Linus screwed over a small two-person startup with his own incompetence by using the product in an unintended way and not using the GPU and instructions which were provided for him.
Stole their prototype which they needed to develop their product further, even going so far as to sell it at auction.
Goes on record to say "yes, we screwed up but it would cost $100-$500 to fix it so I'm not going to and no, I'm not apologizing for that". (That amount of money is chump change to him.)
Lies about offering to recompense the company. They didn't do that until after getting called out.
When he gets criticized for screwing over this company for his own mistakes, rather than owning up he tries to gaslight everybody into think he is somehow the victim?? "Today was so hard bros" oh poor wittle multi-millionaire Linus... I'll be sure to pray for you while I struggle to pay my rent.
What a fucking piece of shit, fuck him. I hate people like this that simply can't own up to mistakes and have to deflect all criticism.
It's not just the Billet Labs thing, GN showed a pattern at LMG of rushing out bad test data and therefore wrong conclusions to keep up the frankly ridiculous volume of videos they put out.
It's the sort of thing that makes me really, really sad for the people working there. That crazy breakneck pace cannot be good for mental health.
This is the kind of thing a union (which Linus, of course, has said he's very against) would help with
I kept thinking about that watching GN's last video and how it's so perfectly in line with what GN exposed.
Unions, the bane of rich people that take advantage of their workers via positions of power.
They somewhat recently did a "what do lmg employees really think of working here" video, and it seemed like the #1 complaint was the pace. I really hope they take this criticism to heart and just... Slow down for a bit
But they won't. Cos $$$.
Part of the equation here is the transparency. It's good that they are transparent and I do think they listen. Part of the interesting side to watch is the interaction with the community.
I used to like LTT up until their "Linux Challenge" videos which were just a pain to watch. Shit like this coming from the biggest tech channel on youtube just drives me up the wall.
After this happened, GitHub added a Download button to their for preview pages. So they themselves considered it was enough of a problem/inconvenience to not have a download button.
ohh boy, I almost forgot about that. That was super painful. It's a website linus, not a file browser.
That bit made me cringe. You go to the file, and can download using the Raw button or using wget. It’s not hard, it’s ignorance.
It also has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with how Github works. I actually give him a pass on nuking X while installing Steam, that shouldn't happen(although he did get a nice big warning, but that warning was far from user friendly). But some of the other stuff they ran into was "This doesn't work exactly like windows, therefore is bad." type stuff.
In that video he did everything that everyone recommends not to do when trying out Linux:
Never copy paste and execute random code from the internet.
Never execute commands on the terminal you don't fully understand what they do.
Never say yes or okay to any dialog prompt unless you understand what the dialog is asking about.
He is stupid, he paid the stupid tax. Linux didn't do any of the things that went wrong in that video, it was his own stubbornness and ignorance.
the problem with a lot of these recommendations though is that to a non-linux user: all code is random, and no commands are understood.
you only learn by doing, and if you cant do until you know, you'll never get anywhere.
you gotta make a few mistakes to learn anything, and thats what happened.
yea he paid the stupid tax, but so does everyone else while they learn a new thing.
that was the entire point of the challenge: how hard is it? and it turns out, quite! info is scattered, theres lots of commands and code that sounds like it'll do what you want but is actually a bad idea (as evidenced by the recommendations you point out), and things can break easily. thats the video.
Yeah, it's not like people can read and there are several tutorials and manuals freely available all over the internet.
to a new person, those tutorials and manuals are the "random code and unknown commands" that i spoke about in the above comment. i thought i made that very clear. nothing is known until it is learned, and things cannot be learned without practice. practice leads to initial failure, and the frustrations with that are what the linux challenge was about.
No one has never learned anything from reading? So, history must be a con from big paper to sell books, huh?
Seems like you are purposefully misunderstanding Cora's replies, so you... can be snide? win an argument? You never mentioned you understand the reasoning Cora is using.
I understand their argument. I think it's stupid. So I'm mocking the argument to bring that point home. Reading about things, gives us understanding of said things. At least as approximate as possible as to not need to break anything when practicing with it. Breaking X or the desktop environment is not a common experience. It happens but its not frequent. Windows encourages people to turn off their brain and not to understand the basics of how their os works. That mindset leads to unsafe behaviors that are simply mitigated by reading what the os is asking you. There are literal first principles tutorials that explains all concepts, YouTube videos, Wikipedia explains it all in simple English. A 15 minutes google trip gives all that's necessary to safely run Linux. Most everything else is just like any other os.
You don't have to crash into a tree first to learn how to drive. It can be explained to you in a way that practice is safe and accident free. You don't have to kill a bunch of people to learn medicine, you're taught in class and out of books until you're safe enough to practice along with a mentor without killing anyone out of negligence. Learning a new os or software is no different. Just read the manual you dense smug bugs.
How would someone who doesn't use GitHub or linux know how to do that?
GitHub shouldn't be a method of software distribution, but a lot of FOSS devs take the easy way out. Understandably so; they're volunteering their time. Still, Linus is in a position to show how it works rather than complaining.
