6 ms·

Linus Tech Tips: What do we do now? [video]

28 points by rjmunro 3y ago

simmerup 3y ago
As someone who watches Linus but not to the extent that I have 2.5 hours to spend watching a lessons learned video, what actually happened?
- lucubratory 3y ago
  LMG/LTT has a systemic culture of quantity over quality in video production that led to significant factual errors in video production being the norm rather than the exception, and corrections to factual errors weren't handled appropriately. There was also unethical conduct around a prototype they received from a company called Billet: exactly how unethical is unclear right now, some elements may have been negligence rather than malice. While this was happening, an employee of theirs stated during a tour of their new "LTT Labs" facility that their videos and testing were going to be/were better than the testing of channels like Hardware Unboxed and Gamers Nexus, for reasons that were not true. They called out these other channels by name and essentially said their rigour in testing wasn't as good as LTT. I want to be clear, this was a small video and the comment was made by an employee (albeit a senior employee) during a tour, this probably wasn't big higher-ups intentionally starting drama. Hardware Unboxed were offended and wrote online about both the claim being factually incorrect and also that this was an unprofessional way to act. Linus responded on their WAN show by essentially stating that while he wasn't 100% on board with the way everything happened, he essentially supported the comments as true. At this point Gamers Nexus published a 45 minute video detailing not only exactly how and in what way the comments were not true, but also doing an expose on the general very poor quality of LTT/LMG fact checking and information, including really serious informational errors that ended up likely changing the outcome of a review. This expose is where the information at the start of this comment is from, and the majority of the expose is just a technically proficient analysis of the publicly available, incorrect material that LTT/LMG have published and continued to publish throughout. Linus's response to this video was bad and emotional by his own admission, and included more untrue statements (and really memeable silliness, like saying "we didn't sell it, we auctioned it off", even though Gamers Nexus had specifically noted that the item they weren't permitted to sell or auction off had been auctioned off). The video linked in OP is essentially the rest of LMG that isn't Linus saying basically the right things about the whole affair. Specifically, they claim they will address the near-proximate cause of the factual errors (too much time pressure due to their self-imposed video release schedule), that they will improve inter-departmental communication both to enable fact checking that prevents meaningfully false information from being released and to prevent things like selling a small companies best-in-production prototype without permission. Both the CEO and CFO committed to a lessened video release schedule and a minimum one week off posting, which is significant as it's the channels first time in eleven years that they won't be posting a video every day. Linus does appear in the video towards the end and is, in my opinion, the worst appearance in the video by far as his manner suggests that he really doesn't understand what he's done wrong about at least some of these things, even if he does seem to understand others. Luke also appears and is very apologetic, which feels weird to me as my main exposure to him as someone who is a casual watcher of LTT/LMG is that he is constantly trying to prevent Linus from saying or doing really, really dumb things on the WAN show - maybe he actually has more responsibility for some of these errors behind the scenes, or maybe he has generally higher integrity which caused both the apology from him and him to try and stop Linus from making significant mistakes publicly; I don't know. That is about a full summary.
  - PuffinBlue 3y ago
    Fantastic summary and for those reading it who want a little additional social confirmation , I feel this summary is accurate. The part about Linus appearance in the ‘what do we do now?’ video is on point too. I would add that the general tone of the video is appropriate, but as LTT is wont to do, they contaminate their sincerity with repeated product placement, ‘in jokes’ and humour. The very root of this ‘drama’ appears to be LTT’s lack of understanding of their serious and influential position in the space they occupy. This video serves or additional evidence of that lack of understanding, but at least a desire to improve.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Some online drama, "The Problem with Linus Tech Tips: Accuracy, Ethics, & Responsibility" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGW3TPytTjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGW3TPytTjc
  - pixelpanic360 3y ago
    [dead]
  - genmud 3y ago
