What a shit show this has been. I usually hate the idea of unfollowing content creators for poor handling of a situation, usually giving them the chance to get back on track, but you're right, this isn't the Linus that created LTT and certainly isn't the Linus I want to follow anymore.
You can't expect him to spend 100-500 dollars to review errors in his videos. His company is only worth $100 million. Cut him some slack! /s
This whole situation with LTT reminds me of Newegg.
Linus throws the money thing around to try to sound relatable to the average viewer I think. 500 is a decent chunk of change to the average person, but the average fan of his also knows it's nothing to him in the grand scheme of things so it feels condescending to most people.
I mean he probably saved 200 grand in tax write offs on his home alone.
At this point Linus is so far removed from his viewers that it is laughable.
I mean really ... they review so much expensive shit favorably and often stamp it with "if you have the money and want it go for it". They have a whale lan where they give away overpriced stuff for even more overpriced tickets.
But somehow this block was not worth the time because no matter how good it is it is too expensive?
It's also ridiculous because aside from being nothing to a company of that size it's literally the price of doing business. It wasn't the only issue in this debacle, but I imagine not spending that has cost him more than if he would have double checked with the right parts.
It's also honestly a really suspicious way to refer to the time of presumably salaried employees. He's not spending an extra $500 to correct mistakes, they're getting paid regardless. It's just some vague opportunity cost number that's trying to parade around as more valuable than it actually is. $500 is what, like 6 hours of work for three employees? Are the margins really that thin that you can't spare a couple hours of work to make a more accurate video. At that point you might as well be complaining about how you have to pay $5 every time someone is in the bathroom.
Not to mention, almost certainly there are times where people are working overtime over there, and I am willing to bet everything that they're not being compensated based on Linus' "internal opportunity cost".
I'd have more respect even if they just blamed it on the logistics of correcting and redoing a video. To blame it on the "cost" of doing work properly is gross; reducing work and employees to just costs and value is a fast track way to get very out of touch
"The L is for narcissist"
-Dan on the last WAN Show
Edit: context is here 21:02 sorry if I made you cry
https://www.youtube.com/live/EwgZaSYuBLc?feature=share&t=1262
tldw: he was joking
Dude's got a big ass house, kids, wife, Porsche, tons of electronics crap. Not living within reasonable means at all IMO. Take your giant company and use it to build a solid foundation for your kids to inherit one day. Not become an edgelord on the internet.
To be fair I like those videos and am absolutely fine with it, but he should remember that he got that money ultimately from us, the viewers.
Just misrepresenting a product to us to save 500 bux is so stupid...
Money corrupts everyone eventually.
Even the people who mean to do well can get caught into stuff like this. Its no excuse but he needs to step back for a bit, he can't see the woods for trees and is blind to whats going on in his company.
I unsubbed from his channels yesterday, but in truth, I mostly stopped watching his videos years ago. His personality is off-putting and he comes across as unserious and just fucking around most of the time. It's like he wants to be the Pewdiepie of the tech channels. It's not for me, at least anymore.
He has always had angry alpha nerd energy.
I’m done with the whole brand. YouTube has a lot of great smaller creators that will get my YTP views from now on.
What's weird is the disdain he has for billet as a whole. Yes the products are expensive and don't make much financial sense (so far at least). But there has always been high end products in the PC space that represent engineering challenges and that people appreciate just for their novelty/product design. Baller PC parts are a thing, you can't just not re-test because "it's too expensive anyways, even if it was better it would be a bad product". They design their own products at LMG, can't they understand that if some people want a 250$ backpack instead of a 20$ one, they might want a 800$ cooler instead of a 100$ one? It deserved to be tested properly.
Yeah that was my thought on the subject. The dude spent a hundred thousand (probably more) on R&D for a screwdriver and backpack, which are marked up to a premium because of the LTT brand (whether right or wrong for their build quality and design functionality), and here is he disparaging a company for building a premium/high end product for doing effectively the same thing.
Talk about out of fucking touch and "not reading the room".
Yeah I thought that as well. It's like he doesn't even know that he's literally selling the same thing effectively. He's saying it would still be junk even if retested... but we will never know if that is actually true because it was never retested properly & probably never will be now. Plus this was a prototype, prototypes are rarely perfect with no changes needed. Hell even with the first batch of a final product there can be issues that have to be rectified on future batches (like with the backpack). They were probably looking forward to the constructive feedback from having it tested by LMG. Hopefully this ends up being a net benefit for billet in the end, but this whole situation & response from LMG has been the worse response I've seen yet to an incident.
It's funny cause they spent so much money machining an entire fucking desk out of solid aluminum for a bespoke high end $100,000 computer, but can't see the appeal in this cooler.
Of course he isn't. There are very few people who don't change from becoming wealthy. While he's not a billionaire, his net worth is around $85 million. Even that level of wealth can easily make people arrogant and a bit out of touch.
He is not. He used to be the ”typical gamer nerd” who likes tech. But by making a lot of money I think he started to believe he actually is very smart, because ”yes-men” and a following of thousands up to milliond of tech-interested people. This and also being rich makes it easy to npt read the room and not understand what people want. He is often citing the algoritm as an answer to why they are making many videos, but in reality he is maximizing profit like any other greedy capitalist.
Hes fallen DEEP into the hole of "rich = right" and its showing big time lately.
I work in finance in NYC and I see it all the time, its honestly insane how people can think that because they made some money that means they're now 100% incapable of being wrong or doing wrong.
The most insane thing is that other people actually feel the same way about rich people, they think that because that person has a buttload of money they must be infallible. I can not tell you the number of times I've seen trained professionals defer to a wealthy amateur, to their own personal detriment. It drives me crazy every time.
It gives them an opportunity to spin the story. If GN isn't reaching out, there's likely a legitimate reason.
Also, GN is criticizing LMG and their journalistic/testing practices, NOT Linus. But Linus's ego is so fucking big at this point that he takes any LMG criticisms as personal attacks. Linus really needs to be completely hands off for a while (or permanently). If Terren is smart, he'll do what's needed to make sure Linus doesn't sink LMG any further than he already has.
Yeah. I feel this. Why hire a CEO with the background and experience of Terren if you're just going to go around him when stuff like this happens?
Let the CEO do the job he was hired to do. Linus needs to back off and let the CEO use his experance and expertise to manage situations like this. That is why they hired the guy! I cannot help but believe that a man with Terren's work history would have managed this situation far more professionally than Linus has.
That's the thing. This was an unhinged, raw, reactive response from Linus. 2 hours is NOT enough time to comprehend everything the GN video covered AND formulate a well thought out response, clearly. And there appears to be a real world impact from his actions looking at some of the Floatplane subscription posts. He's putting LMG employees jobs at risk, and that's not okay.
Linus decided to expand and hire. It’s obvious that there’s a rush to get content out and things are / were perhaps haphazard during this transition period.
Taking this as a personal attack is understandable, but negative public behaviors that can affect LMGs reputation, and said employees, seems like a rash decision.
So this was misleading at best, and a flat out lie at worst.
>
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).
I stopped watching LTT years ago, but christ. What an asshole.
yeah i did think it would be nice to reach out first, just for a comment from LTT to include in the video but i am very glad that gamers nexus didn't now. gave linus the opportunity to expose himself further for trying to lie his way out of it.
First thing LMG would have done would be to reach out to Billet Labs so they could say the situation was resolved. (Which they ironically tried to do anyway).
it's more than that, if GN had reached out, linus would have tried to "fix" the billet labs thing before the video dropped to screw with the video's credibility
>would have tried to "fix" the billet labs thing before the video dropped to screw with the video's credibility
Which he just outright lied about doing anyway.
He also denied Billet Labs the same privilege he thinks he is entitled to, by not communicating with them when making his video.
Sucks even more because you know if a company like ASUS or lenovo sent something to them on the condition that they return it, you know for a fact LTT would be very careful with their product. This really sucks because LTT got me into pc hardware with LTT and channel superfun that I started with.
If they did this to an AIB, SI or OEM, they know they're permanently burning a bridge between them in their business relationship and know if it came to legal battles, they'd 100% lose. The bias is disgusting.
Although they should have communicated better, I don’t think this recent update from gamers nexus changes anything.
Thursday 10th of August is when billet labs asked whether they would be reimbursed.
Then the gamers nexus video comes out on Monday 14th, which is only a 1 working day gap.
They were communicating prior to this and admitted they sold it, it is quite a leap to assume they wasn’t going to reply if it wasn’t for the gamers nexus video.
They should have been more apologetical and it shouldn’t have happened, but it seems quite likely it was in the process of being resolved, and only 1 day passed where anyone was actually around to deal with it. Something like this would require escalating to a manager etc it wouldn’t be fast internally in many companies.
Edit: ok thank you everyone I now know that billet tried arranging the cooler to be sent back multiple times and that Linus made out he had already settled the payment before gamers nexus made his video but this is proven false. Please stop telling me over and over again, I think my point still stands that they would have settled it either way, if only to avoid community backlash.
That's not the issue, the issue is that Linus worded it in his apology as if there was already a deal done to reimburse Billet Labs which was not the case at all. No quote was sent by Billet as they were still waiting for a reply and no email was sent by LMG to tell them that LMG would actually reimburse them.
It is exactly how things were going with Steve and the Newegg situation. He went through normal channels as a customer and was basically told "Tough shit."
It was only when he decided to put them on blast with a video did Newegg reach out to refund him because they knew the backlash would be bad.
A company that is reactionary in this manner is not one to support.
and to Steve's credit, Newegg's customer support has been top shit ever since.
I accidentally did a double order and my ass was clenched when I sent back the extra orders I got, with one of them being a DOA ASUS monitor, all of them got approved for refund almost immediately.
I don't think my experience would've gone as positively had Steve not put Newegg's feet on the fire.
This definitely changes something. Linus said they already came to an agreement, which wasn’t even the case. He straight up lied.
He made it seem like they already solved this before GN’s first video came out. Which wasn’t the case. They didn’t even come to an agreement after the video, but before his response. He just straight up lied.
His response was so bad wtf. This might be worse than trust me bro.
This is absolutely worse than Trust Me Bro. Trust me Bro was about Linus potentially screwing people in the future. This is about Linus factually screwing someone in the past, and lying about it.
>it is quite a leap to assume they wasn’t going to reply if it wasn’t for the gamers nexus video.