And to prove the point there was a website dedicated to taking GitHub links and turning them into download links.
I know Linus is more of a hardware guy but c'mon. You learn git freshman year into any Computer Science-related degree. Failing that, 5 seconds of Google or ChatGPT even will set you straight. Maybe it wasn't intuitive, but I like think the biggest tech youtuber would have knowledge of something so fundamental to his field...
As I recall he was trying to use Linux as if he was a regular non-techy person. So it could make sense for him to do that knowing it's wrong. (Which wouldn't apply to "apt install Steam" yes do as I say issue, which a regular user probably wouldn't have tried and ignored the warning even with jargon there).
I don't find it completly unbelievable even a techy could make that mistake because they do not use version control software like git.
I really don't think he was acting or anything. Like someone else said, if he knew how it worked he could have used it as a moment to teach others right? Instead he just completely fumbled everything, said it was set up incorrectly and blamed the website for it. Which given recent events is such a Linus thing to do...
I thought he made it explicit going into the Linux challenge but it's not stated clearly as such in the first ep (Linux Hates Me - Daily Driver Challenge Pt.1).
In the video Linus says:
he could use industry contacts/internal resources to decided which Linux distro to use for gaming but wanted to use the same resources as anyone else would have
Linux gets sold on it's customization but "speaking on behalf of normies, I don't want ..."
"in my defense a lot of that stuff was jargon that an average user might not understand" in regards to the PopOS event (apt install steam ~ type yes do as I say).
Why would a regular non-techy person need to run GoXLR on Linux
Audio creation is a hidden magic I know little of, so the same reasons as on Windows but they're sick of Windows? Do you consider an audio enthusiastic a "techy"? Perhaps I should have said "computer techy".
I absolutely consider an audio enthusiast a "techy", and anyone looking to use GoXLR is definitely a "techy". Anyone who's found themselves on the GoXLR on Linux GitHub page and hasn't immediately closed the tab is almost certainly going to be knowledgeable* enough to navigate a git repository, or at least be willing to put in more effort than downloading a single file from the repository then giving up when it doesn't work.
You could be right, I don't know enough about audio generally or the audience for an GoXLR.
I loved watching him type out "yes I understand the thing that I'm about to do is going to break my computer" and then complain that the thing that he did broke his computer!
Linus shits on entrepreneurship with his continual BS with easily caught bad data. No reputable companies should touch him. Anything he pushes to his viewers should be suspicious. I’ll be wondering how much LMG gets under the table for posting positive reviews.
I've seen videos where he's just basically repeating the script marketing have given him.. zero difficult questions. No doubt they're quite lucrative.
Linus just straight up lied about Billet labs resolution. That alone is horrendous behaviour.
While not being directly related it might be worth noting that a former employee of lmg has now come forward on twitter to describe in gory detail the kind of treatment she received while working there. The culture there sounds utterly disgusting and based on their history it is all extremely believable. Link to the post
Really makes me think they need a union. Also makes me wonder what all Linus learned from this guy who "taught me everything about management" if this is his style of management.
Linus is explicitly anti-union. He's stated on camera that "if you treat your employees well, you don't need a union." All this bullshit coming out proves that's a fuckin' lie.
This post should be pinned. I went in not liking her because to be she came off on camera as unlikable (giving you this context so you know my mindset going in to the read).
By the end, I was sickened, disgusted and appalled at the treatment she got. I have obviously unsubbed. I was going to wait this out to see how LMG solved this but fuck them. I wish her all the best and as swift a recovery as possible.
The saddest thing is, reading that post, you can tell exactly when she's quoting linus even when she doesn't mention him.
Is Madison the one that became popular in the community after being snarky in a video while they were building a new PC for her? I think I remember her getting a job there afterwards. If I remember correctly, she was really funny.
Is there an archive of the chain somewhere? I dont have twitter/x, and it won't let me see anything other than the main tweet
Can't read past the opening tweet without logging into twitter. Could you summarise or link to an article containing the info?
Basically Madison got misled when getting hired, was expected to do way too much work, was verbally and physically sexually abused, and overall just treated like absolute shit. Not to mention that she was belittled when she complained about it
Linus is always dropping shit, and this is no different.
Also, don't fuck with tech Jesus
It's looking like Linus should have taken that $100 million offer he got and left when he had the chance.
I get that some people like working, and that business founders can be very emotionally invested in their baby.
But to imagine having $100 million waved in my face and saying “nah, I think I’ll just wake up and go to work tomorrow” is crazy to me. But I guess you can’t be a billionaire if you “settle” for nine figures and an absurdly comfortable life with nothing but free time to find new interests and see the world.
I don’t think he works “traditionally” as he is essentially the sole founder and CEO. He’s the centre piece but it’s not like you’re actually “going to work” but rather building something. That doesn’t make the $100 an escape but more as an offer for someone to take what you built all this time and saying later.
A good analogy is walking your dog, that you cherish, and someone offers to buy him right there.
Even if you like working. Taking those $100 million means you and your family will, for generations not have to worry about work.
