It is the slow boiling frog story. Linus would have called out himself some years ago for this, but now he does not have time for that. They have to pump content to keep it rolling and get more equipment; they cannot stop now. They could not see this as an issue because they have slowly transitioned to this, but they are now locked into this rhythm. Hopefully, they can pivot out of this, and hopefully, they hiring of a new CEO was special because they already saw this problem.
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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There's a big part of this that's just his ego though. The self-imposed release schedule is bad, but ultimately his inability to truly admit he was wrong is what will ultimately undo the company.
I was enthusiastic about LTT Labs - there are many areas that reviewers can't explore because of the complicated and expensive testing setups required, such as objective measurements on whether a phone has a good antenna or not. But at this point I'm not sure how we would ever be able to trust what they produce.
That's my big worry. The company is now too big and too expensive to slow down. There's a real possibility that this mess results in mass layoffs at LMG, either because public backlash kills their profitability or they accept how screwed up they are and slow down and take some time to fix things and this results in a drop in output that means they can no longer afford their current scale. I don't know how much runway they have. And in that scenario it's the most vulnerable employees and not the problem-people in leadership who'd be facing the music, which is awful.
Like I said in a Beehaw comment about the video, LMG needs to vastly improve their Quality Assurance process if they want their new "Labs" initiative to hold weight. I've watched LTT with friends more for the entertainment and taken the data with a grain of salt.
It's clear they need to slow down to review more carefully, whether that's by lengthening release rate and schedules, or by hiring more staff to spread out across projects.
Steve and Gamers Nexus were just putting together what the community already told Linus and co. Linus and his staff were clearly well aware that there is intense pressure to release on timelines that don't allow for proper checking at filming time and allow mistakes to pass through. This is from their own LMG produced videos, not taken substantially out of context.
So from the above I don't buy Linus' claims that Steve could or should have discussed this privately or anything. Steve is only bringing it up in this way because they have, to some extent, been wilfully ignoring these issues that are right in front of them and a chat with GN likely wouldn't have changed that. Why? My reasoning is recommendations to slow down the rate of release aren't good for business.
I've always appreciated GN's methodology and they pride themselves on holding a high ethical standard for their technical reviews. Not everyone can easily reach that same standard but the onus is on LMG to show that their tests are trustworthy and that starts with diligent, researched information, testing and good Quality Control.
(I won't touch on the Billet issue besides LMG fucked up on that and Linus needs to work that out with Billet directly and apologize).
The Billet Labs incident crossed the line. That's not something you can just apologize or pay your way out of.
Well clearly you can, because they sent LMG an invoice for it.
A) LMG stated that they reached out first to offer financial compensation.
B) LMG may have destroyed this company. Ask your self how much having your passion project destroyed is worth.
C) It's not about the money but the attitude. LMG is giving off "I'm paying you to fuck off" vibes. This should have never happened. LMG should be tearing them selves apart to ensure this never happens again. Not giving some half assed excuses.
and D) Linus' post basically said "this is just a random fluke, and we dont need to take further precautions to ensure it doesnt happen again"
Can he not be an asshole for five minutes?
He's a quick one to get himself into a bind.
i found LTT's new response excellent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cTpTMl8kFY
It includes taking a week to go through their internal process and clean every thing up. Linus proper is only at the end, with the new CEO and Yvonna talking about it from the get go.
In his forum post he commented somewhere in the thread that billet sent them a quote and they paid in full - so at least that part should be resolved. Still a massive fuckup though.
According to the new video that's a lie, and they didn't reach out at all until after this video was posted, they made an offer but billet has not yet responded to it or accepted it.
Nah in the forum post he said they haven't paid BL anything yet.
You gotta work on your reading comprehension my man. Linus explicitly said they had not paid anything yet.
LTT has always seemed like a profit driven channel. No real reviews. MKBHD is 50/50
Are there such thing as non-profit driven review channels?
You can try to make a profit without if being your main focus I guess. There are the channels which review and take all the free samples they get and try to pump out a review on time no matter the quality to generate as many views as possible.
And then there are a few review channels who will put out their review when it is ready and good. Who will give away review copies if allowed. Those reviewers would call out shit even if it means being locked out of review copies next time. Which of course means less profit. There are even review channels which do not do sponsored ad segments. Instead they'd be relying on viewer support. But there aren't many of those.
Didn't he even make a video where he talked about he wants to stop pushing expensive shit to people, but then he didn't because he's just a money hungry twat? I never got the appeal and found him beyond annoying. So this is just great bews, maybe his videos will stop showing up everywhere.