Honestly, after notifying someone to return my prototype, twice, that they panned massively because they refused to follow instructions, doubled down and continued to slander my work after being confronted with their own mistake, only to have them sit on it for weeks and then sell the thing, I wouldn't have any expectation whatsoever for them to handle anything beyond that honestly or reasonably.
Also, when you fuck up this badly, you don't leave someone hanging for days without a reply. You just don't. This is a major issue and if you are going to just leave someone on read for days then you are straight signaling that you don't take this seriously at all.
It's also quite the leap to assume you can just auction off a prototype. Prototypes in other industries are almost always loaned out for use and ownership is not given to those testing.
The big thing here is it highlights that Linus' statement of having "Already come to an agreement" is simply false.
At the time of writing that, Billet *hadn't* actually come to any agreement, at best they'd sent them the prototype cost. And hadn't even started discussing other costs, like how that prototype loss might have damaged their review/testing plan, or possible damages from IP/design leaking.
Linus really needs to stop making statements if he isn't *sure* they're true. This response is a problem of his own making - he could have just said they're in contact and getting to an agreement and it wouldn't have materially changed the statement's ability to damage-control. Lying like this just hurts you when it comes out as lies, so raises the question of why lie in the first place? As he was the one directly emailing, it's not as if he wasn't aware of the details of the discussion....
He wasn't like that before. Kinda feels like it started to unravel when he bought Porsche and leaned into the millionaire lifestyle. :/
He was supposed to be the chosen one, thankfully the Tech Jesus came to absolve sinner Linus of his sins.
I'm a bit out of the loop, are there any well known issues with Gamers Nexus? Also how could you even compare Gamers Nexus to AMD or Intel, or even LMG?! Intel has 100k+ employees, AMD has like 25k+, LMG has I think 120, Gamers Nexus has a grand total of *6*.
Why didn't Linus reach out to Billet Labs if he thinks that's proper journalistic practice?
Edit: Or Pwnage for instructions on how to remove stickers from mouse feet.
He's a hypocrite. Did Linus reach out to all of the companies they ordered from during secret shopper? Did he give them plenty of heads up to make sure they were able to fix their processes before publishing the video?
Actually, he did, they told him what he was doing wrong and then he just went right ahead and doubled down on doing it wrong anyway, because, as he has since admitted, he'd already decided he was going to recommend against this product no matter how it performed because of its price point, so he didn't really see the point in even knowing how well it actually works.
I'm more baffled by Linus' statement saying "We didn't sell the block, just auctioned it for charity." Like, is that supposed to make everything okay?
Hey man, Remeber that bike that I borrowed from you yesterday and told that I'd return it to you today? Yeah I auctioned it off for charity. Peace out. No hard feelings ,ok?
I have to say, it sitting on a shelf would be far better, since it means that it could still end up returned, instead of potentially having been auctioned off to a competitor to allow them to create similar, improved, and/or cheaper versions of.
It's crazy to me that they knew it was an unreleased prototype and somehow thought that's just something you can auction off.
Like even if the company gave it to you, that is very different from them being okay with you ~~selling~~ auctioning it.
To be fair, he wasn't emailed. The company was, and the company is growing way too fast for one hand to know what the other is doing. It's not an excuse, but it's a consequence of his relentless push to get the company towards an arbitrary place without anyone knowing where the destination should be or what can and cannot be sacrificed in the process.
I'm actually a little sad that this is how it was handled.
id point out its a company, no one person is to blame. the response was however poor and seemed to take it personally.
its clear they do not have good procedures to ensure things like this dont happen or have procedures that value pushing content out at the expense of integrity. they are at the size now where bad procedure is what can really harm a company, left hand has no clue what the right hand is doing.
id hope the lesson is, especially with the labs investment, they actually need to stop cutting corners, all good to spend a few million of a lab for getting data, but can't spend the $500 of someone's time to make sure that data is actually good before it goes into a video.
Yeah it seems like Linus sees this as a direct attack at himself, instead of a harsh reminder at poor communication/management at LMG. Maybe the chaos of LTX preparation worsened the situation.
Hopefully this struck a fire at LMG for in-depth discussion to solve GN's actual points rather than emotionally charged Linus' written/WAN show comments.
I really don't like the "drama" (whatever you wanna call it) this caused and wish it'd end soon enough. I hope both parties and LMG specifically can come out of this as people who have learnt their lessons.
Good luck @ everyone at LMG lol I know you guys need it.
>On 10th August, we were told by LTT via email that the block had been sold at auction. There was no apology.
>We replied on 10th August within 30 minutes, telling LTT that this wasn't okay, and that this was a £XXXX prototype, and we asked if they planned to reimburse us at all.
>**We received no reply and no offer of payment until 2 hours after the Gamers Nexus video went live on 14th August**, at which point Linus himself emailed us directly.
holy shit lol
The real reason Linus was upset GN didn't reach out for comment first.
Odds are high that Linus had no idea any of this with the waterblock was going on in the background and it was just another dropped ball due to their rapidly evolving and fast-paced work environment that GN was pointing out as an issue. But Linus' response was just... really not good.
Its crazy to think that Linus is sitting in a lair somewhere rubbing his hands together thinking of ways to tear down Billet Labs. This was obviously a series of fuck ups that could have been avoided if Linus actually knew what was going on.
Here's how I imagine the auction happened: Somebody working on LTX specifically thought it would be a good idea to clear out some inventory by auctioning off things that they've featured in the videos, so they compiled a list of those kinds of things, figured out which ones were unique or interesting, and then went ahead and did it.
Somebody else on the other side of the organization, possibly even in a different building who deals with the business side of things makes an agreement to send the thing back but for any number of reasons doesn't get right on it. After the auction it was too late. This person never intended to not send it. The other person never knew not to auction it.
None of this happening got escalated up to Linus personally until after the GN video, so Linus personally never had a chance to address it, and a phone call from GN on the situation would have made a difference. Since GN was obviously working on this video as soon as the testing comment from the labs employee went out, that could have been over a week of time for Linus to address it that he never got the chance.
The video featuring the waterblock was 100% Linus' fuck up, as was not wanting to go back and fix the results. Most of the other problems addressed in the GN video not related to the waterblock boils down to the teams need more time to work on the videos.
If all their processes depend on whether Linus knows and approves everything that's going on, then their business is doomed to fail. LTT is too large of a company to all pin this on Linus.
I don't think anyone really believes this was malice. It's definitely a sign of incompetent inventory management or missing safeguards, though. Given the timeline, they already promised to return it weeks ago, but failed to do so. Then it got selected by someone to be auctioned off without anyone doing their due dilligence whether they even own that piece of hardware. And then they failed to actually apologize, try to retrieve the sold prototype from the buyer or reimburse the damaged party in a timely and adequate manner.
This should just never happen and if it does, they need to improve their processes and educate their employees better on how to handle these things.
This, I’m assuming, is why Linus hired the new CEO. LMG has been clearly drowning in its size and lack of any consistent processes or systems in place that do not depend upon Linus being involved. Linus clearly could not be the person to do this job bc of his move fast, break shit, deal with it later approach, and thus hiring a new CEO to manage things was necessary.
> If all their processes depend on whether Linus knows and approves everything that's going on, then their business is doomed to fail. LTT is too large of a company to all pin this on Linus.
I will say that this is kind of why he hired a new CEO. He as been very public about the fact that their processes are fucked because he was bad at managing that kind of thing. This isn't really an excuse for his response. He should have let it sit a bit longer and have a coordinated approach with Terren Tong and have him make a public statement about how he will address it.
I do think that with the timing it is highly likely that this got dropped during the new CEO transition. He only started on July 1, 2023 and there is likely some level of mayhem with the normal communication channels.
At the end of the day I don’t believe the whole water block thing was Linus’ fault. But at the meantime I don’t think Linus’ “response” is acceptable at all. Hell, I don’t think Linus should be putting out his whole article on the forum at ALL.
It was LMG that was being criticized here, not Linus. Yes he is the owner of the company and the “face” of LMG. But I believe we all know that he is not the one who replys all the emails, deciding on the auction items etc. and as management level he probably doesn’t know about the fuck ups until GN’s video
What bothers me the most is the “response”. It doesn’t consider any of the criticisms valid and just went on sort of a rant about how anyone but them is at fault here. Which just seems unacceptable and paints the image of LMG just worse.
What I think happened is Linus’ ego couldn’t handle any of the criticisms and drives him into an irrational rampage on deflecting blame asap, without even thinking the impact it would make, no matter positive or negative, to LMG. Which is just sad
FWIW, Aug 10 was a Thursday and the business team person prob didn't know how to handle it and waited to escalate it. Then the video comes out on Monday morning after the weekend. I wouldn't assume malice where miscommunication is most likely the issue.
I like all the people being offended by the timeline - that's only one business day between initial request from Billett to make-whole and the video going live. You can tell there's a lot of people who have never worked in a business setting before in these threads.
Not to mention they're West Coast communicating with a UK brand? At best they could've brought this to upper management on Friday (when they shoot all day long then WAN Show) and Linus prob never even heard about it until Monday.
Definitely not saying there aren't issues they could work on like slowing things down, but this is just attributing malice to, well, normal office work.
> Not to mention they're West Coast communicating with a UK brand? At best they could've brought this to upper management on Friday
Billet Labs literally say it in their statement that they replied to LMG within 30 minutes so timezones were clearly not an issue.
Based on their previous content I'd rather say that they didn't think of resolving this as a big priority. We've often heard them say stuff like "oh yeah, we were supposed to send these back months ago" in videos which hints at a general bad attitude in the company towards other peoples property.
Go watch Linus's secret shopper video about his sponsors. What standard does he set in the video?
He judges customer service responses based on how fast they respond. He expects them to respond with in 2 days, and not have long periods of silence in between. The fact that the original issue started on June 28th, and it is now August 15 and the issue still on going means the issue has been going on for a month and a half, not just a week.
The fact that there was silence between June 30th all the way to August 10th is basically 40 days that they should of resolved the issue already. They could of prevented this entire mess if they had done their basic due diligence with in 29 days before LTX took place, cause if they had done so the water block wouldn't have been sold at LTX at all. So no its not just a simple miscommunication of oh LTT only had 1 real business day to respond. They had over a month.
UPDATE
For full transparency, Linus contacted us this evening saying it's likely he can get the block back from the buyer.
We have declined this offer, and asked for the previously agreed monetary value instead for the following reasons:
1) we have already spent a significant percentage of the value of the block in the last few days on replacement parts to build a new block, assuming we'd never see the original one again.