You can take the money and still work like a madman by either making a new venture or doing charity.
But I guess for some people it's more about the power than the money.
I can imagine it is his dreamjob, in which case what the heck would money matter?
That is quite likely the main reason he refused.
That company is probably worth way more then that. Or at least could be. So if you're even remotely prideful, you probably think that's a slap in the face.
I doubt it is worth way more than that now.
Of course, but the offer was prior to the issues coming out.
Aside from the whole drama, I remember them having quite a nice relationship before.. wonder what changed
A labs employee mouthed off and GN went full scorched earth
Steve actually said in the first video that they didn’t respond at all to the labs’ employee comment.
It was one of the first things shown in the video. I didn't even know about the comment until watching the GN video.
Context seemed to be "this is what we let slide before, but the gloves are off after this new comment" to demonstrate that they at least showed some restraint.
And the new comment was by Linus himself. Kinda funny how one offhand comment can have such a large impact.
Now I wonder if Linus will embrace the people who love to talk about how much they hate cancel culture. Is there a fascist Linus in this timeline?
Wow. When you're supposed to wait and hear from both sides and this is what comes... Yikes.
Went to check and read the whole response and any other replies that might have come from it on their forum and found ~115 pages (oops 2 more while writing this) of discussion after Linus' post.
All I want is just good hardware reviews, the rest is noise...
All I want is just good hardware reviews
Same. Seems LTT and Short Circuit is out. As demonstrated, they aren't a reliable source.
Same, that's why i never liked that twat
I really only ever followed any tech channels for cool videos and news, reviews are nearly pointless to me until I'm trying to actually buy or recommend something.
But outside of an occasional great video or at least great topic (like the 48kW fan), LMG barely offers anything special in that space anymore, despite still being the biggest outlet. GN has news down pat (along with reviews), Storage Review and STH cover enterprise stuff that Linus has only exceeded once with the million dollar (or whatever it was) setup, and plenty of channels do guides.
I've never understood the appeal of Linus Tech Tips anyway. Anthony was great but Linus is just terrible as a host. "Oh no, Linux sucks because it is not Windows! Oh no I broke the system because I couldn't read the text on the screen!"
I feel like the point of that video though was to point out how a common user using linux would just make these kind of mistakes which do happen and are legitimate. That's one of the reasons why I enjoy Linux Mint so much really. Simple to use and not too much of a hassle while also slightly helping you understand some of the easier aspects of Linux.
Linus is tech cancer plain and simple, now more so.
He's an idiot. After I saw him installing Linux I was sure about that. What a bozo.
and now there stuf about sexual harasment......
I agree with Steve on everything, this was a huge blunder and fail in messaging from Linus. But you are supposed to reach out and ask for comment before running a story. I was a news reporter and have a master's in public relations.
Edit: Called Linus "Linux"
You ask for a comment regarding an accusation, this wasn't something to get a comment for, it was the details and evidence itself which is not refutable.
If there was a claim against someone of an event that cannot be shown, you would ask them for their version of events, if the news had a clear video of an irrefutable event they would not require comment for what the video itself would clearly demonstrate.
Steve's video was demonstrable information through explicit evidence, it wasn't something that a comment would have shed light to as the only appropriate comment that could be made be a public response.
The content of the video could not have been changed and given what was demonstrated, it did not serve the viewerbase to wait for the response of the larger platform with greater reach.
Linus Tech Tips has the reach needed to be seen by at least as many viewers with their response.
Nope. You call them up and go, "This is happening and we're running a story. Care to comment?" You should even have a list of questions to ask if they agree. They can give you bullshit answers if they want, then you point those out and add that to the story. It doesn't have to affect the story. Facts are facts, and they can try to explain it away, but can't. You're still holding them accountable. You're just also giving them a chance to apologize or own up to it. And if they dont' comment, you include that.
Steve and crew are amazing tech journalists. They're doing great work. But that's a miss in this whole thing.
Did you watch the video above? Steve spend some time explaining exactly his thoughts behind not reaching out for comments. I think he argues well.
He said that he 'aggrees with Steve on everything', so no, he didn't watch the video lol.
I did watch the video. And I don't agree with him. He needs to ask for a comment.
Then the literal first sentence of your first comment was a lie.
That's a courtesy you can extend, but mostly it's a protection against libel - if they take you to court about a claim they dispute, being able to say "your honor, we gave them a chance to respond before going public"
In this case, there's no dispute over facts - they didn't bring up any accusations, they just took what LTT posted publicly and presented criticisms of it
For example, if you report on the president being accused of misconduct you might ask the white house for comment, but if you are criticizing a speech they made or their public actions you probably wouldn't (unless you think they'll give you something that improves the story)
OK, this I can agree with. And in fairness I was never writing about a big, constantly-updated video channel that was continually talking about itself. But it still screams to me there needs to be a chance at letting them respond.
I'm not sure I agree that you have to give a chance to respond - I think context matters.