    While I'm one to frequently laugh and dismiss "nerd drama", GN has some pretty valid points, considering how much reach and influence they have on the PC market, candidly dismissing it as "online drama" seems a bit hand wavy. The follow up from GN [1] was interesting as well... ironically many of the techniques Linus used in his response are taught in PR and crisis communications, telling me that they didn't really care or understand the scope of the issue. [1] - https://youtu.be/X3byz3txpso https://youtu.be/X3byz3txpso
    - deprecative 3y ago
      GN does not miss. They're probably the most credible outfit in the tech space at the moment.
- Kye 3y ago
  A smaller channel posted a detailed critique of LMG's output. Linus was an ass about it. Essentially the entire company including his new CEO called him in over it. This is the result: a video talking about what happened, how it happened, and how they plan to fix it.
  - Pxtl 3y ago
    And now two hours before this new video went live, one of his ex-employees released allegations about how awful a work environment it was.
    - geerlingguy 3y ago
      Context: https://twitter.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741 https://twitter.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741
donmcronald 3y ago
I watched all of these. I usually skip over the drama, but I think what LMG is doing with their Labs setup is pretty cool, so anything related to inaccuracy is interesting IMO. I really like the GN reviews and technical analysis. It's where I tend to go if I want a product opinion, but I'm not a huge fan of Steve's way of calling people out. I don't mind too much when it's a big company like LMG, but I wasn't impressed with the way he called Jon Gerow a "Corsair rep" and publicly highlighted some of the mistakes he made on that (IIRC) 4090 power cable debacle. The guy was the OG critical reviewer for power supplies. I think that should have earned him some respect and an opportunity to self correct or, at the very least, an opportunity to comment publicly. That whole thing was a big thumbs down for me :-( On the LMG side, I think some of the criticism is fair. The water block thing is flat out unacceptable. As if a bad review and follow up criticism from Linus wasn't bad enough, what would possibly give them the idea they can sell that thing without asking Billet first? I don't think the criticism about making mistakes is completely fair. They're trying to scale up to do consumer focused testing that no one else is going to be able to afford, so, for me personally, I give them some slack on that. I can tolerate some growing pains if it gets them to the point of doing testing that's so expensive that no one else can even take a shot at it. I think the criticism about doing a poor job of correcting the record is fair, but I think it's unfair to frame it in a way that makes it seem like it's their business strategy. Prior to the GN video, Linus and Luke were talking on the WAN show about the difficulties they've had with accuracy and some of the ideas they'd considered to improve it. For example, I think they considered giving early access on Floatplane so people could critique videos prior to widespread publication, but would never do it because that would simply lead to someone leaking all their videos early (which is likely correct IMO). I think the LMG video was well produced. The one thing that really jumped out for me is how they mentioned that every mistake results in improved process to help prevent it from happening again. That resonated with me because it's the same thing I do and it can make for a drastically better work environment if mistakes are tolerated as long as the process is being iterated on and improved. I can also see where someone like Steve from GN doesn't like that approach. I always used to land on the side of "don't do it if the process isn't perfected", but eventually reality creeps up and sometimes you don't have any options besides doing your best and striving to improve. I'm sure there's sentiment that LMG could eat the cost of developing their processes privately, but I think that overlooks the value harsh public criticism can bring to those processes. I do think Steve deserves some credit for being very accurate / competent, especially if it's limiting the growth of his business. Overall, I think Steve's critique is fair, but I'd bet it's a situation where they already know about all of it on the LMG side and it's probably frustrating / insulting to have those deficiencies highlighted publicly if they're striving to improve and simply haven't gotten to the end goal. It's kind of like the time Steve interviewed those Newegg guys. IMO they already know what's broken and they don't need "ideas" to fix things. They need the authority to fix things, which Steve's video might have helped with (hopefully). I would be so frustrated if I had to listen to a minor celebrity chastise me for things that I already know, especially if the publicity was the thing that finally got me the authority to fix it while forcing me to play the role of being the one that was too dumb to deal with it until someone pointed out the obvious. I won't comment on the staff / working conditions part of the debate because I don't think that's the kind of thing to give an opinion on without first-hand knowledge.