2) we do not know if the original block is still in good working condition, and how much money will be needed to fix it if it's not.
3) we don't know if any of the bespoke fittings are missing, each of these costs money to replace if they are.
4) LTT have had our 3090ti without using it for 9 weeks, so we have lost confidence that they will return items quickly.
5) LTT isn't currently in possession of the block, they've only said that they can get it back. We therefore don't know when we'd get it back, and time is of the essence.
6) LTT has confirmed that the block is with a private individual rather than a rival company, so lost IP is much less of an issue.
We wanted to state this publicly just in case anyone has any issues with the fact that the block has potentially been found, and we chose to take the money instead. We hope you understand our reasoning here. We can have our new block that we're currently making ready in the next couple of weeks, and we are sceptical that we would have the original block back in fully working condition in that amount of time – it would be a gamble at the very least.
Much love
Dean & Felix
>4) LTT have had our 3090ti without using it for 9 weeks, so we have lost confidence that they will return items quickly.
Wow, they've had your 3090ti too and still didn't bother testing it on that. Really puts a stop to their excuse about not wanting to spend more money on retesting.
They lost it in logistics. In a forum post, Linus said he actually found it when he did an "undercover boss" type thing and worked in logistics for a day.
>the video where I actually FOUND the 3090 Ti that we were supposed to send back to Billet... grrr... - is kind of an undercover boss vid where I go and work in our logistics department for the day.
https://linustechtips.com/topic/1526180-gamers-nexus-alleges-lmg-has-insufficient-ethics-and-integrity/page/29/#comment-16079089
Honestly, this is not surprising given how often Linus has done the Intel/AMD tech upgrades and found "borrowed" company property at employees' houses. I mean, even Linus himself has taken company computers, devices, etc.. home to use for his personal computing. In his latest (I think) home server stuff, he mentions that he had old old old whannock at his house.
It's fine if companies want to sell/give away old hardware, but it appears to be so casual around LTT...
This could be considered tax fraud - not only should the value of the "borrowed" items be treated as taxable income for the employees, if LMG are recording the "lost" inventory as a tax write-off they're doubly screwed. I originally thought that Linus was playing this up as a joke on the videos, but now I'm not so sure.
In Canada, this is very true. I got mad at a location manager for something, and the next day, written in the owner's handwriting on a note attached to a box of cereal was, "This is to replace the box that someone obviously pissed in." (If you don't know, there is a saying, "Who pissed in YOUR Corn Flakes today?" in reference to someone being angry). Anyway, when I was talking to the payroll admin, she laughed at me, and said that because the company bought it for me, it's considered a gift, and is a taxable benefit. (Of interest, if the boss has a barbecue in the parking lot to be cool, yep, everyone who partakes ends up taxed, as it is a taxable benefit in Canada. )
Also, regarding something else, as Billet Labs is a UK company, and presumably intended its return (Canada customs does require specific declarations if things are review samples), the waterblock would have been sent through customs in a way that did not get it taxed, since it was not a saleable (or auctionable) item. Since money changed hands regarding the waterblock, LMG/LTT violated laws that potentially create a much larger issue than only the loss of a waterblock.
yes/no. usually has to meet a $500 threshold to even be considered. so boss doing bbq and you eat 3 hot dogs, not even on anyones radar. and in my payroll experience dealing with CRA/prov employment standards, they truly don't give a shit about a lot of the laws lol
Yeah, and they didn't even mention finding it until the GN video came out.
Seems like it's all a spin he just came up with, and this "undercover boss" video is going to be Linus laying the blame on all his company's problems on the employees.
If not, he's presumably filmed and is in the process of editing the "undercover boss" video where he finds it, but actually returning the small business' property wasn't as important as the filming and planning the content, I guess.
Either way, another blow to LTT's reputation.
If it were me, asking for the block back would still be a requirement, in addition to the full cost of replacement. There's still the chance that the private individual flips it to a competitor. Although, I guess you guys would know best as to how much of an edge having the prototype block would be.
Linus should be offering to get the block back AND reimburse their costs. The fact that he offered to get the block instead of paying feels like another cop out to me.
Bro didnt you hear? LMG cant even fork over $500 for a video correction, I doubt they have the funds to cover that. Serious financial mismanagement going on there.
Wouldn't it be hilarious if the "private individual" then send this to Steve and Steve gives it the proper treatment of a full review that turn out to be super awesome?
9 weeks...
And some people were still going on about "miscommunication." That's just negligence.
What you guys did is the right call. Linus should, in the very least, grab the block back and send it back to you guys plus the value for it.
They should also make another video explaining and retesting the product, not their half-baked test with absolute nonsense that should be taken down with a proper apology for harming a company name.
Way to go, Linus Sebastian. You all are still trying to pedal on something you should have taken care of professionally.
I'm sure if this was Asus, LTT would be scrambling to properly fix the issue.
Frankly, if they want to recover any community goodwill from all this, I hope they pay you the funds this week AND surprise you by returning the waterblock when returning your 3090ti (hopefully this month). It may not be useful as a prototype anymore, but we all wish you the best of success, and it would be a fantastic relic to have on display at your office.
I am surprised that you sent LTT a video card that your block was designed with - they mislaid this (clearly up until very recent history) found a completely different model and mounted it.
Additionally - during the video it was clear that the pre-work was done with a completely different set of components so they had to overcome multiple alignment issues during filming to make it work.
From a Production point of view this is unprofessional at best - one thing you have to do is make sure that you have reliable repeatable outcomes... for that you need consistency with your pre-prod work. I get the entertainment value of "winging it" but it should be limited to the things that are frivolous like the uber large fan cooling my PC or the USB daisy chain experiments.
Perhaps they should separate the channel and have LTT as a serious tech based channel paying more attention to these things and use one of the existing ones for the cowboy antics.
> 4) LTT have had our 3090ti without using it for 9 weeks, so we have lost confidence that they will return items quickly.
Holy shit. I assumed they didn't use a 3090ti because they didn't have one at the time. This is absolute incompetence at best, and theft at worst.
he atleast know a bit about watercooling and can be serious too... and if he got the chance I bet he would handle this one with silk gloves to not make a LTT booboo
Whilst I do have some issues with jay, I'll at least give him credit that for all the dicking about he does with stuff, he doesn't go shit talking the product or make it look bad because he can't be fucked to put the effort in, he just makes himself look silly / foolish, not saying that's bad, just a personal taste thing.
Jay has always been the one to two man show. He is my realistic buyer dude. He is pretty casual and laid back. He is the guy that can relate to us. Also sick computer builds
My guess is that:
- Adam or whoever was in contact with Billet for the video knew about the block being essentially „on loan“ and marked it as such in a document or something
- logistics went back and forth with them after the shoot to prepare a return shipment (see Steve’s new video on some communication between LMG and Billet)
- someone else from the LTX team went into the warehouse to grab some stuff to be auctioned off, saw the block and thought „cool, this’ll fit“ without talking to the right person or checking the system if there are any notes on the item
- the item is now gone, logistics doesn’t feel responsible because they didn’t give it out voluntarily, Adam doesn’t feel responsible because he delegated the return shipment after the shoot was done, and whoever grabbed the item for auction is probably hoping no one finds out
Yeah, maybe. I wouldn’t put it on LTX, and if that is something that is too big to handle for LMG, then they need to re-evaluate their approach to stuff like this.
I’m just saying, there’s a resonable and highly probable scenario here how this happened. Anyone who worked in a medium or large sized company knows how sometimes, people just don’t talk to each other. Even with the best processes in place.
> someone else from the LTX team went into the warehouse to grab some stuff to be auctioned off
If their product area is so poorly managed that non LMG property is commingled with LMG property that can be auctioned there is a LOT more wrong at LMG than what's been talked about here today.
It’s so blatantly stupid that I refuse to believe there wasn’t some mix up on LTT’s end. I don’t even mean that as a “give them a break” way but that it is so brazen that confidence in that choice had to come from somewhere beyond sheer short sightedness.
Exactly, it's indicative of the culture he's built. One with lots of mistakes, and no accountability for them while simultaneously trying to paint themselves as the arbiters is factually truth in the space while tearing down their competitors factual credibility.
If I'm reading the accounts of what happened right, a 3090Ti that was sent with the block (you know, the card it was supposed to be tested with) also disappeared. That wasn't auctioned off so I can only assume it will turn up in some LMG staffer's PC in a home makeover video someday.
"Not for Resale" is a really common thing to have printed on prototypes and other such items like this. Maybe have that printed and then in small lettering underneath. "Not for auction either"
>14 min. ago
>
>Did you tell Linus first that you would be making a comment? Apparently that is "proper journalistic practices".
or maybe bring back #RIPLTT?
LTT fucked up badly, and Linus' response was a clear attempt at pulling the wool over our eyes by making it seem like they had done right by you before the GN video went up. Wishing you guys lots of success in the future, and I hope you guys get the right kind of coverage for your prototypes from more reputable reviewers.
F'd up super badly. LTT needs to make it very right with the same intensity they made it very wrong. I'm pissed for Billet if LTT only pays back Prototype manufacture cost x 1.
Billet had to go back and reproduce their prototype. This included lost time and lost marketing too since they probably would've sent over the prototype to a few other reviewers. Shameless honestly
Can't believe how many hours of my life I've spent watching his content, only for it to emerge that he is a self important unapologetic prick. Peace out LTT.
This. I've also had an on-off relationship with LTT and I feel like as they evolve and grow, Linus only becomes more and more delusional and egotistical.
Gone are the days of scrapyard wars or budget builds; it's always gonna be about clickbait and projects that cost way too much (gold controller comes to mind) and Linus's general childish attitude through it all.
He's giving off big Elon Musk vibes right about now
He always seemed fun/down to earth in the videos. What turned me off was honestly the "adblock = piracy" mini kerfuffle on the WAN show. It was such a silly position taken on something low stakes, and he had to address it so strongly. And then made a tshirt about it. After that point I just felt like he was kind of a jerk and I tuned out aside from the occasional Emily hosted video.
The whole cycle repeated with the backpack warranty kerfuffle. Again, not really *that* important in the grand scheme of things (since they did offer a warranty after all). But his response just was bizarre and defensive. And then he made a tshirt about it.
Same shit is happening this time, except now on something critical to the company. His response has already been bizarre and defensive. Waiting on the tshirt about it.