I think if you make an accusation or cover a specific incident, they should be able to give their context, not out of fairness but as this might give a more accurate view of the truth
In this case, they presented a specific series of events showing a pattern of behavior, and a timeline of communication they made with billet (including their public comments in the subject
What truth could they add here? They could add more details or make excuses, but that waters down the message - the point isn't "Linus did something bad and made factual mistakes", it's "Linus has shown a pattern of doing bad things, and frequently publishes factually incorrect figures"
I think you're coming at it from a place of "you have to give them a chance to respond out of fairness", but journalism isn't about fairness, it's about distilling an easily consumed message from the endless complicated facts that make up any situation. Journalistic integrity is about making every effort to give a "good take", and should put accuracy above all
Being fair to the people you're covering should follow naturally by pursuing the truth, doing the opposite is what we call "softball journalism"
Thats how I am used to it as well. There is always more than pure facts. And giving the other side a change explain themselves is a part of it.
But you are supposed to reach out and ask for a comment before running a story.
In certain cases yes. This is not one. What comment could Linus have given that would contextualize the story in such a way to excuse factual information?
Steve was absolutely vindicated in refusing to ask for comment due to Linus's behavior. Had he asked for comment, Linus would have contacted Billet prior to the release. Instead, Linus makes a statement that heavily (if not outright) implies that had Steve asked for comment he would have context to know that an agreement had been made between LMG/Linus and Billet Labs before the video dropped. Because Steve did not reach out for comment we now know that this was a lie or an attempt to obfuscate the truth.
If you are extolling factual information you do not owe the subject a comment. If your work could be damaged (see above) by doing so you do not owe the subject a comment. If a person has already commented publicly you do not owe the subject a comment.
Steve reported objectively factual information that cannot be excused with any context. The story that was written at the time would have been damaged had he asked for comment. Linus has a public presence and has made his feelings known about previous scandals before, and his actual response was entirely telegraphed in tone, if not also content, by long time viewers.
There is not some ethics masterclass that would have come to the conclusion that Steve violated journalistic integrity by running this story without comment from Linus. You may not like it, but you're also not some ethics in journalism arbiter.
I agree it's generally good practice to ask the subject for comment, and Steve seems to know that because he explains at length why he didn't here. I criticized him for this when the last video came out, but I thought his explanation in this new video for why he didn't contact Linus first is pretty good; I'm not sure why you're being downvoted here, but since you are a former reporter I'd be interested in hearing specifics on why you disagree with it.
Yea, I think that and a few other nitpicky things are the only flaws in GN's argument. Otherwise, the testing results and Billet's response speaks for itself. LTT is going too loose and fast and while that's bad, it's understandable if you're a fledging company. That's all LTT had to point out. And instead of being humble and retrospective they put out this PR nightmare of a response.
I used to be a regular watcher of LTT, but really noticed their latest videos have declined in quality and it's apparent that they're just pumping out as much videos as possible.
Oof.
So annoying how all good tech channels now lean on drama and sensationalism to get more engagement.
Digital Foundry seems to be the last one where people are level-headed.
I didn't find this to be overly dramatic or sensationalized. I enjoy knowing when one of the people I regularly watch are in fact assholes. Note, he didn't say they were assholes. He merely repeated what they did and called out issues. He said he wouldn't be covering the channel anymore after their response. Just decent journalism in my opinion.
Yea, but ever since Nexus started doing their "investigations", so much of their content looks like cable news. They now jump on all opportunities to drum up more drama.
How dare Gamer's Nexus....point out lies and widespread problems at LTT with Nexus backing every claim with evidence. The real issue is reporting on the issues!
Fuck LTT. I stopped watching their content ever since they introduced the "emoting faces" thumbnails. All I say is every time I see tech Jesus these days it's over some drama, affair and exposé.
Exploding components, fire hazards, evil corporate practices. It often feels that if there is no drama happening, Nexus will go out of their way to make one happen. Just like cable news.
All I say is every time I see tech Jesus these days it’s over some drama, affair and exposé.
Do you know what algorithms are?
Lol ok. As someone that is actually subbed to GN I can tell just by Tech Jesus’s demeanor that he does not enjoy these so called drama videos. He looks happy when reporting actual news and info whereas in the videos where he has to call out people and corps he just looks like he can’t believe he has to do this shit again.
I have not seen the other videos you're talking about but this one pretty clearly showed both consumers and companies why LTT should be treated with caution and skepticism. I'd say that that's relevant information beyond just "drama".
If you’re more concerned with the muckrakers than the muck idk what to tell you
LMG has a lot of issues. Clickbait, and now this.
I hope the new CEO will intervene sooner or later, although a lot of CEOs only exist as de-facto mascots.
I'm not sure the new CEO has any actual power when it comes to reining Linus in.
Yeah, Linus admitted that himself. He still owns the majority, and Yvonne owns the rest. The CEO really can't actually do anything that Linus doesn't want, he's just a figurehead and businessman there to keep Linus from being forced into the office and off the camera.
So a yet another puppet CEO, just like the in Twitter... oh sorry, X.
