According to Billet themselves, they heard nothing about compensation or payback until about 3 hours after the original GN video went live… Which Billet hadnt even replied to before Linus made his post saying they’ve already made the deal on compensation.
GN absolutely destroys Linus in this video. I mean Linus gave him all the ammo by repeatedly lying and not owning up his mistakes, but still. He’s calling like it is, without any sugarcoating.
I did change my sub from LTT to GN.
Nah.
GN didnt destroy Linus.
GN just assembled everything into a easily digestable package.
It was Linus’s Ego that destroyed Linus.
Nah.
GN didnt destroy Linus.
GN just assembled everything into a easily digestable package.
It was Linus’s Ego that destroyed Linus.
Absolutely. I once had an absolutely terrible boss, 10000% a sociopath and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see a headline that said she’d been caught with multiple bodies buried under her house, but I’m still thankful for the experience because of one sentence that she said to me:
“People fire themselves.”
And that’s 100% true.
She then quoted Stalin’s “Death of one is a tragedy, death of a million is a statistic” as justification for trying to fire an entire department immediately after that though, so maybe it was just an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters situation. Either way, it gave me whiplash.
Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and say I strongly disagree with this. In some scenarios, people get fired because of something they did. However, if you have a company that consistently fires a large number of employees, then the people getting fired aren’t the problem. It is more likely that the manager is the problem.
I had a boss that consistently fired about 25-30 percent of their department every year and replaced people. Every time someone got fired, it was somehow their own fault. In reality, that boss was just horrible and kept treating everybody in the department like they were beneath her. Besides the firing, quitting rate was pretty high and the department had high turnover. The only consistent people that stayed were people who are personal buddies with the boss.
45 minutes of Steve talking isn’t an easily digestible package, sorry.
Yeah yeah, and if it was a 30 second tiktok like you wanted, you’d handwave it away as “Well he has no real proof, why should i care”
Incredible how true this is
With that god awful automated dubbing voice, or an ultra pretentious early-20s hipster voice from California. Keel me nao.
and subtitles that go word per word flashing on the screen with thousands of effects
Oh no, oh no, oh no no no no no.
Compared to sifting though God knows how many hours of LMG content to find this information yourself, it sure is. I was aware of perhaps two of the data accuracy issues Steve presents, prior to the GN video. And I had no idea about the Billet Labs thing, or that an LTX charity auction even happened.
That’s what good reporting does. It takes complex issues with disparate data points, then makes connections and filters out the noise to make it digestible to a wide audience. It may be a long video, but having watched the whole thing, I’d say at least 90% of it is necessary to make the points being conveyed.For people who can’t follow along with a very simple video, sure.
…Yeah that’s enough.
Blatantly, and knowingly, lying (let’s not pretend that wasn’t the intention) about his compensation to billet is too much. No excuses for that.
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You know what really sucks? Owning their stuff. I got the screwdriver (it’s pretty nice). I’m drinking from one of the water bottles right now (it’s also pretty nice).
How am I supposed to go on using that shit? I can’t do it in front of anyone who knows. “Oh you like that LTT stuff? You know what they did right?”
All that goodwill flushed because of ego. All that cost, sunk. And the worst part is that this discourages me from buying merch from anyone else again, lest I get burned again someday when it comes out they too are the opposite of the image they portray for money.
I guess there truly is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
Or… just don’t give a fuck and reply with “Bought it before the shennanigans, bro. Not gonna toss it.”
But what will people think? 😱
True answer: They won’t give a fuck
Yeah, I suppose I’m not going to actually give a shit. Still feels bad, man.
I used a Tek Syndicate mug up until a few months ago from way back when Logan was still cool. It was a sweet mug regardless.
That logo rules.
How am I supposed to go on using that shit?
Lmao. I keep forgetting they sell merch. I refuse to buy merch from those guys. They’ve come across like a bunch of Windows gamers who built a bunch of gaming PCs and then became self proclaimed tech experts and started a YouTube channel.
Yes, I know Linus worked at NCIX and has memorized a lot of product numbers, but that means nothing.