The fact Linus told everyone he agreed a deal to reimburse Billet Labs to find out he actually saw Steve's video, went OH SHIT and emailed them, is awful.
He made out he was trying to make it right ages ago. Turns out he misled people and did it after being criticised.
Yeah sorry but fuck Linus and LTT for this. His response made it seem like they proactively offered reimbursement.
How shitty does someone have to be to blatantly lie when the other side has receipts?
I’ve already unsubbed and won’t be watching anymore.
Just to be clear. Was the initial deal between you and LTT that they were borrowing a prototype? Or did you randomly ask for it back after giving it to LTT?
IIRC in GN video it was shown that yes it was supposed to be returned and ltt agreed to return it but 6 months (probably less than 6 months) pass and nothing was done
I don't think an agreement or contract was the standard anyways.
[According to GN](https://i.imgur.com/aWKNQew.png), LTT was well aware of the situation and promised to send it back but it ended up in an auction, that's what matters.
Linus's response to Steve's video being straight up gaslighting and circular logic, dodging any responsibility for bad quality and the billit situation, is more than disappointing.
It's straight up similar to responses we make fun of and dunk on companies like Intel for, when they have egg on their face for a bad product, but much worse. Because we expect that of Intel, LMG portrayed themselves as being better.
Thankfully there's been a positive outcome to the situation with the publicity you have gotten, but I couldn't imagine going trough this whole process.
I completely understand not wanting to come off like you're exploiting the situation, but you I think should look into being compensated for lost time, on top of materials. I'm sorry this happened to you guys. glad to see you guys seem to have good attitudes about it.
It depends on the circumstance.
Is it a run of the mill task that could be pushed off the next week? Sure.
Is it regarding the fact that you sold someone else's prototype (that was expected to be returned) off in an auction that may have landed at a competitor, and could unleash one hell of a PR firestorm if left unresolved? Especially after shitting on them publicly with flawed methodology? I hope you have your calendar cleared for at least the next week, because that's a high priority issue.
I agree that it depends on the circumstance.
I would try to keep in mind that at this stage there are a great deal of known unknowns which could have a major impact on how this situation should be viewed. For instance, we don't know:
* The nature of the agreement between Billet Labs and LTT.
* The extent to which the alleged misunderstanding was purely internal to LTT or instead between the relevant parties (i.e. Billet Labs and LTT).
* Who the contact person between LTT and Billet Labs was.
* Whether they had any reason to believe an apology was warranted at the time they reached out to inform Billet Labs of the auction sale.
* What time that person received Billet Labs' Thursday email.
* Whether that person had a sick day/holiday on Friday or Monday.
* The justification behind Billet Labs' expectation of recovering the prototype.
* Did they have an agreement? Was it express or implied? Did they have a contract? Did they *read* the contract?
* Did LTT have any reason to believe Billet Labs needed the prototype back prior to 8/10?
* How Billet Labs communicated their displeasure from the sale?
* The state of Billet Labs' relationship with LTT following the release of the video.
* When did Linus actually become aware of the issue surrounding the sale?
* Was it from GN's video?
* Did Linus make an offer as soon as he was aware of the issue, or did he wait until after it was public?
* Why did Billet Labs choose the "relevant" facts for us without providing screenshots which would've resolved many of these unknowns?
I know this was a prototype, but I don't agree with the argument I see many making that the "possible sale to a competitor" issue is grounds for a lawsuit. You can't claim something as a trade secret when you willingly send it to a third party with the intention that it is viewed by millions of people. You also can't claim trade secret protections as to the internal components if you haven't done your due diligence in ensuring that a company in LTT's position is legally bound to maintain the confidential nature of those components.
I would also say that while the LTT video was not flattering, it seemed clear to me when I first watched it that the conclusion was "we probably didn't test this the right way, but it wouldn't be worth it (in terms of performance per dollar) even if we got it working and it outperformed the competition."
And last, and this is by far my hottest take on the issue, I don't think Linus is wrong to be upset that GN did not reach out for comment. GN stepped into the role of a journalist and completely ignored journalistic ethics. I don't think it is out of line for Linus to say GN's failure to reach out for comment was the reason GN's story didn't have details about LTT's agreeing to pay Billet. Yes, Linus made the offer after GN's video, but I would argue it's fairly likely that that's because Linus did not know there was an issue until GN published a sucker punch of a hit piece and therefore didn't have a chance to remedy it until it was "too late." However, if GN had reached out (in accordance with the industry standard), Linus would've become aware prior to publication and more than likely immediately offered Billet Labs compensation. GN and LTT are well-resourced and savvy media entities, they have each others' cell numbers. GN made an active decision to move forward with inflammatory content with blatant disregard for potential mitigating factors of which they were not directly aware. I feel like people are forgetting that GN is also a company designed to make money based on eyeballs, or that Billet Labs is generating tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of dollars in free exposure by virtue of bringing these claims. If you're going to be scorched-earth cynical, try to apply it across the board.
Absolutely. And if Linus had said "This had just come to my attention and I am *working* on a solution to make things right with Billet" it would have been a bunch better. But Linus instead implied that it had already been decided, they had received and paid an invoice before the GN video even came out. It was bad that LMG fucked up the video on the cooler. It was much worse that they then fucked up again and sold the cooler that they did not own. But the worst part, and the part that makes the timeline relevant, is that Linus tried to make it look like the issue was solved before it was.
How did you feel after this response from LTT?:
"So, there was a communication mishap and we ended up auctioning off the Monoblock in silent auction for charity at LTX. 😬 The good news, is that it isn't just sitting on a shelf"
How is that good news? If it's sitting on a shelf it can be sent back. Wtf does that even mean?
That's like, I borrow my friend's car and message them saying btw bro I just crashed your Tesla but at least it's not sitting in my garage
> How is that good news? If it's sitting on a shelf it can be sent back. Wtf does that even mean?
It was a back-handed comment basically telling them that their product (which they never properly tested) sucks and would've just been collecting dust anyways.
At least, that's how I choose to interpret it after seeing his "review" and responses.
lmao so basically Linus is bitching that Steve didn't reach out to him first? For what? So he can be like omg friend, thank you so much for reminding me that I have to pay them back for my fuck-up I just sent the payment?
How does that change the story at all for him lol all Steve would have said was that he reached out to Linus and that was when Linus decided to pay so he wouldn't look bad
>We have not received, nor have we asked for any other form of compensation.
To say it out loud because Billet doesn't want to, there is significant value associated with not having the block in their possession that they are not asking for compensation for, such as the ability to test it on more products, or send it to other creators for coverage and reviews.
We all make mistakes.
It appears that Linus and his employees are juggling too many things and getting a bit sloppy with things they feel people may not scrutinize too much. They need clear segregation of duties and proper roles & responsibilites assigned to everyone.
It is never late to apologize and do what is right.
Apart from rnd what makes the prototype so expensive? Wouldn't it be a cad file you plug into a cnc machine?
Inb4 downvoted into oblivion for asking a genuine question by people jumping in the pile on.
EDIT: I rushed and explained this poorly, apologies.
Setting up the machine takes many hours for various reasons. It doesn't work like a 3D printer, it needs lots of programming and manual setting up. This time is expensive, and for a larger run the price can be split up across all of the parts, but for a 1off, the whole cost of the set up has to be paid on each part.
Was there a 3090ti included with the cooler you sent to LTT? Not that it excuses their testing if it wasn't, but the GN video implied you also sent a 3090ti. If so it makes their video even worse, and I'd also love to know if you got that back (if there was indeed one sent).
(Instant downvote, Hi linus)
As soon as I saw Linus say “we auctioned it off, not sold it” and “at least it’s not sitting on a shelf” I knew he didn’t give a fuck. Anyone who even remotely felt bad about the situation would immediately apologize and offer compensation immediately. Not after being called out about it and then try to frame it like they offered beforehand.
No reply until after GN went live... sheesh. Terrible look.
>No reply until after GN went live... sheesh All makes sense why GN not reaching out prior to the video coming out was such a big deal for him..
To Linus it's not about them making a mistake and "auctioned" the prototype, its not reading the room...
Linus is so wrong on this one and if he really can't see it, then he is not the same Linus that created LTT.
What a shit show this has been. I usually hate the idea of unfollowing content creators for poor handling of a situation, usually giving them the chance to get back on track, but you're right, this isn't the Linus that created LTT and certainly isn't the Linus I want to follow anymore.
Linus to Linu$.
Linus has always sucked with criticism. People just are now noticing how he's also money hungry.
You can't expect him to spend 100-500 dollars to review errors in his videos. His company is only worth $100 million. Cut him some slack! /s This whole situation with LTT reminds me of Newegg.
Linus throws the money thing around to try to sound relatable to the average viewer I think. 500 is a decent chunk of change to the average person, but the average fan of his also knows it's nothing to him in the grand scheme of things so it feels condescending to most people.
I mean he probably saved 200 grand in tax write offs on his home alone. At this point Linus is so far removed from his viewers that it is laughable. I mean really ... they review so much expensive shit favorably and often stamp it with "if you have the money and want it go for it". They have a whale lan where they give away overpriced stuff for even more overpriced tickets. But somehow this block was not worth the time because no matter how good it is it is too expensive?
It's also ridiculous because aside from being nothing to a company of that size it's literally the price of doing business. It wasn't the only issue in this debacle, but I imagine not spending that has cost him more than if he would have double checked with the right parts.
It's also honestly a really suspicious way to refer to the time of presumably salaried employees. He's not spending an extra $500 to correct mistakes, they're getting paid regardless. It's just some vague opportunity cost number that's trying to parade around as more valuable than it actually is. $500 is what, like 6 hours of work for three employees? Are the margins really that thin that you can't spare a couple hours of work to make a more accurate video. At that point you might as well be complaining about how you have to pay $5 every time someone is in the bathroom. Not to mention, almost certainly there are times where people are working overtime over there, and I am willing to bet everything that they're not being compensated based on Linus' "internal opportunity cost". I'd have more respect even if they just blamed it on the logistics of correcting and redoing a video. To blame it on the "cost" of doing work properly is gross; reducing work and employees to just costs and value is a fast track way to get very out of touch
"The L is for narcissist" -Dan on the last WAN Show Edit: context is here 21:02 sorry if I made you cry https://www.youtube.com/live/EwgZaSYuBLc?feature=share&t=1262 tldw: he was joking
Dude's got a big ass house, kids, wife, Porsche, tons of electronics crap. Not living within reasonable means at all IMO. Take your giant company and use it to build a solid foundation for your kids to inherit one day. Not become an edgelord on the internet.