They came from a tech journalist forum before doing reviews, covering bad practices in the industry, most notoriously MSI, and Linus being the face of PC hardware with so many inaccuracies is just another topic.
Yes, facts are drama, for sure.
Understandable, but I think many people (including me) are fine with a little drama every once in a while as long as it's warranted and doesn't damage the substance of the content. Unnecessary drama can certainly be a problem, but unnecessarily making dramatic things boring is not necessarily the solution.
I can agree with that. It may be that ever since I no longer subscribe to the tech elite (LTT, MKBHD, Nexus, Jays2Cents, etc) - I only come across their content when there is drama!
So let me get this straight.
What a fucking piece of shit, fuck him. I hate people like this that simply can't own up to mistakes and have to deflect all criticism.
It's not just the Billet Labs thing, GN showed a pattern at LMG of rushing out bad test data and therefore wrong conclusions to keep up the frankly ridiculous volume of videos they put out.
It's the sort of thing that makes me really, really sad for the people working there. That crazy breakneck pace cannot be good for mental health.
This is the kind of thing a union (which Linus, of course, has said he's very against) would help with
I kept thinking about that watching GN's last video and how it's so perfectly in line with what GN exposed.
Unions, the bane of rich people that take advantage of their workers via positions of power.
They somewhat recently did a "what do lmg employees really think of working here" video, and it seemed like the #1 complaint was the pace. I really hope they take this criticism to heart and just... Slow down for a bit
But they won't. Cos $$$.
Part of the equation here is the transparency. It's good that they are transparent and I do think they listen. Part of the interesting side to watch is the interaction with the community.
I used to like LTT up until their "Linux Challenge" videos which were just a pain to watch. Shit like this coming from the biggest tech channel on youtube just drives me up the wall.
After this happened, GitHub added a Download button to their for preview pages. So they themselves considered it was enough of a problem/inconvenience to not have a download button.
ohh boy, I almost forgot about that. That was super painful. It's a website linus, not a file browser.
That bit made me cringe. You go to the file, and can download using the Raw button or using wget. It’s not hard, it’s ignorance.
It also has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with how Github works. I actually give him a pass on nuking X while installing Steam, that shouldn't happen(although he did get a nice big warning, but that warning was far from user friendly). But some of the other stuff they ran into was "This doesn't work exactly like windows, therefore is bad." type stuff.
In that video he did everything that everyone recommends not to do when trying out Linux:
He is stupid, he paid the stupid tax. Linux didn't do any of the things that went wrong in that video, it was his own stubbornness and ignorance.
the problem with a lot of these recommendations though is that to a non-linux user: all code is random, and no commands are understood. you only learn by doing, and if you cant do until you know, you'll never get anywhere. you gotta make a few mistakes to learn anything, and thats what happened. yea he paid the stupid tax, but so does everyone else while they learn a new thing. that was the entire point of the challenge: how hard is it? and it turns out, quite! info is scattered, theres lots of commands and code that sounds like it'll do what you want but is actually a bad idea (as evidenced by the recommendations you point out), and things can break easily. thats the video.
Yeah, it's not like people can read and there are several tutorials and manuals freely available all over the internet.
to a new person, those tutorials and manuals are the "random code and unknown commands" that i spoke about in the above comment. i thought i made that very clear. nothing is known until it is learned, and things cannot be learned without practice. practice leads to initial failure, and the frustrations with that are what the linux challenge was about.
No one has never learned anything from reading? So, history must be a con from big paper to sell books, huh?
Seems like you are purposefully misunderstanding Cora's replies, so you... can be snide? win an argument? You never mentioned you understand the reasoning Cora is using.
I understand their argument. I think it's stupid. So I'm mocking the argument to bring that point home. Reading about things, gives us understanding of said things. At least as approximate as possible as to not need to break anything when practicing with it. Breaking X or the desktop environment is not a common experience. It happens but its not frequent. Windows encourages people to turn off their brain and not to understand the basics of how their os works. That mindset leads to unsafe behaviors that are simply mitigated by reading what the os is asking you. There are literal first principles tutorials that explains all concepts, YouTube videos, Wikipedia explains it all in simple English. A 15 minutes google trip gives all that's necessary to safely run Linux. Most everything else is just like any other os.
You don't have to crash into a tree first to learn how to drive. It can be explained to you in a way that practice is safe and accident free. You don't have to kill a bunch of people to learn medicine, you're taught in class and out of books until you're safe enough to practice along with a mentor without killing anyone out of negligence. Learning a new os or software is no different. Just read the manual you dense smug bugs.
How would someone who doesn't use GitHub or linux know how to do that?
GitHub shouldn't be a method of software distribution, but a lot of FOSS devs take the easy way out. Understandably so; they're volunteering their time. Still, Linus is in a position to show how it works rather than complaining.
And to prove the point there was a website dedicated to taking GitHub links and turning them into download links.
I know Linus is more of a hardware guy but c'mon. You learn git freshman year into any Computer Science-related degree. Failing that, 5 seconds of Google or ChatGPT even will set you straight. Maybe it wasn't intuitive, but I like think the biggest tech youtuber would have knowledge of something so fundamental to his field...