Where you see his true (lack) of expertise is in the storage server failure video and all the Linux stuff he did.
He got mad that Linux was outside of his Windows power-user comfort zone and crapped all over Linux to make himself feel better.
He’s a tool.
I would dremel the logo off.
Just keep the L to show everyone what you really think about Linus.
You can lightly sand the water bottle and repaint over it.
I’ve been eyeing their screwdriver for a while, but I don’t want to give Linus my money after seeing this… Wanna sell it to me? I don’t care if it has any minor damage from regular use.
Edit: After the whole Madison thing, it leaves a really bad taste in my mouth… Nevermind the screwdriver, I’ll just buy a megapro or something…
What’s so special about their screwdriver? Can I fight off a Dalek invasion with it or something?
I just want it for the strong magnet and the megapro style bit holder.
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Since I don’t own a car or anything that requires high torque, I really don’t need an automotive grade screwdriver. I keep losing screws because the magnets are not strong enough in the bits I have. 90% of my screwdriver usage are PCs and other tech.
Nothing wrong with the megapro though… I might get that one, though I would prefer getting the strongest magnet I can get my hands on.
Well at least you don’t have the ltt underpants
….uhhhhh
(Lol nah thankfully I never went that far)
Just pretend that your specific money went into the pocket of one of the employees whose fault this isn’t.
I bought a couple of hoodies from them on sale, so I’m in a similar situation. Luckily most of their merch is pretty stealthy so the only people who would recognise them are other ltt viewers. I just hope that Linus can get his head out of his ass and give a proper apology and make things right
Just put a sticker over the logo if you don’t want to sand it
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This response has made me lose so much respect for LTT. Linus really needs to learn when to shut up and stop digging himself into these holes. He could have just apologized, compensated Billet properly and worked on fixing whatever communication issues his team has, but instead he wrote a long non-apology where he deflected blame, tripled down on the Billet situation and just straight up lied about compensating them. Very scummy behaviour from Linus.
Linus is a narcissist.
Narcissists have to prove how wrong everyone else was.
They have to control the narrative.
And when all else fails, they have to make themselves look like the victim, so they get all the positive attention.
Thats why he cant shut up, and always doubles down to make everything worse.
I’m not either for narcissistic behavior or ADHD being the cause.
I have several TBIs (traumatic brain induries) and I act like he does sometimes. Most of the time I can catch myself but everyone once in a while I’ll go into full “you’re all wrong, I’m right and stop hating on me” mode even when I am wrong. But I always admit I’m wrong afterwards.
It’s a maturity and, hate to say it, grace thing. Even when you mess up this bad, and then do it again, and then a third time, you have to step up and admit you made a mistake.
I have brain damage and I can do it. It’s just learning how to do it. Making that effort. I don’t think he knows how to do it or has never fucked up bad enough to want to learn how to admit to mistakes, or the reactions have never been negative enough for him to own up to it.
Either way - he messed up and should sit and think about it before doing anything else. He didn’t do that and it’s going to cost him. Maybe not a lot but something.
I definitely think his overreactions stem from his ADHD, also his maturity level.
Could be. Just trying to empathize with it is all. I get making decisions on emotion and it biting you in the ass, I’m just wondering has he ever tried to learn from being bit.
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Blaming it on adhd is an insult to people with adhd.
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So do I, and I find it insulting. Have I ever replied to someone with an emotionally driven impulse making things worse for myself? Absolutely, but that’s something I did when I was 18 or 19.
I’ve learned how not to be so reactive. If something really infuriates me, I give myself some time to connect my thoughts and reflect on the situation.
I’m almost the same age as Linus Sebastian (about a year and a half difference). He should have learned how to conduct himself a long time ago. Especially if he knows he has ADHD.
ADHD is not an excuse.
I am so sick of people using disabilities to deflect responsibility for shitty behavior.
So what if he has ADHD?
If that truly is the cause, he knows his disability and has a responsibility to make an effort to not let the effects of it have a negative impact on others.
An explanation is not an excuse.