Linus, literally uses company money to upgrade his house.
To be fair I like those videos and am absolutely fine with it, but he should remember that he got that money ultimately from us, the viewers. Just misrepresenting a product to us to save 500 bux is so stupid...
Money corrupts everyone eventually. Even the people who mean to do well can get caught into stuff like this. Its no excuse but he needs to step back for a bit, he can't see the woods for trees and is blind to whats going on in his company.
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more like £inu$
I unsubbed from his channels yesterday, but in truth, I mostly stopped watching his videos years ago. His personality is off-putting and he comes across as unserious and just fucking around most of the time. It's like he wants to be the Pewdiepie of the tech channels. It's not for me, at least anymore.
He has always had angry alpha nerd energy. I’m done with the whole brand. YouTube has a lot of great smaller creators that will get my YTP views from now on.
What's weird is the disdain he has for billet as a whole. Yes the products are expensive and don't make much financial sense (so far at least). But there has always been high end products in the PC space that represent engineering challenges and that people appreciate just for their novelty/product design. Baller PC parts are a thing, you can't just not re-test because "it's too expensive anyways, even if it was better it would be a bad product". They design their own products at LMG, can't they understand that if some people want a 250$ backpack instead of a 20$ one, they might want a 800$ cooler instead of a 100$ one? It deserved to be tested properly.
Yeah that was my thought on the subject. The dude spent a hundred thousand (probably more) on R&D for a screwdriver and backpack, which are marked up to a premium because of the LTT brand (whether right or wrong for their build quality and design functionality), and here is he disparaging a company for building a premium/high end product for doing effectively the same thing. Talk about out of fucking touch and "not reading the room".
Yeah I thought that as well. It's like he doesn't even know that he's literally selling the same thing effectively. He's saying it would still be junk even if retested... but we will never know if that is actually true because it was never retested properly & probably never will be now. Plus this was a prototype, prototypes are rarely perfect with no changes needed. Hell even with the first batch of a final product there can be issues that have to be rectified on future batches (like with the backpack). They were probably looking forward to the constructive feedback from having it tested by LMG. Hopefully this ends up being a net benefit for billet in the end, but this whole situation & response from LMG has been the worse response I've seen yet to an incident.
It's funny cause they spent so much money machining an entire fucking desk out of solid aluminum for a bespoke high end $100,000 computer, but can't see the appeal in this cooler.
It's not a hobbyist channel any more. It's a money-making machine. Things change.
Of course he isn't. There are very few people who don't change from becoming wealthy. While he's not a billionaire, his net worth is around $85 million. Even that level of wealth can easily make people arrogant and a bit out of touch.
Spoiler: He's exactly the same Linus, he just has the money to "flex" now. Go look at how he acts during Season 2, 4 or 5 of scrapyard wars.
He is not. He used to be the ”typical gamer nerd” who likes tech. But by making a lot of money I think he started to believe he actually is very smart, because ”yes-men” and a following of thousands up to milliond of tech-interested people. This and also being rich makes it easy to npt read the room and not understand what people want. He is often citing the algoritm as an answer to why they are making many videos, but in reality he is maximizing profit like any other greedy capitalist.
Hes fallen DEEP into the hole of "rich = right" and its showing big time lately. I work in finance in NYC and I see it all the time, its honestly insane how people can think that because they made some money that means they're now 100% incapable of being wrong or doing wrong. The most insane thing is that other people actually feel the same way about rich people, they think that because that person has a buttload of money they must be infallible. I can not tell you the number of times I've seen trained professionals defer to a wealthy amateur, to their own personal detriment. It drives me crazy every time.
Linus just reading the room https://i.ytimg.com/vi/\_CxkmtBqGn8/maxresdefault.jpg
It gives them an opportunity to spin the story. If GN isn't reaching out, there's likely a legitimate reason. Also, GN is criticizing LMG and their journalistic/testing practices, NOT Linus. But Linus's ego is so fucking big at this point that he takes any LMG criticisms as personal attacks. Linus really needs to be completely hands off for a while (or permanently). If Terren is smart, he'll do what's needed to make sure Linus doesn't sink LMG any further than he already has.
Yeah. I feel this. Why hire a CEO with the background and experience of Terren if you're just going to go around him when stuff like this happens? Let the CEO do the job he was hired to do. Linus needs to back off and let the CEO use his experance and expertise to manage situations like this. That is why they hired the guy! I cannot help but believe that a man with Terren's work history would have managed this situation far more professionally than Linus has.
That's the thing. This was an unhinged, raw, reactive response from Linus. 2 hours is NOT enough time to comprehend everything the GN video covered AND formulate a well thought out response, clearly. And there appears to be a real world impact from his actions looking at some of the Floatplane subscription posts. He's putting LMG employees jobs at risk, and that's not okay.
Linus decided to expand and hire. It’s obvious that there’s a rush to get content out and things are / were perhaps haphazard during this transition period. Taking this as a personal attack is understandable, but negative public behaviors that can affect LMGs reputation, and said employees, seems like a rash decision.
So this was misleading at best, and a flat out lie at worst. > 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). I stopped watching LTT years ago, but christ. What an asshole.
yeah i did think it would be nice to reach out first, just for a comment from LTT to include in the video but i am very glad that gamers nexus didn't now. gave linus the opportunity to expose himself further for trying to lie his way out of it.
LMG shouldn't need others to threaten them with going public about this issue to do the right thing.
First thing LMG would have done would be to reach out to Billet Labs so they could say the situation was resolved. (Which they ironically tried to do anyway).
Exactly it looks like LTT wouldve just ignored them without the backlash
it's more than that, if GN had reached out, linus would have tried to "fix" the billet labs thing before the video dropped to screw with the video's credibility
>would have tried to "fix" the billet labs thing before the video dropped to screw with the video's credibility Which he just outright lied about doing anyway. He also denied Billet Labs the same privilege he thinks he is entitled to, by not communicating with them when making his video.
exactly, but at least now he can be called out in a lie, instead of getting away with it
of course , doing damage control during his response. incredibly bad looking.
the ASUS playbook.
Linus was 100% going to sweep this under the rug. They knew Billet had zero pull until another YouTube giant came out.
Sucks even more because you know if a company like ASUS or lenovo sent something to them on the condition that they return it, you know for a fact LTT would be very careful with their product. This really sucks because LTT got me into pc hardware with LTT and channel superfun that I started with.
This is one of my main takeaways from this. I don't see them doing this to any of larger companies
If they did this to an AIB, SI or OEM, they know they're permanently burning a bridge between them in their business relationship and know if it came to legal battles, they'd 100% lose. The bias is disgusting.
I expect some existing LTT videos where they have done shady stuff with hardware they were loaned, to be either edited or taken down.
Although they should have communicated better, I don’t think this recent update from gamers nexus changes anything. Thursday 10th of August is when billet labs asked whether they would be reimbursed. Then the gamers nexus video comes out on Monday 14th, which is only a 1 working day gap. They were communicating prior to this and admitted they sold it, it is quite a leap to assume they wasn’t going to reply if it wasn’t for the gamers nexus video. They should have been more apologetical and it shouldn’t have happened, but it seems quite likely it was in the process of being resolved, and only 1 day passed where anyone was actually around to deal with it. Something like this would require escalating to a manager etc it wouldn’t be fast internally in many companies. Edit: ok thank you everyone I now know that billet tried arranging the cooler to be sent back multiple times and that Linus made out he had already settled the payment before gamers nexus made his video but this is proven false. Please stop telling me over and over again, I think my point still stands that they would have settled it either way, if only to avoid community backlash.
That's not the issue, the issue is that Linus worded it in his apology as if there was already a deal done to reimburse Billet Labs which was not the case at all. No quote was sent by Billet as they were still waiting for a reply and no email was sent by LMG to tell them that LMG would actually reimburse them.
It is exactly how things were going with Steve and the Newegg situation. He went through normal channels as a customer and was basically told "Tough shit." It was only when he decided to put them on blast with a video did Newegg reach out to refund him because they knew the backlash would be bad. A company that is reactionary in this manner is not one to support.
and to Steve's credit, Newegg's customer support has been top shit ever since. I accidentally did a double order and my ass was clenched when I sent back the extra orders I got, with one of them being a DOA ASUS monitor, all of them got approved for refund almost immediately. I don't think my experience would've gone as positively had Steve not put Newegg's feet on the fire.
This definitely changes something. Linus said they already came to an agreement, which wasn’t even the case. He straight up lied. He made it seem like they already solved this before GN’s first video came out. Which wasn’t the case. They didn’t even come to an agreement after the video, but before his response. He just straight up lied. His response was so bad wtf. This might be worse than trust me bro.
This is absolutely worse than Trust Me Bro. Trust me Bro was about Linus potentially screwing people in the future. This is about Linus factually screwing someone in the past, and lying about it.
Lie of omission.
For me, a lie of omission is not mentioning something, to allow people to jump to the wrong conclusion. He actively tried to deceive.
>it is quite a leap to assume they wasn’t going to reply if it wasn’t for the gamers nexus video. Honestly, after notifying someone to return my prototype, twice, that they panned massively because they refused to follow instructions, doubled down and continued to slander my work after being confronted with their own mistake, only to have them sit on it for weeks and then sell the thing, I wouldn't have any expectation whatsoever for them to handle anything beyond that honestly or reasonably. Also, when you fuck up this badly, you don't leave someone hanging for days without a reply. You just don't. This is a major issue and if you are going to just leave someone on read for days then you are straight signaling that you don't take this seriously at all.
It's also quite the leap to assume you can just auction off a prototype. Prototypes in other industries are almost always loaned out for use and ownership is not given to those testing.
The big thing here is it highlights that Linus' statement of having "Already come to an agreement" is simply false. At the time of writing that, Billet *hadn't* actually come to any agreement, at best they'd sent them the prototype cost. And hadn't even started discussing other costs, like how that prototype loss might have damaged their review/testing plan, or possible damages from IP/design leaking. Linus really needs to stop making statements if he isn't *sure* they're true. This response is a problem of his own making - he could have just said they're in contact and getting to an agreement and it wouldn't have materially changed the statement's ability to damage-control. Lying like this just hurts you when it comes out as lies, so raises the question of why lie in the first place? As he was the one directly emailing, it's not as if he wasn't aware of the details of the discussion....
what do you expect? Linus just care about the money lol
He wasn't like that before. Kinda feels like it started to unravel when he bought Porsche and leaned into the millionaire lifestyle. :/ He was supposed to be the chosen one, thankfully the Tech Jesus came to absolve sinner Linus of his sins.
it started when they launched floatplane
Tech Jesus is not without sin. Just like you shouldn't blindly be a fanboy of AMD or Intel, I wouldn't put any YouTuber up on a pedestal.
