This video is not monetized. This video covers our serious concerns regarding the data accuracy of Linus Media Group, including Linus Tech Tips, ShortCircuit...
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.
Did this motherfucker just respond by chiding someone else for not following “proper journalistic practices” after completely fucking burying a company without reaching out to them about their prototype product?
Oh he reached out to them, agreed to send it and their graphics card (that they didn’t use for the testing) back to them and then sold auctioned it off.
Yeah. That hit me hard was well. Dude is apparently way more unhinged than most people knew. In his rise to fame, he’s become a complete hypocrite (which also isn’t unique).
If Linus knew he wasn’t going to recommend anyone buy the waterblock no matter how it performed, but also didn’t want to show it off as a niche ‘supercar’ of waterblocks, then why agree to review it at all? Was he maybe not in the loop at all until shooting the video?
Seems like there was no good way for this to turn out for Billet which is a real shame since they seemed to just want to show off something cool and maybe get some publicity for their startup.
And auctioning off their handmade prototype, even accidentally and for charity, is a collosal fuck up that really can’t be solved with money alone.
On testing errors: Yep, we’re trying to be better. [i.e. Let’s move on and forget this ever happened.]
On the Billet auction: We’re trying to do the right thing after a miscommunication. [This one’s probably the best response, but that’s not a high bar.]
On the Billet hit piece: We were only assholes to them to get them to be better. [MAJOR abuser vibes. “I wouldn’t have beat you if you didn’t deserve it”.]
On releasing knowingly inaccurate videos: This is actually a good thing because we show our mistakes with footnotes. [WTF]
On conflicts of interest from corporate partnerships: Crickets [No surprise]
The worst part about the billet testing I feel is the arrogance when he said “it wouldn’t matter if it dropped temperatures by 20 degrees, it’s a bad product”
Like a bad product to who? If I were overclocking and something knocked off a full 20 degrees, that’s a great product regardless of price
There’s a reason people bought 4090s, some people want the highest tier performance and dropping an extra thousand to get something decent isn’t a concern for some
To be fair, he meant 20 degrees from where it was during testing, not from stock or competitors. Even in this hypothetical it would match other options at best despite a higher price. But the problem is that we can’t know this because they didn’t test it properly
There won’t be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything
The starting line really puts me off. I don’t really care much about the tech content but find their videos entertaining.
I have un-subscribed from all their channels and will see how much this video is addressed in the next WAN before I decide if to continue to watch their content at all going forward.
Does anyone have any examples of Linus genuinely admitting he made a mistake or was wrong in a way where he dealt with a modicum of consequence? I can’t think of any, but I don’t watch him very much, at least recently.
The one real point that I thought Linus had here was that Steve didn’t talk to him first. That part is getting a lot of ridicule, because it sounds petulant, but it’s valid–it is accepted journalistic practice to give the subject of a story a chance to comment before publishing.
Since we can now see what that comment likely would have been, it doesn’t seem to change the conclusion much. From experience I can guess at Steve’s likely response–he would have tentatively given LMG credit for compensating Billet for the loss, pending verification and comment from Billet, and ripped all the rest of Linus’s excuses a new one. But that still doesn’t change the fact that Steve didn’t quite live up to the journalistic standards that he touts on his channel.
That failure gives things a bit more of a “drama” flavor (It’s hard not to suspect that this is primarily a response motivated by that clip of Linus’s lab tech attacking GN’s and HUB’s testing methods). But of course it doesn’t absolve LMG and its vaunted lab of milking the Youtube algorithm first and being a source of real information a distant second–which was argued pretty convincingly by GN and which a lot of us started to notice long before this video came out.
I think the way LTT handled the backpack warranty debacle shows that by contacting LTT, you won’t get anything substantial in response. Linus will just keep being stubborn and you’ll get nothing in response. Even the way that Linus responded in his “response”, it’s still a nothingburger response.
He’s still doubling down on the way that he reviewed Billet Labs cooler and doesn’t even acknowledge the biggest criticism that GN levied towards LTT, spending more time in making sure that the content that they’re producing is accurate. Having a pinned comment and edited fixes shows that LTT doesn’t really care about quality and instead pushing to keep more producing content.