I have battled ADHD since second grade, been medicated and in therapy many times. I’m a successful chemical engineer now and I can promise you, that’s not an excuse for this behavior. I’m also by chance friends with multiple people with diagnosed ADHD, and not a single one of them acts this way when someone points out they are wrong.
So I’m not really fine with ADHD being used to explain shitty behavior. It’s not an excuse, ever
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I have ADHD, and I’m not a prick. At least, I don’t think I am…
I have ADHD and my response would be to apologise so hard that there’s an indent in my head.
How he responded to the situation was not ADHD.
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While this definitely wasn’t an okay response, I still prefer this transparency over every single response having to go through a filter/PR representative. At least we are closer to knowing what he is actually thinking.
Is this the straw that leads to LTT going full corporate mode?
Yeah, apologizing, paying Billet, and promising to slow down to improve quality would have been the perfect response. That would have been enough to keep me watching. But with the way he responded instead, I unsubbed and will avoid their videos, because he’s made it clear he can’t be trusted and doesn’t deserve my money.
And I was the perfect kind of viewer. I have money, have bought things from YouTube sponsorships, have Patreoned people, and I’ve actually been considering buying stuff from LTT’s store for a while (the only thing that stopped me was that their best shirts were sold out).
I suspect that for the most part, the kinds of people who would pay to support otherwise free content are those who are more informed and also care highly about the quality of what they pay for. The only reason I Patreon to stuff is because the creator has high quality and good ethics. I’m not gonna give money for no reason to someone who can’t be bothered to act ethically.
He said it himself, he doesn’t know how to read the room.
Money and fame went to linus’ head, didn’t think it would happen considering they preach to be transparent but here it is.
If only that bald guy at LTT would have kept his mouth shut about how their testing was better than GN/Hardware Unboxed, all this drama wouldn’t have blown up on ltt’s face LMFAO
I straight up had the shocked Pikachu face when he said that. Being someone with a background in chemistry, I love the level of care GN puts into their testing. To have an LTT employeee be so fucking brazen with how they shit on someone WHO DOES IT RIGHT made me unsub right then and there. Linus’ reaction only made me feel even more secure in my choice.
Don’t put it on the employee when the Owner is the problem.
If only that bald guy at LTT would have kept his mouth shut
Do you happen to have a link to that video? I unsubbed from these clowns a long time ago, so I have no clue where I would even find it. I’m curious to see that clip now.
It was someone else’s video, where they took a tour of Linus’s studio
8:38
GN’s first video shows that bald guy, so just watch the first video.
I know that it’s true and the guy did say that but this is never a good thing to say. Primary sources are best. I can’t find the origional video myself but it looks like some sort of labs tour
It might be on their new channel that they have for the labs, which is why you may not have been able to find it.But what was put in the GN video is literally the same video segment, so you don’t need to go look for that other one.
Why in the hell would a one sentence comment that’s just stating a fact get down voted three times?
Just honestly curious about this one.
Maybe someone was not happy that you did not provide the requested link. Whatever, you’re good.
I mean, it’s the major video that everyone here is talking about.
At this point I figured that everyone’s already seen the video, or else why would they be here commenting about it.
My bad I guess. /shrug
Oh, ya I did watch the first video. Well, technically I listened to it in the background. That’s why I didn’t get the reference to “the bald guy”.
Well, technically I listened to it in the background.
Appreciate the honesty, but you probably shouldn’t comment on a video that you’ve only just listened to as background noise.
Do you have a link to that ltt video? I would love to watch that as well. Thanks.
It’s a tour from MurfsGaming:
Appreciate it
What a joke. Linus’s response was horrible and I’m glad Steve is calling him out on it.
I’ve enjoyed LTT for a long time. The quality definitely went down, which I had chalked up to growing pains.
But this is different. This is an absolute loss of trust from me, especially the response Linus posted. What a shame.
GN has another subscriber, though.
The quality was already going down, but now I’m unsubbed and I’ll never click on a LTT video again. Sorry, but this behavior is just unacceptable.
“We didn’t sell it, we auctioned it”, Jesus H. fucking Christ.
GN also literally said “auction” not “sold” in his first video, so Linus’s response was doubly stupid.