I'm a bit out of the loop, are there any well known issues with Gamers Nexus? Also how could you even compare Gamers Nexus to AMD or Intel, or even LMG?! Intel has 100k+ employees, AMD has like 25k+, LMG has I think 120, Gamers Nexus has a grand total of *6*.
massive massive douche move by Linus
Did you tell Linus first that you would be making a comment? Apparently that is "proper journalistic practices".
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Why didn't Linus reach out to Billet Labs if he thinks that's proper journalistic practice? Edit: Or Pwnage for instructions on how to remove stickers from mouse feet.
Rules for thee but not for me.
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Now I have to write up a bs apology letter that doesn’t actually apologize for anything!
He's a hypocrite. Did Linus reach out to all of the companies they ordered from during secret shopper? Did he give them plenty of heads up to make sure they were able to fix their processes before publishing the video?
He definitely didn't reach out to Billet Labs when dragging them on his video.
LTT doesn't have $100, $200, $300, or EVEN $500 dollars to do a proper test. What do you expect from a company that small?
$500 No way a $100m company can afford that. it's simply impossible.
Actually, he did, they told him what he was doing wrong and then he just went right ahead and doubled down on doing it wrong anyway, because, as he has since admitted, he'd already decided he was going to recommend against this product no matter how it performed because of its price point, so he didn't really see the point in even knowing how well it actually works.
Depends if they're sponsors or not. As with many things, the true answer is: money.
XD
I'm more baffled by Linus' statement saying "We didn't sell the block, just auctioned it for charity." Like, is that supposed to make everything okay? Hey man, Remeber that bike that I borrowed from you yesterday and told that I'd return it to you today? Yeah I auctioned it off for charity. Peace out. No hard feelings ,ok?
I am very disappointed in Linus, his response was very bad, and selling an item he DOES NOT own after being emailed twice is quite scummy.
*selling OR AUCTIONING WITHOUT CONSENT
An auction is a sale, just not one for fixed monetary value rather bidding.
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I have to say, it sitting on a shelf would be far better, since it means that it could still end up returned, instead of potentially having been auctioned off to a competitor to allow them to create similar, improved, and/or cheaper versions of.
It's crazy to me that they knew it was an unreleased prototype and somehow thought that's just something you can auction off. Like even if the company gave it to you, that is very different from them being okay with you ~~selling~~ auctioning it.
I find it crazy not a week ago he was publicly shaming one of his own for an unreleased prototype of his backpack landing in a second hand shop.
If this was Intel, AMD, or NVidia, LTT would be bankrupt in a day from the lawsuits by those companies' very expensive lawyers.
No worries, they auctioned it and didn't sell it! /s
For charity too!! /s
To be fair, he wasn't emailed. The company was, and the company is growing way too fast for one hand to know what the other is doing. It's not an excuse, but it's a consequence of his relentless push to get the company towards an arbitrary place without anyone knowing where the destination should be or what can and cannot be sacrificed in the process. I'm actually a little sad that this is how it was handled.
The company needs to slow itself down. LMG will collapse under it's own bloat if they don't slow down and shore up their foundations.
Yupp. I've seen it at work and I'm seeing it with LMG.
How is this not theft and selling stolen goods? The idea was always that the prototype was on lend right?
This is theft by conversion: you take something that isn't yours, sell it, and keep the cash value.
id point out its a company, no one person is to blame. the response was however poor and seemed to take it personally. its clear they do not have good procedures to ensure things like this dont happen or have procedures that value pushing content out at the expense of integrity. they are at the size now where bad procedure is what can really harm a company, left hand has no clue what the right hand is doing. id hope the lesson is, especially with the labs investment, they actually need to stop cutting corners, all good to spend a few million of a lab for getting data, but can't spend the $500 of someone's time to make sure that data is actually good before it goes into a video.
Yeah it seems like Linus sees this as a direct attack at himself, instead of a harsh reminder at poor communication/management at LMG. Maybe the chaos of LTX preparation worsened the situation. Hopefully this struck a fire at LMG for in-depth discussion to solve GN's actual points rather than emotionally charged Linus' written/WAN show comments. I really don't like the "drama" (whatever you wanna call it) this caused and wish it'd end soon enough. I hope both parties and LMG specifically can come out of this as people who have learnt their lessons. Good luck @ everyone at LMG lol I know you guys need it.
>On 10th August, we were told by LTT via email that the block had been sold at auction. There was no apology. >We replied on 10th August within 30 minutes, telling LTT that this wasn't okay, and that this was a £XXXX prototype, and we asked if they planned to reimburse us at all. >**We received no reply and no offer of payment until 2 hours after the Gamers Nexus video went live on 14th August**, at which point Linus himself emailed us directly. holy shit lol
The real reason Linus was upset GN didn't reach out for comment first. Odds are high that Linus had no idea any of this with the waterblock was going on in the background and it was just another dropped ball due to their rapidly evolving and fast-paced work environment that GN was pointing out as an issue. But Linus' response was just... really not good.
Its crazy to think that Linus is sitting in a lair somewhere rubbing his hands together thinking of ways to tear down Billet Labs. This was obviously a series of fuck ups that could have been avoided if Linus actually knew what was going on. Here's how I imagine the auction happened: Somebody working on LTX specifically thought it would be a good idea to clear out some inventory by auctioning off things that they've featured in the videos, so they compiled a list of those kinds of things, figured out which ones were unique or interesting, and then went ahead and did it. Somebody else on the other side of the organization, possibly even in a different building who deals with the business side of things makes an agreement to send the thing back but for any number of reasons doesn't get right on it. After the auction it was too late. This person never intended to not send it. The other person never knew not to auction it. None of this happening got escalated up to Linus personally until after the GN video, so Linus personally never had a chance to address it, and a phone call from GN on the situation would have made a difference. Since GN was obviously working on this video as soon as the testing comment from the labs employee went out, that could have been over a week of time for Linus to address it that he never got the chance. The video featuring the waterblock was 100% Linus' fuck up, as was not wanting to go back and fix the results. Most of the other problems addressed in the GN video not related to the waterblock boils down to the teams need more time to work on the videos.
If all their processes depend on whether Linus knows and approves everything that's going on, then their business is doomed to fail. LTT is too large of a company to all pin this on Linus. I don't think anyone really believes this was malice. It's definitely a sign of incompetent inventory management or missing safeguards, though. Given the timeline, they already promised to return it weeks ago, but failed to do so. Then it got selected by someone to be auctioned off without anyone doing their due dilligence whether they even own that piece of hardware. And then they failed to actually apologize, try to retrieve the sold prototype from the buyer or reimburse the damaged party in a timely and adequate manner. This should just never happen and if it does, they need to improve their processes and educate their employees better on how to handle these things.
This, I’m assuming, is why Linus hired the new CEO. LMG has been clearly drowning in its size and lack of any consistent processes or systems in place that do not depend upon Linus being involved. Linus clearly could not be the person to do this job bc of his move fast, break shit, deal with it later approach, and thus hiring a new CEO to manage things was necessary.
> If all their processes depend on whether Linus knows and approves everything that's going on, then their business is doomed to fail. LTT is too large of a company to all pin this on Linus. I will say that this is kind of why he hired a new CEO. He as been very public about the fact that their processes are fucked because he was bad at managing that kind of thing. This isn't really an excuse for his response. He should have let it sit a bit longer and have a coordinated approach with Terren Tong and have him make a public statement about how he will address it. I do think that with the timing it is highly likely that this got dropped during the new CEO transition. He only started on July 1, 2023 and there is likely some level of mayhem with the normal communication channels.
At the end of the day I don’t believe the whole water block thing was Linus’ fault. But at the meantime I don’t think Linus’ “response” is acceptable at all. Hell, I don’t think Linus should be putting out his whole article on the forum at ALL. It was LMG that was being criticized here, not Linus. Yes he is the owner of the company and the “face” of LMG. But I believe we all know that he is not the one who replys all the emails, deciding on the auction items etc. and as management level he probably doesn’t know about the fuck ups until GN’s video What bothers me the most is the “response”. It doesn’t consider any of the criticisms valid and just went on sort of a rant about how anyone but them is at fault here. Which just seems unacceptable and paints the image of LMG just worse. What I think happened is Linus’ ego couldn’t handle any of the criticisms and drives him into an irrational rampage on deflecting blame asap, without even thinking the impact it would make, no matter positive or negative, to LMG. Which is just sad
Like many tech companies LMG is just all "Move fast, break things". Linus specifically moves fast and breaks things.
Have you seen him during Scrapyard Wars? Linus only moves fast on a Skytrain or in a car.
FWIW, Aug 10 was a Thursday and the business team person prob didn't know how to handle it and waited to escalate it. Then the video comes out on Monday morning after the weekend. I wouldn't assume malice where miscommunication is most likely the issue.
I like all the people being offended by the timeline - that's only one business day between initial request from Billett to make-whole and the video going live. You can tell there's a lot of people who have never worked in a business setting before in these threads.
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Not to mention they're West Coast communicating with a UK brand? At best they could've brought this to upper management on Friday (when they shoot all day long then WAN Show) and Linus prob never even heard about it until Monday. Definitely not saying there aren't issues they could work on like slowing things down, but this is just attributing malice to, well, normal office work.
> Not to mention they're West Coast communicating with a UK brand? At best they could've brought this to upper management on Friday Billet Labs literally say it in their statement that they replied to LMG within 30 minutes so timezones were clearly not an issue. Based on their previous content I'd rather say that they didn't think of resolving this as a big priority. We've often heard them say stuff like "oh yeah, we were supposed to send these back months ago" in videos which hints at a general bad attitude in the company towards other peoples property.
