Linus Tech Tips

[Beany]

Well, no, they aren't dead, but their reputation is pining for the fjords tonight. Gamers Nexus, one of the most long established and respected tech journalism outlets out there just comprehensively dismantled their testing methodology, workflow and professional ethics.



Yes, it's a near 45 minute video, so to give you an idea of the contents, here's the timestamps.


00:00 - The Last 2 Weeks
01:40 - LMG is Rushing Too Much: Establishing the Premise
03:48 - LTT's Own Employees Agree
06:58 - This Isn't "Drama" & Risks
09:05 - Bad Data from Linus Tech Tips
10:12 - GPU Review Errors
15:02 - CPU Cooler Test Errors
19:09 - PSU Review Errors
19:53 - CPU Review Errors
22:39 - Asterisked Errors
26:15 - Ethical Concerns: Irresponsible Actions & Conflicts
28:21 - Ethical Concerns: The Review of Billet Labs
34:49 - Ethical Concerns: 'Not-Review' of Pwnage Mouse
36:53 - UNACCEPTABLE & The Community is Disturbing
39:22 - Unfair to Consumers, Manufacturers, & Reviewers

I looked at that and thought "Bit odd for GN to be getting into Youtube drama" but oh no, this ain't that. This is serious stuff, with reciepts, about the biggest 'tech space' youtube channel/group out there - recently offered $100m to be bought out.

The worst part is Billet Labs, a two guy shed operation who put together a high end, boutique prototype graphics card cooler designed for extreme small form factor, high power systems, and LTT had a look at it.

It was tested on a 3090 by the designers. LTT tried it on a 4090 and, shock horror, it didn't work. They then proceeded to lambast them based on this. And doubled down on the lambasting in their podcast. They were then asked to send the prototype back, and confirmed they would twice....

...LTT auctioned it off at the LTT expo, without telling them they'd be doing that. The LTT expo is basically a trade show, so there's a significantly higher than zero chance that a competitor now has a the only prototype for a startups company. Which is fucking shocking.

Oh, and the mouse review where they didn't take off the plastic covering on the (designed to be extra smooth and slick) feet, and complained the mouse was rough to use on a surface. And then doubled down (see a theme here) that this wasn't the case. Till it was proved with screenshots from their own video...

So, er, yeah, if you have an interest in the tech space, probably worth watching.

[Simon]

Just got back from watching all this unfold for the last couple of hours.

I'll add here what I said both on GN's YouTube and LTT's vid.

BL need to sue. If nothing else for selling off what wasn't theirs, even ignoring the shitty 'review' they did.

I used to watch LTT's vid first after collapsing on the sofa every evening after putting NoNo to bed. But the last 3-6 months have seen the quality go to shit, and the 'ForTheLOLS' in this amateur vid shows just how far LTT has fallen.

Sack some of the shitty writers, including some who were in that BL video. Cut the vids they release every week IN HALF then try and concentrate on quality again.

[DeskJockey]

That sounds rather damning. I've stopped watching as it was getting too silly and wow-y to watch.

I miss the days of Anandtech v1 (ca. 2000ish).

[Simon]

Hey Alex, remember Anand's starry sky ceiling cinema room?

[Simon]

Oops



Unfortunate timing or...?

[RobYob]

Wow.

Excellent video.

You would hope that all those criticisms are taken on board and LTT mends their ways.

The rush culture is clearly undermining what they say they want to achieve.

The auctioning off of that cooler prototype deserves an unreserved public apology from Linus. Someone clearly completely fucked up and the buck stops with him.

This weekends WAN show is going to be interesting.

[Simon]

Or will it be Luke looking nervous as fuck whilst Linus shouts "I regret nothing. NOTHING!"

[Delphi]

Literally just finished watching Steve's video. I couldn't believe the Billet Labs fiasco.

[DeskJockey]

Hey Alex, remember Anand's starry sky ceiling cinema room?

Sort of. What stuck with me was the ridiculous (for the time) storage setup he built to house all the media.