As I recall he was trying to use Linux as if he was a regular non-techy person. So it could make sense for him to do that knowing it's wrong. (Which wouldn't apply to "apt install Steam" yes do as I say issue, which a regular user probably wouldn't have tried and ignored the warning even with jargon there).
I don't find it completly unbelievable even a techy could make that mistake because they do not use version control software like git.
I really don't think he was acting or anything. Like someone else said, if he knew how it worked he could have used it as a moment to teach others right? Instead he just completely fumbled everything, said it was set up incorrectly and blamed the website for it. Which given recent events is such a Linus thing to do...
I thought he made it explicit going into the Linux challenge but it's not stated clearly as such in the first ep (Linux Hates Me - Daily Driver Challenge Pt.1).
In the video Linus says:
Why would a regular non-techy person need to run GoXLR on Linux
Audio creation is a hidden magic I know little of, so the same reasons as on Windows but they're sick of Windows? Do you consider an audio enthusiastic a "techy"? Perhaps I should have said "computer techy".
I absolutely consider an audio enthusiast a "techy", and anyone looking to use GoXLR is definitely a "techy". Anyone who's found themselves on the GoXLR on Linux GitHub page and hasn't immediately closed the tab is almost certainly going to be knowledgeable* enough to navigate a git repository, or at least be willing to put in more effort than downloading a single file from the repository then giving up when it doesn't work.
You could be right, I don't know enough about audio generally or the audience for an GoXLR.
I loved watching him type out "yes I understand the thing that I'm about to do is going to break my computer" and then complain that the thing that he did broke his computer!
Linus shits on entrepreneurship with his continual BS with easily caught bad data. No reputable companies should touch him. Anything he pushes to his viewers should be suspicious. I’ll be wondering how much LMG gets under the table for posting positive reviews.
I've seen videos where he's just basically repeating the script marketing have given him.. zero difficult questions. No doubt they're quite lucrative.
Unfortunately they're his most accurate ones.
Woah woah woah woah!
I dunno how many times this has to be said!
He didn't SELL it! He AUCTIONED it!
That's a distinction that needs to be made!
And it was for CHARITY. Surely that obsolves him right?
I herby start the bidding on LM! Do I hear $500?
Jesus fuck Linus. Half the reason you are popular is because people trust your statements; and you are just flushing that away.
Linus just straight up lied about Billet labs resolution. That alone is horrendous behaviour.
While not being directly related it might be worth noting that a former employee of lmg has now come forward on twitter to describe in gory detail the kind of treatment she received while working there. The culture there sounds utterly disgusting and based on their history it is all extremely believable. Link to the post
Really makes me think they need a union. Also makes me wonder what all Linus learned from this guy who "taught me everything about management" if this is his style of management.
Linus is explicitly anti-union. He's stated on camera that "if you treat your employees well, you don't need a union." All this bullshit coming out proves that's a fuckin' lie.
This post should be pinned. I went in not liking her because to be she came off on camera as unlikable (giving you this context so you know my mindset going in to the read).
By the end, I was sickened, disgusted and appalled at the treatment she got. I have obviously unsubbed. I was going to wait this out to see how LMG solved this but fuck them. I wish her all the best and as swift a recovery as possible.
The saddest thing is, reading that post, you can tell exactly when she's quoting linus even when she doesn't mention him.
Is Madison the one that became popular in the community after being snarky in a video while they were building a new PC for her? I think I remember her getting a job there afterwards. If I remember correctly, she was really funny.
Is there an archive of the chain somewhere? I dont have twitter/x, and it won't let me see anything other than the main tweet
Here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1691693740254228741?refresh=1692174340
Thanks!
I think this reddit post has all of it.
Can't read past the opening tweet without logging into twitter. Could you summarise or link to an article containing the info?
Basically Madison got misled when getting hired, was expected to do way too much work, was verbally and physically sexually abused, and overall just treated like absolute shit. Not to mention that she was belittled when she complained about it
Linus is always dropping shit, and this is no different.
Also, don't fuck with tech Jesus
It's looking like Linus should have taken that $100 million offer he got and left when he had the chance.
I get that some people like working, and that business founders can be very emotionally invested in their baby.
But to imagine having $100 million waved in my face and saying “nah, I think I’ll just wake up and go to work tomorrow” is crazy to me. But I guess you can’t be a billionaire if you “settle” for nine figures and an absurdly comfortable life with nothing but free time to find new interests and see the world.
I don’t think he works “traditionally” as he is essentially the sole founder and CEO. He’s the centre piece but it’s not like you’re actually “going to work” but rather building something. That doesn’t make the $100 an escape but more as an offer for someone to take what you built all this time and saying later.
A good analogy is walking your dog, that you cherish, and someone offers to buy him right there.
Even if you like working. Taking those $100 million means you and your family will, for generations not have to worry about work. You can take the money and still work like a madman by either making a new venture or doing charity.
But I guess for some people it's more about the power than the money.