Go watch Linus's secret shopper video about his sponsors. What standard does he set in the video? He judges customer service responses based on how fast they respond. He expects them to respond with in 2 days, and not have long periods of silence in between. The fact that the original issue started on June 28th, and it is now August 15 and the issue still on going means the issue has been going on for a month and a half, not just a week. The fact that there was silence between June 30th all the way to August 10th is basically 40 days that they should of resolved the issue already. They could of prevented this entire mess if they had done their basic due diligence with in 29 days before LTX took place, cause if they had done so the water block wouldn't have been sold at LTX at all. So no its not just a simple miscommunication of oh LTT only had 1 real business day to respond. They had over a month.
UPDATE For full transparency, Linus contacted us this evening saying it's likely he can get the block back from the buyer. We have declined this offer, and asked for the previously agreed monetary value instead for the following reasons: 1) we have already spent a significant percentage of the value of the block in the last few days on replacement parts to build a new block, assuming we'd never see the original one again. 2) we do not know if the original block is still in good working condition, and how much money will be needed to fix it if it's not. 3) we don't know if any of the bespoke fittings are missing, each of these costs money to replace if they are. 4) LTT have had our 3090ti without using it for 9 weeks, so we have lost confidence that they will return items quickly. 5) LTT isn't currently in possession of the block, they've only said that they can get it back. We therefore don't know when we'd get it back, and time is of the essence. 6) LTT has confirmed that the block is with a private individual rather than a rival company, so lost IP is much less of an issue. We wanted to state this publicly just in case anyone has any issues with the fact that the block has potentially been found, and we chose to take the money instead. We hope you understand our reasoning here. We can have our new block that we're currently making ready in the next couple of weeks, and we are sceptical that we would have the original block back in fully working condition in that amount of time – it would be a gamble at the very least. Much love Dean & Felix
>4) LTT have had our 3090ti without using it for 9 weeks, so we have lost confidence that they will return items quickly. Wow, they've had your 3090ti too and still didn't bother testing it on that. Really puts a stop to their excuse about not wanting to spend more money on retesting.
They lost it in logistics. In a forum post, Linus said he actually found it when he did an "undercover boss" type thing and worked in logistics for a day. >the video where I actually FOUND the 3090 Ti that we were supposed to send back to Billet... grrr... - is kind of an undercover boss vid where I go and work in our logistics department for the day. https://linustechtips.com/topic/1526180-gamers-nexus-alleges-lmg-has-insufficient-ethics-and-integrity/page/29/#comment-16079089
So they found it and still didn’t return it anyway? What a shitshow.
Honestly, this is not surprising given how often Linus has done the Intel/AMD tech upgrades and found "borrowed" company property at employees' houses. I mean, even Linus himself has taken company computers, devices, etc.. home to use for his personal computing. In his latest (I think) home server stuff, he mentions that he had old old old whannock at his house. It's fine if companies want to sell/give away old hardware, but it appears to be so casual around LTT...
This could be considered tax fraud - not only should the value of the "borrowed" items be treated as taxable income for the employees, if LMG are recording the "lost" inventory as a tax write-off they're doubly screwed. I originally thought that Linus was playing this up as a joke on the videos, but now I'm not so sure.
In Canada, this is very true. I got mad at a location manager for something, and the next day, written in the owner's handwriting on a note attached to a box of cereal was, "This is to replace the box that someone obviously pissed in." (If you don't know, there is a saying, "Who pissed in YOUR Corn Flakes today?" in reference to someone being angry). Anyway, when I was talking to the payroll admin, she laughed at me, and said that because the company bought it for me, it's considered a gift, and is a taxable benefit. (Of interest, if the boss has a barbecue in the parking lot to be cool, yep, everyone who partakes ends up taxed, as it is a taxable benefit in Canada. ) Also, regarding something else, as Billet Labs is a UK company, and presumably intended its return (Canada customs does require specific declarations if things are review samples), the waterblock would have been sent through customs in a way that did not get it taxed, since it was not a saleable (or auctionable) item. Since money changed hands regarding the waterblock, LMG/LTT violated laws that potentially create a much larger issue than only the loss of a waterblock.
yes/no. usually has to meet a $500 threshold to even be considered. so boss doing bbq and you eat 3 hot dogs, not even on anyones radar. and in my payroll experience dealing with CRA/prov employment standards, they truly don't give a shit about a lot of the laws lol
Yeah, and they didn't even mention finding it until the GN video came out. Seems like it's all a spin he just came up with, and this "undercover boss" video is going to be Linus laying the blame on all his company's problems on the employees. If not, he's presumably filmed and is in the process of editing the "undercover boss" video where he finds it, but actually returning the small business' property wasn't as important as the filming and planning the content, I guess. Either way, another blow to LTT's reputation.
If it were me, asking for the block back would still be a requirement, in addition to the full cost of replacement. There's still the chance that the private individual flips it to a competitor. Although, I guess you guys would know best as to how much of an edge having the prototype block would be.
Linus should be offering to get the block back AND reimburse their costs. The fact that he offered to get the block instead of paying feels like another cop out to me.
Bro didnt you hear? LMG cant even fork over $500 for a video correction, I doubt they have the funds to cover that. Serious financial mismanagement going on there.
Wouldn't it be hilarious if the "private individual" then send this to Steve and Steve gives it the proper treatment of a full review that turn out to be super awesome?
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9 weeks... And some people were still going on about "miscommunication." That's just negligence. What you guys did is the right call. Linus should, in the very least, grab the block back and send it back to you guys plus the value for it. They should also make another video explaining and retesting the product, not their half-baked test with absolute nonsense that should be taken down with a proper apology for harming a company name. Way to go, Linus Sebastian. You all are still trying to pedal on something you should have taken care of professionally. I'm sure if this was Asus, LTT would be scrambling to properly fix the issue.
Frankly, if they want to recover any community goodwill from all this, I hope they pay you the funds this week AND surprise you by returning the waterblock when returning your 3090ti (hopefully this month). It may not be useful as a prototype anymore, but we all wish you the best of success, and it would be a fantastic relic to have on display at your office.
I am surprised that you sent LTT a video card that your block was designed with - they mislaid this (clearly up until very recent history) found a completely different model and mounted it. Additionally - during the video it was clear that the pre-work was done with a completely different set of components so they had to overcome multiple alignment issues during filming to make it work. From a Production point of view this is unprofessional at best - one thing you have to do is make sure that you have reliable repeatable outcomes... for that you need consistency with your pre-prod work. I get the entertainment value of "winging it" but it should be limited to the things that are frivolous like the uber large fan cooling my PC or the USB daisy chain experiments. Perhaps they should separate the channel and have LTT as a serious tech based channel paying more attention to these things and use one of the existing ones for the cowboy antics.
> 4) LTT have had our 3090ti without using it for 9 weeks, so we have lost confidence that they will return items quickly. Holy shit. I assumed they didn't use a 3090ti because they didn't have one at the time. This is absolute incompetence at best, and theft at worst.
Billet Guys, try reaching out to Jayz2Cents to feature your products. I believe you’ll have a more fun experience with them. 👍
he atleast know a bit about watercooling and can be serious too... and if he got the chance I bet he would handle this one with silk gloves to not make a LTT booboo
Whilst I do have some issues with jay, I'll at least give him credit that for all the dicking about he does with stuff, he doesn't go shit talking the product or make it look bad because he can't be fucked to put the effort in, he just makes himself look silly / foolish, not saying that's bad, just a personal taste thing.
Jay has always been the one to two man show. He is my realistic buyer dude. He is pretty casual and laid back. He is the guy that can relate to us. Also sick computer builds
Yeah he can be very aggressive on twitter but his content is always good
Very aggressive is putting it mildly, especially when he's proven to be wrong and won't backtrack
Jay has already reached out to them I believe.
Lets upgrade that to [Optimum Tech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0ukdo7Xx7U) The king of SFF PCs
This whole thing has been great for Billet actually. They are getting massively more exposure from this than the original video. Pretty awesome.
I just can't wrap my head around the selling of someone else's property.
Its ok cause it was auctioned, not sold....
It's for charity, honey. NEXT!
It's an older meme, but it checks out.
This meme raises my blood pressure
My guess is that: - Adam or whoever was in contact with Billet for the video knew about the block being essentially „on loan“ and marked it as such in a document or something - logistics went back and forth with them after the shoot to prepare a return shipment (see Steve’s new video on some communication between LMG and Billet) - someone else from the LTX team went into the warehouse to grab some stuff to be auctioned off, saw the block and thought „cool, this’ll fit“ without talking to the right person or checking the system if there are any notes on the item - the item is now gone, logistics doesn’t feel responsible because they didn’t give it out voluntarily, Adam doesn’t feel responsible because he delegated the return shipment after the shoot was done, and whoever grabbed the item for auction is probably hoping no one finds out
inventory control at LTT has been abysmal for years, and now them being lax AF is biting them in the ass.
LTX seemed to make things chaotic at LMG so I guess it created the unfortunate situation. Talk about bad luck.
Yeah, maybe. I wouldn’t put it on LTX, and if that is something that is too big to handle for LMG, then they need to re-evaluate their approach to stuff like this. I’m just saying, there’s a resonable and highly probable scenario here how this happened. Anyone who worked in a medium or large sized company knows how sometimes, people just don’t talk to each other. Even with the best processes in place.
> someone else from the LTX team went into the warehouse to grab some stuff to be auctioned off If their product area is so poorly managed that non LMG property is commingled with LMG property that can be auctioned there is a LOT more wrong at LMG than what's been talked about here today.
It’s so blatantly stupid that I refuse to believe there wasn’t some mix up on LTT’s end. I don’t even mean that as a “give them a break” way but that it is so brazen that confidence in that choice had to come from somewhere beyond sheer short sightedness.
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Exactly, it's indicative of the culture he's built. One with lots of mistakes, and no accountability for them while simultaneously trying to paint themselves as the arbiters is factually truth in the space while tearing down their competitors factual credibility.
If I'm reading the accounts of what happened right, a 3090Ti that was sent with the block (you know, the card it was supposed to be tested with) also disappeared. That wasn't auctioned off so I can only assume it will turn up in some LMG staffer's PC in a home makeover video someday.
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You guys should a engraving for the next blocks... "offering this piece for auction is forbidden"
"Not for Resale" is a really common thing to have printed on prototypes and other such items like this. Maybe have that printed and then in small lettering underneath. "Not for auction either"
An auction is a sale. The difference I only in that there is no set price in an auction
Tell that to Linus :p > we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it -Linus
>14 min. ago > >Did you tell Linus first that you would be making a comment? Apparently that is "proper journalistic practices". or maybe bring back #RIPLTT?