It doesn’t even matter. An auction is selling too, same thing. If I put my stuff on eBay and someone buys it I don’t say I “auctioned it off”, I say “I sold it to some guy on eBay”. It’s just fixed price vs a bidding, in the end a price gets reached and a transaction occurs.
Linus can’t seem to take the L and just digs the grave deeper. Unfortunately at this point LTT is too big to fail, but I hope it puts a dent in their numbers and makes them eat some humble pie. Maybe they can fix their internal issues then.
I mean I completely agree with you in that the semantic bullshit is bullshit, my point was that Linus wasn’t even correct in his attempt at BS because GN didn’t use the word “sold”. GN used the same word that Linus is attempting to say is totally different.
Linus used the semantics that it sold for “charity” ie. “We didn’t sell it for money for us! We sold it for someone else’s benefit!”
Linus’s brain simply cannot accept he did something wrong, so the cognitive dissonance forces him to make these great leaps of logic. He could have ended everything with a simple “I’m sorry, we’ll correct this” but his ego would never allow it.
Least apologetic Canadian.
He admits he doesn’t watch videos but instead reads the comments. Commenters often oversimplify things like this.
Nah but you’re totally missing the point! An auction doesn’t profit me!
— Linus Gabe Sebastian, 2023.
I’m going to borrow things “to try” from my friends house, say they sucked, and then sell them on eBay.
I’ll just say I auctioned them.
GOT EM.
Trust me bro
Linus has become time a big multi-millionaire media tycoon and acting as such. I really hope this takes a big chunk out his company’s bottom line (to have a learning effect), he has been getting high on success for far too long.
Now say it with me lads : “You Either Die A Hero Or Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain”
The way that he talked about spending 100, 200, 300, 400, even $500 of staff time on re-testing not being an option, when he rakes in THOUSANDS per video is pretty illustrative of where his head is at.
I was pretty excited when Linus announced that he was stepping aside, but he clearly still has way too much say on the direction of LMG and his motivations are entirely too obvious. Go away, Linus. We’ve had enough of you.
As I wrote elsewhere, his head is very probably at keeping people employed, after having over estimated his steady means of payment. Now he is in a pickle and needs to make ever more money to balance that humongous liability.
This screams KPI to me. It’s self imposed bullshit thst leads to cutting corners like this.
If I understood his position of the retesting properly, he was saying that the cost of the block, regardless of if it cooled well, was too much to be viable. Fine, you’d come to that same conclusion regardless, but you have to do the testing right and explain that. ALSO, its not even a final, or near final product, why are you giving it review already? And thats not even going into the auctioning of the item.
His position was essentially “it doesn’t matter that our review was completely invalid because the product is too expensive”. And he considers himself to have a serious review company.
If now was a time to bring in a full time CEO and relegate Linus into “creative director”, or whatever title he wants to give himself, now is that time.
GN has simply pulled back the curtain to show another corporation who put their bottom line before their viewers. And his response only shows this even further.
Truly disappointed by the whole debacle.
I can’t tell if this is a joke or not…but “that time” was a month and a half ago
On May 18, 2023, Sebastian announced that he would be stepping down as Chief Executive Officer and would be transitioning into a creative role, effective July 1, 2023. Terren Tong, previously an executive of Corsair Gaming and whom Sebastian worked under during his time at NCIX, was named to replace Sebastian as CEO
Maybe he means step down as in really step down and not Vince McMahon it.
Question is, who’s going to be the Triple H that will make LTT followers go “wow, I like this” when he/she takes over?
If that’s what they mean they’re dumb. He’s not Vince McMahoning it at all.
Luke probably
He already did step down as CEO. Which is funny, because there’s a clip of him from the GN video complaining about the lack of time to make content… my friend, you were the one who created this working environment.
Nah, LMG isn’t a corporation. It’s a CREW, of cool people!
So incredibly disappointing, I thought Linus was smart, but instead of just owning up to his mistakes and making a proper apology, he just doubled down and dug his own grave even further. If he had just apologized and explained how he would do better and make things right, and how he would prevent these mistakes from happening again, I’m sure a lot of people would’ve gave him another chance, but he really showed him and his company’s true colors.