28 points by rjmunro 3y ago

As someone who watches Linus but not to the extent that I have 2.5 hours to spend watching a lessons learned video, what actually happened?

lucubratory 3y ago
LMG/LTT has a systemic culture of quantity over quality in video production that led to significant factual errors in video production being the norm rather than the exception, and corrections to factual errors weren't handled appropriately. There was also unethical conduct around a prototype they received from a company called Billet: exactly how unethical is unclear right now, some elements may have been negligence rather than malice. While this was happening, an employee of theirs stated during a tour of their new "LTT Labs" facility that their videos and testing were going to be/were better than the testing of channels like Hardware Unboxed and Gamers Nexus, for reasons that were not true. They called out these other channels by name and essentially said their rigour in testing wasn't as good as LTT. I want to be clear, this was a small video and the comment was made by an employee (albeit a senior employee) during a tour, this probably wasn't big higher-ups intentionally starting drama. Hardware Unboxed were offended and wrote online about both the claim being factually incorrect and also that this was an unprofessional way to act. Linus responded on their WAN show by essentially stating that while he wasn't 100% on board with the way everything happened, he essentially supported the comments as true. At this point Gamers Nexus published a 45 minute video detailing not only exactly how and in what way the comments were not true, but also doing an expose on the general very poor quality of LTT/LMG fact checking and information, including really serious informational errors that ended up likely changing the outcome of a review. This expose is where the information at the start of this comment is from, and the majority of the expose is just a technically proficient analysis of the publicly available, incorrect material that LTT/LMG have published and continued to publish throughout. Linus's response to this video was bad and emotional by his own admission, and included more untrue statements (and really memeable silliness, like saying "we didn't sell it, we auctioned it off", even though Gamers Nexus had specifically noted that the item they weren't permitted to sell or auction off had been auctioned off). The video linked in OP is essentially the rest of LMG that isn't Linus saying basically the right things about the whole affair. Specifically, they claim they will address the near-proximate cause of the factual errors (too much time pressure due to their self-imposed video release schedule), that they will improve inter-departmental communication both to enable fact checking that prevents meaningfully false information from being released and to prevent things like selling a small companies best-in-production prototype without permission. Both the CEO and CFO committed to a lessened video release schedule and a minimum one week off posting, which is significant as it's the channels first time in eleven years that they won't be posting a video every day. Linus does appear in the video towards the end and is, in my opinion, the worst appearance in the video by far as his manner suggests that he really doesn't understand what he's done wrong about at least some of these things, even if he does seem to understand others. Luke also appears and is very apologetic, which feels weird to me as my main exposure to him as someone who is a casual watcher of LTT/LMG is that he is constantly trying to prevent Linus from saying or doing really, really dumb things on the WAN show - maybe he actually has more responsibility for some of these errors behind the scenes, or maybe he has generally higher integrity which caused both the apology from him and him to try and stop Linus from making significant mistakes publicly; I don't know. That is about a full summary.
- PuffinBlue 3y ago
  Fantastic summary and for those reading it who want a little additional social confirmation , I feel this summary is accurate. The part about Linus appearance in the ‘what do we do now?’ video is on point too. I would add that the general tone of the video is appropriate, but as LTT is wont to do, they contaminate their sincerity with repeated product placement, ‘in jokes’ and humour. The very root of this ‘drama’ appears to be LTT’s lack of understanding of their serious and influential position in the space they occupy. This video serves or additional evidence of that lack of understanding, but at least a desire to improve.
pjmlp 3y ago
Some online drama, "The Problem with Linus Tech Tips: Accuracy, Ethics, & Responsibility" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGW3TPytTjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGW3TPytTjc
- pixelpanic360 3y ago
  [dead]
- genmud 3y ago
  While I'm one to frequently laugh and dismiss "nerd drama", GN has some pretty valid points, considering how much reach and influence they have on the PC market, candidly dismissing it as "online drama" seems a bit hand wavy. The follow up from GN [1] was interesting as well... ironically many of the techniques Linus used in his response are taught in PR and crisis communications, telling me that they didn't really care or understand the scope of the issue. [1] - https://youtu.be/X3byz3txpso https://youtu.be/X3byz3txpso
  - deprecative 3y ago
    GN does not miss. They're probably the most credible outfit in the tech space at the moment.
Kye 3y ago
A smaller channel posted a detailed critique of LMG's output. Linus was an ass about it. Essentially the entire company including his new CEO called him in over it. This is the result: a video talking about what happened, how it happened, and how they plan to fix it.
- Pxtl 3y ago
  And now two hours before this new video went live, one of his ex-employees released allegations about how awful a work environment it was.
  - geerlingguy 3y ago
    Context: https://twitter.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741 https://twitter.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741