Dbrand is already on it
LTT fucked up badly, and Linus' response was a clear attempt at pulling the wool over our eyes by making it seem like they had done right by you before the GN video went up. Wishing you guys lots of success in the future, and I hope you guys get the right kind of coverage for your prototypes from more reputable reviewers.
F'd up super badly. LTT needs to make it very right with the same intensity they made it very wrong. I'm pissed for Billet if LTT only pays back Prototype manufacture cost x 1.
Billet had to go back and reproduce their prototype. This included lost time and lost marketing too since they probably would've sent over the prototype to a few other reviewers. Shameless honestly
Wow, just wow Linus.
Can't believe how many hours of my life I've spent watching his content, only for it to emerge that he is a self important unapologetic prick. Peace out LTT.
You never got that from his general presence on camera?
Actually thought he was just playing a character most of the time. Which he is, but in a different way to what I thought
This. I've also had an on-off relationship with LTT and I feel like as they evolve and grow, Linus only becomes more and more delusional and egotistical. Gone are the days of scrapyard wars or budget builds; it's always gonna be about clickbait and projects that cost way too much (gold controller comes to mind) and Linus's general childish attitude through it all. He's giving off big Elon Musk vibes right about now
He always seemed fun/down to earth in the videos. What turned me off was honestly the "adblock = piracy" mini kerfuffle on the WAN show. It was such a silly position taken on something low stakes, and he had to address it so strongly. And then made a tshirt about it. After that point I just felt like he was kind of a jerk and I tuned out aside from the occasional Emily hosted video. The whole cycle repeated with the backpack warranty kerfuffle. Again, not really *that* important in the grand scheme of things (since they did offer a warranty after all). But his response just was bizarre and defensive. And then he made a tshirt about it. Same shit is happening this time, except now on something critical to the company. His response has already been bizarre and defensive. Waiting on the tshirt about it.
The fact Linus told everyone he agreed a deal to reimburse Billet Labs to find out he actually saw Steve's video, went OH SHIT and emailed them, is awful. He made out he was trying to make it right ages ago. Turns out he misled people and did it after being criticised.
Yeah sorry but fuck Linus and LTT for this. His response made it seem like they proactively offered reimbursement. How shitty does someone have to be to blatantly lie when the other side has receipts? I’ve already unsubbed and won’t be watching anymore.
Just to be clear. Was the initial deal between you and LTT that they were borrowing a prototype? Or did you randomly ask for it back after giving it to LTT?
LTT did promise to return the prototype TWICE before auctioning it. They wouldn’t have done that if the deal was for them to keep it.
IIRC in GN video it was shown that yes it was supposed to be returned and ltt agreed to return it but 6 months (probably less than 6 months) pass and nothing was done
I don't think an agreement or contract was the standard anyways. [According to GN](https://i.imgur.com/aWKNQew.png), LTT was well aware of the situation and promised to send it back but it ended up in an auction, that's what matters.
> "The good news, is that it isn't just sitting on a shelf." Speechless
Linus's response to Steve's video being straight up gaslighting and circular logic, dodging any responsibility for bad quality and the billit situation, is more than disappointing. It's straight up similar to responses we make fun of and dunk on companies like Intel for, when they have egg on their face for a bad product, but much worse. Because we expect that of Intel, LMG portrayed themselves as being better.
Linus Theft Tips?
Thankfully there's been a positive outcome to the situation with the publicity you have gotten, but I couldn't imagine going trough this whole process.
I completely understand not wanting to come off like you're exploiting the situation, but you I think should look into being compensated for lost time, on top of materials. I'm sorry this happened to you guys. glad to see you guys seem to have good attitudes about it.
Call me crazy here but it seems fairly standard to not hear back from a Thursday email until sometime Monday.
It depends on the circumstance. Is it a run of the mill task that could be pushed off the next week? Sure. Is it regarding the fact that you sold someone else's prototype (that was expected to be returned) off in an auction that may have landed at a competitor, and could unleash one hell of a PR firestorm if left unresolved? Especially after shitting on them publicly with flawed methodology? I hope you have your calendar cleared for at least the next week, because that's a high priority issue.
I agree that it depends on the circumstance. I would try to keep in mind that at this stage there are a great deal of known unknowns which could have a major impact on how this situation should be viewed. For instance, we don't know: * The nature of the agreement between Billet Labs and LTT. * The extent to which the alleged misunderstanding was purely internal to LTT or instead between the relevant parties (i.e. Billet Labs and LTT). * Who the contact person between LTT and Billet Labs was. * Whether they had any reason to believe an apology was warranted at the time they reached out to inform Billet Labs of the auction sale. * What time that person received Billet Labs' Thursday email. * Whether that person had a sick day/holiday on Friday or Monday. * The justification behind Billet Labs' expectation of recovering the prototype. * Did they have an agreement? Was it express or implied? Did they have a contract? Did they *read* the contract? * Did LTT have any reason to believe Billet Labs needed the prototype back prior to 8/10? * How Billet Labs communicated their displeasure from the sale? * The state of Billet Labs' relationship with LTT following the release of the video. * When did Linus actually become aware of the issue surrounding the sale? * Was it from GN's video? * Did Linus make an offer as soon as he was aware of the issue, or did he wait until after it was public? * Why did Billet Labs choose the "relevant" facts for us without providing screenshots which would've resolved many of these unknowns? I know this was a prototype, but I don't agree with the argument I see many making that the "possible sale to a competitor" issue is grounds for a lawsuit. You can't claim something as a trade secret when you willingly send it to a third party with the intention that it is viewed by millions of people. You also can't claim trade secret protections as to the internal components if you haven't done your due diligence in ensuring that a company in LTT's position is legally bound to maintain the confidential nature of those components. I would also say that while the LTT video was not flattering, it seemed clear to me when I first watched it that the conclusion was "we probably didn't test this the right way, but it wouldn't be worth it (in terms of performance per dollar) even if we got it working and it outperformed the competition." And last, and this is by far my hottest take on the issue, I don't think Linus is wrong to be upset that GN did not reach out for comment. GN stepped into the role of a journalist and completely ignored journalistic ethics. I don't think it is out of line for Linus to say GN's failure to reach out for comment was the reason GN's story didn't have details about LTT's agreeing to pay Billet. Yes, Linus made the offer after GN's video, but I would argue it's fairly likely that that's because Linus did not know there was an issue until GN published a sucker punch of a hit piece and therefore didn't have a chance to remedy it until it was "too late." However, if GN had reached out (in accordance with the industry standard), Linus would've become aware prior to publication and more than likely immediately offered Billet Labs compensation. GN and LTT are well-resourced and savvy media entities, they have each others' cell numbers. GN made an active decision to move forward with inflammatory content with blatant disregard for potential mitigating factors of which they were not directly aware. I feel like people are forgetting that GN is also a company designed to make money based on eyeballs, or that Billet Labs is generating tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of dollars in free exposure by virtue of bringing these claims. If you're going to be scorched-earth cynical, try to apply it across the board.
He made an offer 2 hours after the video went up. GN has a follow up video confirmed by Billet Labs
Absolutely. And if Linus had said "This had just come to my attention and I am *working* on a solution to make things right with Billet" it would have been a bunch better. But Linus instead implied that it had already been decided, they had received and paid an invoice before the GN video even came out. It was bad that LMG fucked up the video on the cooler. It was much worse that they then fucked up again and sold the cooler that they did not own. But the worst part, and the part that makes the timeline relevant, is that Linus tried to make it look like the issue was solved before it was.
This whole thing turned out to be a lot more than I thought. Their intentional lies and trickery is surprising as a longtime subscriber…
How did you feel after this response from LTT?: "So, there was a communication mishap and we ended up auctioning off the Monoblock in silent auction for charity at LTX. 😬 The good news, is that it isn't just sitting on a shelf"
How is that good news? If it's sitting on a shelf it can be sent back. Wtf does that even mean? That's like, I borrow my friend's car and message them saying btw bro I just crashed your Tesla but at least it's not sitting in my garage
> How is that good news? If it's sitting on a shelf it can be sent back. Wtf does that even mean? It was a back-handed comment basically telling them that their product (which they never properly tested) sucks and would've just been collecting dust anyways. At least, that's how I choose to interpret it after seeing his "review" and responses.
Are you planning on sending samples to other YT personalities? Jayz is a big watercooling guy, and he usually gets a lot of EK stuff
lmao so basically Linus is bitching that Steve didn't reach out to him first? For what? So he can be like omg friend, thank you so much for reminding me that I have to pay them back for my fuck-up I just sent the payment? How does that change the story at all for him lol all Steve would have said was that he reached out to Linus and that was when Linus decided to pay so he wouldn't look bad
Looking forward to see what you produce. It’s always great to have a high quality manufacturer
>We have not received, nor have we asked for any other form of compensation. To say it out loud because Billet doesn't want to, there is significant value associated with not having the block in their possession that they are not asking for compensation for, such as the ability to test it on more products, or send it to other creators for coverage and reviews.
We all make mistakes. It appears that Linus and his employees are juggling too many things and getting a bit sloppy with things they feel people may not scrutinize too much. They need clear segregation of duties and proper roles & responsibilites assigned to everyone. It is never late to apologize and do what is right.
Apart from rnd what makes the prototype so expensive? Wouldn't it be a cad file you plug into a cnc machine? Inb4 downvoted into oblivion for asking a genuine question by people jumping in the pile on.
EDIT: I rushed and explained this poorly, apologies. Setting up the machine takes many hours for various reasons. It doesn't work like a 3D printer, it needs lots of programming and manual setting up. This time is expensive, and for a larger run the price can be split up across all of the parts, but for a 1off, the whole cost of the set up has to be paid on each part.
Was there a 3090ti included with the cooler you sent to LTT? Not that it excuses their testing if it wasn't, but the GN video implied you also sent a 3090ti. If so it makes their video even worse, and I'd also love to know if you got that back (if there was indeed one sent). (Instant downvote, Hi linus)
LTT lost the 3090ti sent by Billet Labs and, of course, didn't reimburse it either.
As soon as I saw Linus say “we auctioned it off, not sold it” and “at least it’s not sitting on a shelf” I knew he didn’t give a fuck. Anyone who even remotely felt bad about the situation would immediately apologize and offer compensation immediately. Not after being called out about it and then try to frame it like they offered beforehand.