Mkbhd gets paid for nearly everything on his channel but he also doesn't tell you to go out and buy or not buy shit based on lies
Every large channel, and most small channels that aren't explicitly charities, are profit-driven. I'd actually say being visibly profit-driven is usually a good sign because it means you know where their money comes from. What's worse is when you don't know who's funding them -- that's when you get paid misinformation peddlers.
Media is a business. If you're not their paying customer, you're the product. That's why stuff like Patreon and LTT's paid merch is a good thing.
The real problems are that the company runs in an extremely, dangerously unprofessional way - well beyond normal startup mayhem. Combine that with the break-neck pace they try to put out content, and the fact that Linus himself has an ego the size of Cleveland, and it means that they're a danger to themselves and others. And Linus taking every problem personally means the company can't change properly. He needs to take a leave of absence and bring in some dispassionate experts fix things at his company, and when he comes back he's just another employee who does things by the book and lets the CEO run things under the new model until he learns the ropes.
But I worry that the company is screwed regardless - they might not be able to come back from this, and even if they can the loss of revenue might exceed their operating costs and runway. For Linus himself and the rest of the leadership? Good. That's appropriate comeuppance. But it's a big group, and that will probably mean layoffs, and I feel bad for the people at the bottom who'll be hit by the shit rolling downhill.
I've been watching his channel since ~ the Langley house days. But the video where they painted a PC black and basically immersed a GPU in paint until they killed it was the day I realized that they were more concerned about pumping out videos than content itself.
The days of me wading through bad videos to find one high quality video are long over. I miss the older days when they focused on quality, 30+ minute videos and guides.
One thing i noticed is when they review a really shitty product but don't bash it??? Like you guys said you would but you're just beating around the bush. It's either a good product or not. No need for the run around guys. Take for example shortcircuit i believe was the channel they had a shitty expensive leather mouse but the person reviewing it was clearly not giving his honest opinion. The mouse was shit plain and simple.
ok speak from your ass much, they did not beat around that bush with the leather mouse. they said it was all looks and no substance. they stated the tracker was shit and everything about it was cheap except the pricetag.
I just rewatched the video just to see if your the one that's actually speaking from your ass and.... They did in fact beat around the bush. Drop the fanboy tactics and open your eyes my guy.
Wow. I always thought Linus was a good guy (haven't really watched his channel properly in years) but I'm sad to learn that he's now also a piece of shit!
EDIT: Fuck all of you pricks that downvoted me; I was right after all, Linus really is a fucking piece of shit - full thread here
I'm not sure I would go that far. I largely agree with the GN video, but I would not call Linus a piece of shit. There are a number of things I disagree with Linus about on a fundamental level, but he is still just a slightly awkward nerd with methed up squirrel energy at the end of the day. As Steve notes in the video he is basically responsible for the livelihood of 120 people, I'm sure that puts a little bit of stress on a person. That being said it doesn't absolve him of what has been happening, and his current path seems deeply misguided.
He's replied in his forums and has basically doubled down. It would have been different if he took some responsibility.
Oh I'm aware. He has always struck me as very quick to react and slow to introspect (which is kinda inline with not having time to look back like was said in his team's video). I definitely have issues with some of his philosophies, but on a scale from regular person to Hollywood CEO he doesn't strike me as actively malicious, just misguided.
Just my $0.02. I understand where you are coming from, just figured I'd proffer another perspective for the sake of discussion.
You raise good points and I would agree with you if not for the Billet Labs situation - here is a link to another comment explaining what went down.
Yeah that's not OK.
I get the impression that Linus is in over his head and reacting in a very emotional way. Kinda reminds me of the channel hack a few months ago, both Yvonne and Luke were literally telling him what was going on and what needed to happen, and his tunnel vision just would not allow him to hear them.
That's not an excuse. I think there is/should be a price to be paid. In most things I tend to lean towards rehabilitation with a chance for change, rather than retribution and and destruction. It's a crap situation and I'm disappointed but not surprised.
I take that back. Linus is a bigger piece of fucking shit than I thought - full thread here
I just saw that a short while ago.
LTT also just posted a video, that kinda reinforces what I was saying before. Linus is very emotionally driven and quite obviously blinded by it. I do think people should both be held accountable AND given the opportunity to learn.
The video was obviously damage control. I still hope something good comes out of all this, but believe it or not I am still pretty cynical about things.
There is a saying I came across when I was quite young that I try to keep in mind when telling my side of any story:
"There are three sides to every story. There is what I said happened. There is what they said happened. There is what actually happened."
I doubt LTT speaks to Madison's posts explicitly, but with everything that is happening, I do hope if anyone has experienced something similar that they feel more comfortable and empowered to come forward with their experiences.