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LTT, now sponsored by BP
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this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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My biggest complaint is how Linus is still saying he's not sorry about what he did, at least it doesn't seem genuine, instead he is still apologizing that he didn't realize what the community wanted.
He shouldn't care what the community wants. He should always strive for accurate data, ethical partnerships, and correcting mistakes when they still make it through because they always will.
Linus is doubling down on his opinions, hiding mistakes, doing the bare minimum to fix them, and needs public outcry and the heavy hand of the other executives in LTT to see any course change.
im so out of the loop here, help anyone?
In one of their videos one of the employees said they do better and more accurate GPU tests than other YouTubers called Gamers Nexus and Hardware Unboxed. Then of course those mentioned YouTubers started to hit back and show how often LTT is wrong and makes wrong assumptions, because they don’t do proper due diligence. Since they have to release several videos per week. Gamers Nexus also exposed that LTT auctioned off a prototype GPU cooler from a small startup. But they had no permission to sell the unit. It was only for reviewing. The startup even asked to get the unit back several times. Linus, the owner of LTT, then released a non-apology. Afterwards a former employee came out and told why she left the company and it turns out the work environment is very toxic at LTT. She also reminded everyone that pettiness by Linus caused his fans to harass a small YouTuber called MindChop. Who eventually committed suicide. He fell into a depression because of the harassment and later his mom also committed suicide. She couldn’t bear the loss of her son.
"Several videos a week".
Twenty-five (25) videos a week. Five a day, four if they work weekends which they likely do. Plus the WAN show and other social media. Their velocity is far too high for accuracy to be a priority. As their own employees said in their video, they wish they had more time. And as Linus himself said, their velocity is so high that the instant they publish a video it has to be forgotten because they have to turn to the next one.
Holy shit, I can't wrap my head around channels that release more than one video a day
It's still mostly one per day per channel, more or less. It's just that they have many channels
They have like a hundred employees, which makes it a lot easier to figure out. Though some of those employees aren't directly involved in creating videos, such as doing accounting or creating the many kinds of custom merch that they sell.
They have a bunch of employees doing specialized roles. Not just the usual roles like editing or writing, but they also what they call a "lab" that does stuff like identify findings about tech. But even with so many employees and all the specialization, they're still clearly rushing. Eg, if they make a massive error, rather than fix it and do a reshoot, they'll release it with the error, which is a terrible approach.
That's exactly what happened in their biggest controversy with an expensive water block cooler. They used a completely wrong graphics card despite knowing that it was completely wrong and with an incompatible motherboard, then spent most of the video bad mouthing how it didn't fit the motherboard or card instead of recognizing that they needed to just identify a compatible board, find the right card, and redo the shoot.
Hbomberguy
One video in six months, if we're lucky.
The next video might have him lose the plot and have an existential crisis on camera over a 15 hour rant
Jesus fucking Christ
There is no actual proof for the suicide of the son and the mom, would love to see actual proof if you have it but i wouldn't really use this as an argument. I admit his behaviour was too much but pointing the blame for the suicide of a child is also too extreme
found this twitter post about it: https://twitter.com/reddit_lies/status/1691895748286177765 Just realized that Twitter account is quite stupid but I still can't find any evidence for it being true or not
Edit: I don't know if I want to believe if MindChop truly did what the reddit post is talking about, but I feel like Linus wasn't at fault for his community bullying the Owner.
Another thing I just found: https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15sjv78/for_anyone_wondering_why_madison_stayed_silent/jwfeg5a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
This whole thing is very complicated and I am not trying to discredit the madison allegations with this, they are a completely different topic
THAT whole thing SHOULD NOT be included in this round of criticism. NO ONE is responsible for everything their fans do. That was a messed up situation that LTT only happened to be involved in. Most of their angst and trouble came from a terrible YT media group (not LMG) pulling their small channel around.
That's also my opinion on this
Hoc cognito, ergo dico hoc.
Indeed, the lack of professionalism and lack of respect in the work place are fully legit concerns. Though piling on someone's tragedy just to hurt LMG is a frankly shameful act.
I don't fault those curious about the event, but it is almost wholly and completely unrelated, AND not a fault of LMG per se. At least the severity of the outcome they had nothing to do with.
Can you point to the comment by Madison about the MindChop thing? As far as I can see she never brought it up.
Yikes.
LTT fucked up hard, doubled down, worse things came out, tripled down
I thought the video was a step back, not tripping down. They took actual action and they layed out a plan how they'll improve. What would you have preferred?
Linus Tech Tips, a large YouTube tech channel, has faced backlash after GamersNexus posted a video detailing their increasingly flawed videos focusing on quantity over quality. LTT releases videos multiple times a week, but these videos almost always have errors that are later corrected or are not noticed by LTT. This results in lower quality videos that can sometimes be misleading (especially product review videos). These criticisms had been expressed by many viewers of LTT prior the GamersNexus video. GamersNexus is also a popular tech channel and amplified these criticisms with the release of their video.
Other criticisms of LTT are that their packed release schedule overworks their employees and their corporate culture is hostile towards stressed employees. These criticisms were merely speculation until a former LTT employee posted on X (formerly Twitter) a detailed account of why they decided to leave the company. Their allegations detailed overworking, harassment, and their declining mental health due to their job at LTT.
LMG (Linus Media Group) was making careless mistakes and publishing a lot of inaccurate data, sometimes going as far to not recommend or label a product as "bad" after misusing it. This was likely due to an unnecessarily rushed pace of video releases that came from prioritizing sponsor revenue over accuracy, which many feel is a pretty massive ethics breach for a news outlet that is marketing itself as a home for highly objective, data driven content (LTT Labs).
Gamers Nexus called out this behavior in a 40 minute video which kicked off all the drama, and Linus posted a kneejerk response on the LTT forum where he largely defended his behavior and conclusions and badmouthed Gamers Nexus for going public with these criticisms instead of sharing them privately.
A few days later, LTT put out a video that was almost entirely LTT leaders other than Linus admitting how bad everything was, sharing some details on their processes, and committing to being more transparent & taking a week off uploading videos to rework things. But the video also included some tone deaf moments, like a plug for merch and Linus talking for a bit where he sort of apologized but didn't really talk for long enough to acknowledge all of his fuck ups. He did say "I'm sorry" at one point which was pretty meme worthy.
The video was also monetized when it went up and the description had links to their merch store in it, which people called out as slimy and LTT subsequently removed.
Different people have different conclusions -- some think it was a total non-apology, but I personally am satisfied. To me all their issues were the result of bad processes/automation run amok, so their commitment to reworking their processes and being more transparent about them with the community is exactly what I wanted to see.
But that's just me -- I think there are many valid conclusions that can be drawn from this.
Edit: There was also a reddit post on Reddit made by a former employee, Madison, that made allegations of sexual harassment. If true, these would be extremely damning, and to my knowledge LMG has not spoken on them yet. I also am just learning about this, so I don't know whether these statements have been corroborated by anyone.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamers-nexus-vs-linus-tech-tips-billet-labs-review-controversy
Accurately presenting your past opinions and weaknesses is not weakness. You can recognise your error while accurately describing your past actions.
You may want to change your actions depending on new information though.