This is very sad to see, I was definitely a fan of LTT and enjoyed their videos, I watched and supported them for years, but now I’ll no longer be watching or trusting them after this. Its heartbreaking.
Have you ever watched the WAN show? He almost always refuses to admit he’s wrong. He’s a douchebag.
Have you ever watched the WAN show?
I’ve tried but
He almost always refuses to admit he’s wrong.
Even poor Luke is sometimes flabbergasted. You can see him trying to tiptoe around Linus’ hot takes.
The wan show is primarily for doubling down / justifying poor decisions. At least that’s how it feels given how he’s handled it with previous issues
Half the time, I’m watching WAN show for Luke. He’s really the star of the show. Without him, I think it would be a lot different.
I’ve only seen clips of it here and there, never fully watched or listened, but definitely seems pretty bad based on what I’m hearing…
Too bad he’s like this, honestly the guy’s definitely talented and makes good content (if he actually puts the work and proper time in), but seems he’s just way too arrogant to admit when he’s wrong. I just expected more honestly, just sad to see after being a viewer for this long, and always getting the impression that he was transparent and more down to earth, which now its evident the opposite is true.
The apparent transparency was something that stood out to me as a major respectable plus of the channel. These actions and responses are not at all in line with my understanding of the channel, and I’m mostly just sad. If I dont trust the content, I won’t watch. I just wish Linus in particular had stepped back to realize what he was throwing away.
Yeah he really just needed take the L and say we’re taking measures to correct past mistakes (and having a new CEO will help). I think that would have been an easy reply to all of this.
Just trust me guys -big media company guy
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its not unprofessional to give the subject of a story that is doing active harm a heads up so they can use their position to pressure you into silence, or try to come up with some last minute hooplah to try to discredit the reporting rather than addressing the core issues in their own company.
Thats like telling a company that is actively dumping toxic waste into a river that you know they are doing it, and you would like comment before they report on scene next week. All you do is give them time to stop the dumping, clean up the obvious signs, and put out an undercutting statement to try and discredit/dismiss the legitimacy of the story.
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That has got to be the most corrupted take that could be possible taken from that.
You know what serves the public good? Reporting on it, So people can see what the company is doing, So they don’t get away with turning off the valve for a couple days… So they get held accountable for having the valve at all, and the exposure forcing them to spend their money on cleanup and decontamination, while the public outcry gets so bad that government steps in with regulation, and legislation, and oversight.
You know what doesnt serve the public good? Letting the corpo hide its shit and get away with everything, because you think theres some insignificant, nonexistent benefit to letting it do so.
By not letting Linus use his position to try and pressure Steve, by not giving Linus time to get a coverup in place, Linus got outed for lying about the Billet compensation, Further showing the lengths he’ll go to, to lie, double down, and shift blame to anything but himself.
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Using your toxic waste excuse: if it gets the company to stop dumping toxic waste a week sooner then… that is a week less of making three eyed fish and killing kids.
And then they resume the dumping next week, maybe at a different location and long term nothing changes.
Exactly.
Not every story requires input/comment from the subject.
Its not unprofessional or hitjobbing to not get one.
Especially when the subject has a public forum (WAN, Twitter, His own Website, Youtube, etc) where he has explicitly made his statements and stances known.
Then you go after them, again. And again. And again.
Surprised Linus didn’t make them sign an NDA with how shady he played that.
So fucking sad to see. I want nothing more than Linus and LTT to continue to be massively successful but FFS he needs to pull his head out of his ass and accept a bit a constructive criticism now and then. Even LTT’s own staff agreed on a number of Steve’s points but Linus keeps putting his ego ahead of everything else.
People here acting surprised as Linus like hw didn’t do the same years ago with the crappy merchandise without warranties that he sold and double down about how everyone was wrong and he was right.
LTT has grown to the point they can not act as equal to any small time team or start up. Linus decision has consequence larger than he can afford by pretending “I’m just another tech youtuber”. With 100+ employee, and far outsized influence in tech, LTT must be professional in their decisions.
What a way to dig himself in even deeper. Yikes.