I can imagine it is his dreamjob, in which case what the heck would money matter?
That is quite likely the main reason he refused.
That company is probably worth way more then that. Or at least could be. So if you're even remotely prideful, you probably think that's a slap in the face.
I doubt it is worth way more than that now.
Of course, but the offer was prior to the issues coming out.
Aside from the whole drama, I remember them having quite a nice relationship before.. wonder what changed
A labs employee mouthed off and GN went full scorched earth
Steve actually said in the first video that they didn’t respond at all to the labs’ employee comment.
It was one of the first things shown in the video. I didn't even know about the comment until watching the GN video.
Context seemed to be "this is what we let slide before, but the gloves are off after this new comment" to demonstrate that they at least showed some restraint.
And the new comment was by Linus himself. Kinda funny how one offhand comment can have such a large impact.
Now I wonder if Linus will embrace the people who love to talk about how much they hate cancel culture. Is there a fascist Linus in this timeline?
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Wow. When you're supposed to wait and hear from both sides and this is what comes... Yikes. Went to check and read the whole response and any other replies that might have come from it on their forum and found ~115 pages (oops 2 more while writing this) of discussion after Linus' post.
All I want is just good hardware reviews, the rest is noise...
Same. Seems LTT and Short Circuit is out. As demonstrated, they aren't a reliable source.
Same, that's why i never liked that twat
I really only ever followed any tech channels for cool videos and news, reviews are nearly pointless to me until I'm trying to actually buy or recommend something.
But outside of an occasional great video or at least great topic (like the 48kW fan), LMG barely offers anything special in that space anymore, despite still being the biggest outlet. GN has news down pat (along with reviews), Storage Review and STH cover enterprise stuff that Linus has only exceeded once with the million dollar (or whatever it was) setup, and plenty of channels do guides.
I've never understood the appeal of Linus Tech Tips anyway. Anthony was great but Linus is just terrible as a host. "Oh no, Linux sucks because it is not Windows! Oh no I broke the system because I couldn't read the text on the screen!"
I feel like the point of that video though was to point out how a common user using linux would just make these kind of mistakes which do happen and are legitimate. That's one of the reasons why I enjoy Linux Mint so much really. Simple to use and not too much of a hassle while also slightly helping you understand some of the easier aspects of Linux.
Linus is tech cancer plain and simple, now more so.
He's an idiot. After I saw him installing Linux I was sure about that. What a bozo.
and now there stuf about sexual harasment......
I agree with Steve on everything, this was a huge blunder and fail in messaging from Linus. But you are supposed to reach out and ask for comment before running a story. I was a news reporter and have a master's in public relations.
Edit: Called Linus "Linux"
You ask for a comment regarding an accusation, this wasn't something to get a comment for, it was the details and evidence itself which is not refutable.
If there was a claim against someone of an event that cannot be shown, you would ask them for their version of events, if the news had a clear video of an irrefutable event they would not require comment for what the video itself would clearly demonstrate.
Steve's video was demonstrable information through explicit evidence, it wasn't something that a comment would have shed light to as the only appropriate comment that could be made be a public response.
The content of the video could not have been changed and given what was demonstrated, it did not serve the viewerbase to wait for the response of the larger platform with greater reach.
Linus Tech Tips has the reach needed to be seen by at least as many viewers with their response.
Nope. You call them up and go, "This is happening and we're running a story. Care to comment?" You should even have a list of questions to ask if they agree. They can give you bullshit answers if they want, then you point those out and add that to the story. It doesn't have to affect the story. Facts are facts, and they can try to explain it away, but can't. You're still holding them accountable. You're just also giving them a chance to apologize or own up to it. And if they dont' comment, you include that.
Steve and crew are amazing tech journalists. They're doing great work. But that's a miss in this whole thing.
Did you watch the video above? Steve spend some time explaining exactly his thoughts behind not reaching out for comments. I think he argues well.
He said that he 'aggrees with Steve on everything', so no, he didn't watch the video lol.
I did watch the video. And I don't agree with him. He needs to ask for a comment.
Then the literal first sentence of your first comment was a lie.
That's a courtesy you can extend, but mostly it's a protection against libel - if they take you to court about a claim they dispute, being able to say "your honor, we gave them a chance to respond before going public"
In this case, there's no dispute over facts - they didn't bring up any accusations, they just took what LTT posted publicly and presented criticisms of it
For example, if you report on the president being accused of misconduct you might ask the white house for comment, but if you are criticizing a speech they made or their public actions you probably wouldn't (unless you think they'll give you something that improves the story)
OK, this I can agree with. And in fairness I was never writing about a big, constantly-updated video channel that was continually talking about itself. But it still screams to me there needs to be a chance at letting them respond.
I'm not sure I agree that you have to give a chance to respond - I think context matters.