I saw a post somewhere showing that at least 300 people unsubscribed from Floatplane, so that means at least 1500 USD/month (can be more if there’s people who subscribe for 4k content) of revenue are lost. Just from him not wanting to spend 500 USD of his employee time to make sure that he reviewed the products properly.
Linus has completely lost the plot here. Although it’s not unexpected since the way he handled the backpack warranty situation.
It’s a customary practice, and I think it’s a good one because it makes the story less one-sided and can diminish the appearance of it being a hit piece if it’s negative. Bottom line, it’s natural to want to know what the person the story is about thinks of it and what their perspective is. Obviously not all journalists seek a comment from every subject, but if they do, they often mention that they asked for a comment even if they weren’t able to get one, because people want to know that they at least tried.
What could LMG have said which would change the reporting of the inaccuracies of their content? Getting a response before hand may be able to get some more information but giving corporations time to react also gives them time to act in bad faith (e.g. cover up or attempt to blackmail, etc).
Wanting to know what the person in the story things doesn’t appear to me to support sharing your criticisms before posting. Something being a custom doesn’t justify it being a custom (if it really is one).
No story is fair if it covers individuals or organizations that have not been given the opportunity to address assertions or claims about them made by others. Fairness includes diligently seeking comment and taking that comment genuinely into account.
Just as an example that came up in a quick web search–the Washington Post is a major US newspaper and this is its stated policy. Seeking comment from story subjects is an important practice in journalism, and if you consider yourself a journalist and don’t do it in a given case, you should probably have a good reason. This is why Steve felt the need to explain himself on that point.
I assumed some do it, perhaps most do and that makes it a standard.
Taking their comment into account has the potential to get more information which would prevent you reporting misinformation. I’d love to know how often their comment is useful vs how often corporations take advantage.
Linus posted a response on the LTT forums:
Did this motherfucker just respond by chiding someone else for not following “proper journalistic practices” after completely fucking burying a company without reaching out to them about their prototype product?
Oh he reached out to them, agreed to send it and their graphics card (that they didn’t use for the testing) back to them and then
soldauctioned it off.Rules for thee, not for me.
Linus is a massive narcissist. He literally thinks he’s special.
Yeah. That hit me hard was well. Dude is apparently way more unhinged than most people knew. In his rise to fame, he’s become a complete hypocrite (which also isn’t unique).
If Linus knew he wasn’t going to recommend anyone buy the waterblock no matter how it performed, but also didn’t want to show it off as a niche ‘supercar’ of waterblocks, then why agree to review it at all? Was he maybe not in the loop at all until shooting the video?
Seems like there was no good way for this to turn out for Billet which is a real shame since they seemed to just want to show off something cool and maybe get some publicity for their startup.
And auctioning off their handmade prototype, even accidentally and for charity, is a collosal fuck up that really can’t be solved with money alone.
Thanks for sharing his side/comment here.
Not that I agree with his defense (seems like allot of avoidance), but I am glad I could read it.
I get vibes of Top Gear reviewing the Tesla roadster.
Linus criticizing Steve on “proper journalistic practices” shows an incredible lack of self-awareness.
tl;dr with commentary:
On testing errors: Yep, we’re trying to be better. [i.e. Let’s move on and forget this ever happened.]
On the Billet auction: We’re trying to do the right thing after a miscommunication. [This one’s probably the best response, but that’s not a high bar.]
On the Billet hit piece: We were only assholes to them to get them to be better. [MAJOR abuser vibes. “I wouldn’t have beat you if you didn’t deserve it”.]
On releasing knowingly inaccurate videos: This is actually a good thing because we show our mistakes with footnotes. [WTF]
On conflicts of interest from corporate partnerships: Crickets [No surprise]
The worst part about the billet testing I feel is the arrogance when he said “it wouldn’t matter if it dropped temperatures by 20 degrees, it’s a bad product”
Like a bad product to who? If I were overclocking and something knocked off a full 20 degrees, that’s a great product regardless of price
There’s a reason people bought 4090s, some people want the highest tier performance and dropping an extra thousand to get something decent isn’t a concern for some
To be fair, he meant 20 degrees from where it was during testing, not from stock or competitors. Even in this hypothetical it would match other options at best despite a higher price. But the problem is that we can’t know this because they didn’t test it properly
Steve never uses the wold ‘sold’ in his video, and uses the word ‘auctioned’ twice.