[Beany]

It gets worse. Linus is talking out of his arse about implying that they had agreed a quote with Billet and resolved the situation before GNs video.

Steve Burke - Tech Youtubes Unchained Predator:

[Beany]

Knocked this up for my Discord homies

I'm down with the kids (but not like that)

GNvsLMG2.jpg (127.58 KiB) Viewed 1498 times

[Delphi]

Knocked this up for my Discord homies

I'm down with the kids (but not like that)

GNvsLMG2.jpg

[Beany]

Oof, Madison, a boppy young upstart who featured in a video getting a computer built for her (ROG rig rebuilds or something) and who made Linus look demure and considered, and subsequently got a job at LMG, has come out and explained that working at LMG was rather toxic.

To the extent that at one point she self harmed to get a day off sick without the reasons for it being questioned.

https://linustechtips.com/topic/1526538 ... ng-at-lmg/

An awful lot of "why didn't she sue" comments, because of course a young person in their first real job can afford to take on a $100m companies legal team in a harassment case and "I don't believe her" because of course a young person in their first real job is going to go up against a $100m companies legal team in a libel/slander case

I mean, the things she's coming out with fits the style of the atrocious, incompetent management at LMG that the previous tales have suggested, so taking her at face value doesn't seem particularly controversial.

[Delphi]

They're in full damage control mode now

[Beany]

I've not watched that yet, and I probably won't till later tonight, but I understand that:
A: It's monetised
B: They're cracking jokes about sponsor segments.

There's screenshots of Linus (I think on Floatplane) stating that if they have jokes in there, people will complain, and if they don't, people will moan that LMG has 'gone corporate'.


Mate, when the integrity of your company is being called into question, running ads on the apology/explanation vid is in poor taste, you don't crack jokes...

C: Also, remember that Billet prototype that in GNs second video, they said *explicitly* that they redacted the price at Billets *explicit* request?

Yeah, LTT showed that email GN referred to, with their email addresses blurred out....but not the cost of the prototype that Billet clearly stated they did not want revealed.

What a fucking clown show.

[Simon]

To be fair you should watch it Beany. It's a pretty reasoned response to the shit show that has been this week.

If they can hold themselves to new standards then great. I just want to see the quality of videos improve again.

[DeskJockey]

Watched about half of it. It is not great content, but it sounds like they'll try to get their house in order.

Quips, jokes and other levity were rather misplaced though.

[Beany]

To be fair you should watch it Beany. It's a pretty reasoned response to the shit show that has been this week.

If they can hold themselves to new standards then great. I just want to see the quality of videos improve again.

Oh, I didn't mean "I'm not going to watch it" - I was just busy as fuck today

Watching it now.

Edit: The pinned comments confirm point A and C I made earlier

Update 2: We've heard the feedback from our community and from our team internally and monetization has been turned off for this video.

Update 1: It's come to my attention that in Billet Labs' Reddit post, they censored the quoted cost of their prototype water block. We were never asked to keep this information private, and given that our sources for the matter were our own correspondence with them rather than Reddit, we didn't know to include the censorship.

Also suggests they didn't watch GNs second video....

[Beany]

Apology vid was less cringe and more forthright than I expected. I'll say I'm 50% on point B

I mean, I'm being moderately hyperbolic in here, but I don't actually think that LTT is staffed by raging cunts; mostly, they're staffed by people who just don't have the fucking experience for the responsibility they have to their viewers or some of the smaller outfits they work with.

It does sound like most of the senior team have had a firm slap in the face this week, and rather than screaming about how it's unfair, they're actually going "Oh, that's because I fucked up. I suppose I need to do something about that"

I think what they really need is to go through some fucking ISO audits and get their processes under control, as that seems to be a major part of the problem.

Obviously no mention of the Madison stuff, but that's to be expected from a timescale and sensible-legal perspective.

[RobYob]

Apology video said many right things about owning their screwups and changing processes, I'll give a pass to levity from individuals as trying to "act natural".

Be interesting to see if they can change their ways.