donmcronald 3y ago

I watched all of these. I usually skip over the drama, but I think what LMG is doing with their Labs setup is pretty cool, so anything related to inaccuracy is interesting IMO. I really like the GN reviews and technical analysis. It's where I tend to go if I want a product opinion, but I'm not a huge fan of Steve's way of calling people out. I don't mind too much when it's a big company like LMG, but I wasn't impressed with the way he called Jon Gerow a "Corsair rep" and publicly highlighted some of the mistakes he made on that (IIRC) 4090 power cable debacle. The guy was the OG critical reviewer for power supplies. I think that should have earned him some respect and an opportunity to self correct or, at the very least, an opportunity to comment publicly. That whole thing was a big thumbs down for me :-( On the LMG side, I think some of the criticism is fair. The water block thing is flat out unacceptable. As if a bad review and follow up criticism from Linus wasn't bad enough, what would possibly give them the idea they can sell that thing without asking Billet first? I don't think the criticism about making mistakes is completely fair. They're trying to scale up to do consumer focused testing that no one else is going to be able to afford, so, for me personally, I give them some slack on that. I can tolerate some growing pains if it gets them to the point of doing testing that's so expensive that no one else can even take a shot at it. I think the criticism about doing a poor job of correcting the record is fair, but I think it's unfair to frame it in a way that makes it seem like it's their business strategy. Prior to the GN video, Linus and Luke were talking on the WAN show about the difficulties they've had with accuracy and some of the ideas they'd considered to improve it. For example, I think they considered giving early access on Floatplane so people could critique videos prior to widespread publication, but would never do it because that would simply lead to someone leaking all their videos early (which is likely correct IMO). I think the LMG video was well produced. The one thing that really jumped out for me is how they mentioned that every mistake results in improved process to help prevent it from happening again. That resonated with me because it's the same thing I do and it can make for a drastically better work environment if mistakes are tolerated as long as the process is being iterated on and improved. I can also see where someone like Steve from GN doesn't like that approach. I always used to land on the side of "don't do it if the process isn't perfected", but eventually reality creeps up and sometimes you don't have any options besides doing your best and striving to improve. I'm sure there's sentiment that LMG could eat the cost of developing their processes privately, but I think that overlooks the value harsh public criticism can bring to those processes. I do think Steve deserves some credit for being very accurate / competent, especially if it's limiting the growth of his business. Overall, I think Steve's critique is fair, but I'd bet it's a situation where they already know about all of it on the LMG side and it's probably frustrating / insulting to have those deficiencies highlighted publicly if they're striving to improve and simply haven't gotten to the end goal. It's kind of like the time Steve interviewed those Newegg guys. IMO they already know what's broken and they don't need "ideas" to fix things. They need the authority to fix things, which Steve's video might have helped with (hopefully). I would be so frustrated if I had to listen to a minor celebrity chastise me for things that I already know, especially if the publicity was the thing that finally got me the authority to fix it while forcing me to play the role of being the one that was too dumb to deal with it until someone pointed out the obvious. I won't comment on the staff / working conditions part of the debate because I don't think that's the kind of thing to give an opinion on without first-hand knowledge.