on episodes in the past. I was not aware of his anti-labor views or how he had his employees working on his house - these are things that a non-self aware person does; someone who doesn’t understand the optics are bad to the “commoner” who feels they are being taken advantage by business owners. I’ll reserve judgement for now but I’ve found this entire thing very disappointing.
Pretty un-self-aware indeed. He got so distracted/butthurt over internet reactions accusing him of maliciously stealing the prototype… Like obviously not, people are just pissed about the injustice. His ego benefits from the size and influence of his business qua business. But his ego leads him to see himself still as that scrappy YouTuber whose just tryna do what he does, forgetting that he’s got greater power now and greater responsibility.
To be fair on the working on his house thing. He’s been literally going to his employees houses and installing stuff for them after handing them $5000+ to spend on a processor + whatever they want.
Supposedly Linus didn’t think he could trust anyone else to essentially act as his proxy. And he’s just been bugging Terren for years to come to LTT. And it only now worked out. If you can call all this “working out”
It’s not just about trust, professional experienced ceos, who have been educated in business management know how to run businesses, it’s what they do, it doesn’t matter what the product or service is, that can be learned. Linus was too proud to hand control of his baby over, that’s very, very common with businesses that start to grow faster than they can handle and it’s a reason why start ups fail despite their successes and promise. Lmg is extremely lucky to have gotten as far and as large as it did without the necessary restructure to go to the next step.
Once you get into the 50+ full time employee range you need pro’s on the team because shit will happen, mistakes will be made, people will fuck up, that’s unavoidable. Good strong businesses handle it well, it’s rough cause sometimes you have to fire an OG team member and close friend and ruin a friendship. It sucks and people will hate you, but that’s part of running a large company.
Lmg had been incredibly successful and that’s great, kudos the them for that, but you have to have the humility to stand up at some point and day “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I need” any business adviser or analyst will tell you that.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I need” any business adviser or analyst will tell you that.
Much easier to do when you’re not dealing with a narcissist who, if he cant be right no matter how much he doubles down, then he’ll atleast make himself look like a victim to get that sweet sympathy feed for his narcissism.
Probably not many to be honest. This will be a minor blip in 12 months time, they way every drama seems to be, but as the business gets bigger and bigger, without having a proper management team the knife edge gets sharper and the risks increase.
And on the issue of harrassment allegations (since all the rumours point to the main problem being a long serving crew member, not a faceless new hire in a back office), you can do everything you can to discourage it but inevitably people will do stupid shit, say stupid shit, they will fuck up, they make mistakes, they are even malicious at times, but if you cant reprimand them or fire them for it because they’re your mate, a member of the OG crew or they’re popular with the audience then you are going to have a major problem on your hands as problems silently snowball in the background.
Exactly right. It does happen everywhere, more often than a lot of people will admit, if we were all perfectly honest weve all probably said or done something that could be considered harrasment, but in addition to doing everything possible to prevent it, you need the right resources to handle it when it does happen. That means being man enough to fire a friend if they fucked up.
And as you say, sometimes people aren’t going to come forward until they’ve left on bad terms or the problem escalates, you also need to be ready to handle those allegations when they happen. That also means not putting innuendo and 69 jokes in an apology video.
Sometimes I hear people scoff at company wide sensitivity trainings, but we recently had to do training about sexual harassment. A company in my field had a serious allegation of sexual misconduct, and other companies in the area (including mine) scrambled to provide internal training to avoid this kind of public scrutiny. In the three days of training, during the discussion sessions, I was surprised at how uninformed some of my dear colleagues are on this subject. It didn’t come from a malicious place, they were simply never invited to take on another person’s perspective. Some will only see the certificate we got as a formality, these are the “woke” among us, the more introspective ones. But for others, these trainings can actually be eye opening and meaningful. Yet some others will never learn, but thankfully this was not the case in our small company.
I’ll come back to Techlinked when they post again. I also listen to David (camera operator/writer) and Jon’s (ex-marketing) podcast that they have outside of LMG. I still like the personalities. LMG is great at recruiting interesting on-camera people after all
It’s called “Let’s Wing It”. The first couple of episodes didn’t have their faces on the poster, so they were easy to miss. It’s a bit rambly, but it’s a successor of sorts to TJM Podcast/Carpool Critics (which I also still listen to on repeat)
Problematically for LMG, the people who subscribe on floatplane and buy their merch make them the most money, and they are not “just watching the videos”.
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