As if “sold at a charity auction” isn’t an incredibly common and normal phrase. Linus is grasping.
I mean, since when has auctioning not been selling something? Auctioning is literally a method by which to sell something.
Right. And that’s what Linus lead with.
But he never even used the word sold, just auction/auctioning.
Link to post: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1526180-gamers-nexus-alleges-lmg-has-insufficient-ethics-and-integrity/page/16/#comment-16078641
FYI your link does not format properly on Kbin at least.
The starting line really puts me off. I don’t really care much about the tech content but find their videos entertaining.
I have un-subscribed from all their channels and will see how much this video is addressed in the next WAN before I decide if to continue to watch their content at all going forward.
Does anyone have any examples of Linus genuinely admitting he made a mistake or was wrong in a way where he dealt with a modicum of consequence? I can’t think of any, but I don’t watch him very much, at least recently.
The one real point that I thought Linus had here was that Steve didn’t talk to him first. That part is getting a lot of ridicule, because it sounds petulant, but it’s valid–it is accepted journalistic practice to give the subject of a story a chance to comment before publishing.
Since we can now see what that comment likely would have been, it doesn’t seem to change the conclusion much. From experience I can guess at Steve’s likely response–he would have tentatively given LMG credit for compensating Billet for the loss, pending verification and comment from Billet, and ripped all the rest of Linus’s excuses a new one. But that still doesn’t change the fact that Steve didn’t quite live up to the journalistic standards that he touts on his channel.
That failure gives things a bit more of a “drama” flavor (It’s hard not to suspect that this is primarily a response motivated by that clip of Linus’s lab tech attacking GN’s and HUB’s testing methods). But of course it doesn’t absolve LMG and its vaunted lab of milking the Youtube algorithm first and being a source of real information a distant second–which was argued pretty convincingly by GN and which a lot of us started to notice long before this video came out.
I think the way LTT handled the backpack warranty debacle shows that by contacting LTT, you won’t get anything substantial in response. Linus will just keep being stubborn and you’ll get nothing in response. Even the way that Linus responded in his “response”, it’s still a nothingburger response.
He’s still doubling down on the way that he reviewed Billet Labs cooler and doesn’t even acknowledge the biggest criticism that GN levied towards LTT, spending more time in making sure that the content that they’re producing is accurate. Having a pinned comment and edited fixes shows that LTT doesn’t really care about quality and instead pushing to keep more producing content.
I saw a post somewhere showing that at least 300 people unsubscribed from Floatplane, so that means at least 1500 USD/month (can be more if there’s people who subscribe for 4k content) of revenue are lost. Just from him not wanting to spend 500 USD of his employee time to make sure that he reviewed the products properly.
Linus has completely lost the plot here. Although it’s not unexpected since the way he handled the backpack warranty situation.
Please explain why it aught to be/is standard practice to try and get a reponse before publishing.
It’s a customary practice, and I think it’s a good one because it makes the story less one-sided and can diminish the appearance of it being a hit piece if it’s negative. Bottom line, it’s natural to want to know what the person the story is about thinks of it and what their perspective is. Obviously not all journalists seek a comment from every subject, but if they do, they often mention that they asked for a comment even if they weren’t able to get one, because people want to know that they at least tried.
What could LMG have said which would change the reporting of the inaccuracies of their content? Getting a response before hand may be able to get some more information but giving corporations time to react also gives them time to act in bad faith (e.g. cover up or attempt to blackmail, etc).
Wanting to know what the person in the story things doesn’t appear to me to support sharing your criticisms before posting. Something being a custom doesn’t justify it being a custom (if it really is one).
I mean, I’m not a journalist, I’ve just been reading them for decades. It’s a thing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/policies-and-standards/
Just as an example that came up in a quick web search–the Washington Post is a major US newspaper and this is its stated policy. Seeking comment from story subjects is an important practice in journalism, and if you consider yourself a journalist and don’t do it in a given case, you should probably have a good reason. This is why Steve felt the need to explain himself on that point.
I assumed some do it, perhaps most do and that makes it a standard.
Taking their comment into account has the potential to get more information which would prevent you reporting misinformation. I’d love to know how often their comment is useful vs how often corporations take advantage.
"I’m sorry…
…that you feel that way"
Kind of post.