I think if you make an accusation or cover a specific incident, they should be able to give their context, not out of fairness but as this might give a more accurate view of the truth
In this case, they presented a specific series of events showing a pattern of behavior, and a timeline of communication they made with billet (including their public comments in the subject
What truth could they add here? They could add more details or make excuses, but that waters down the message - the point isn't "Linus did something bad and made factual mistakes", it's "Linus has shown a pattern of doing bad things, and frequently publishes factually incorrect figures"
I think you're coming at it from a place of "you have to give them a chance to respond out of fairness", but journalism isn't about fairness, it's about distilling an easily consumed message from the endless complicated facts that make up any situation. Journalistic integrity is about making every effort to give a "good take", and should put accuracy above all
Being fair to the people you're covering should follow naturally by pursuing the truth, doing the opposite is what we call "softball journalism"
Thats how I am used to it as well. There is always more than pure facts. And giving the other side a change explain themselves is a part of it.
In certain cases yes. This is not one. What comment could Linus have given that would contextualize the story in such a way to excuse factual information?
Steve was absolutely vindicated in refusing to ask for comment due to Linus's behavior. Had he asked for comment, Linus would have contacted Billet prior to the release. Instead, Linus makes a statement that heavily (if not outright) implies that had Steve asked for comment he would have context to know that an agreement had been made between LMG/Linus and Billet Labs before the video dropped. Because Steve did not reach out for comment we now know that this was a lie or an attempt to obfuscate the truth.
If you are extolling factual information you do not owe the subject a comment. If your work could be damaged (see above) by doing so you do not owe the subject a comment. If a person has already commented publicly you do not owe the subject a comment.
Steve reported objectively factual information that cannot be excused with any context. The story that was written at the time would have been damaged had he asked for comment. Linus has a public presence and has made his feelings known about previous scandals before, and his actual response was entirely telegraphed in tone, if not also content, by long time viewers.
There is not some ethics masterclass that would have come to the conclusion that Steve violated journalistic integrity by running this story without comment from Linus. You may not like it, but you're also not some ethics in journalism arbiter.
I agree it's generally good practice to ask the subject for comment, and Steve seems to know that because he explains at length why he didn't here. I criticized him for this when the last video came out, but I thought his explanation in this new video for why he didn't contact Linus first is pretty good; I'm not sure why you're being downvoted here, but since you are a former reporter I'd be interested in hearing specifics on why you disagree with it.
Yea, I think that and a few other nitpicky things are the only flaws in GN's argument. Otherwise, the testing results and Billet's response speaks for itself. LTT is going too loose and fast and while that's bad, it's understandable if you're a fledging company. That's all LTT had to point out. And instead of being humble and retrospective they put out this PR nightmare of a response.
I used to be a regular watcher of LTT, but really noticed their latest videos have declined in quality and it's apparent that they're just pumping out as much videos as possible.
Oof.
So annoying how all good tech channels now lean on drama and sensationalism to get more engagement.
Digital Foundry seems to be the last one where people are level-headed.
I didn't find this to be overly dramatic or sensationalized. I enjoy knowing when one of the people I regularly watch are in fact assholes. Note, he didn't say they were assholes. He merely repeated what they did and called out issues. He said he wouldn't be covering the channel anymore after their response. Just decent journalism in my opinion.
Yea, but ever since Nexus started doing their "investigations", so much of their content looks like cable news. They now jump on all opportunities to drum up more drama.
How dare Gamer's Nexus....point out lies and widespread problems at LTT with Nexus backing every claim with evidence. The real issue is reporting on the issues!
Fuck LTT. I stopped watching their content ever since they introduced the "emoting faces" thumbnails. All I say is every time I see tech Jesus these days it's over some drama, affair and exposé.
Exploding components, fire hazards, evil corporate practices. It often feels that if there is no drama happening, Nexus will go out of their way to make one happen. Just like cable news.
Do you know what algorithms are?
Lol ok. As someone that is actually subbed to GN I can tell just by Tech Jesus’s demeanor that he does not enjoy these so called drama videos. He looks happy when reporting actual news and info whereas in the videos where he has to call out people and corps he just looks like he can’t believe he has to do this shit again.
I have not seen the other videos you're talking about but this one pretty clearly showed both consumers and companies why LTT should be treated with caution and skepticism. I'd say that that's relevant information beyond just "drama".
If you’re more concerned with the muckrakers than the muck idk what to tell you
LMG has a lot of issues. Clickbait, and now this.
I hope the new CEO will intervene sooner or later, although a lot of CEOs only exist as de-facto mascots.
I'm not sure the new CEO has any actual power when it comes to reining Linus in.
Yeah, Linus admitted that himself. He still owns the majority, and Yvonne owns the rest. The CEO really can't actually do anything that Linus doesn't want, he's just a figurehead and businessman there to keep Linus from being forced into the office and off the camera.
So a yet another puppet CEO, just like the in Twitter... oh sorry, X.
They came from a tech journalist forum before doing reviews, covering bad practices in the industry, most notoriously MSI, and Linus being the face of PC hardware with so many inaccuracies is just another topic.
Yes, facts are drama, for sure.
Understandable, but I think many people (including me) are fine with a little drama every once in a while as long as it's warranted and doesn't damage the substance of the content. Unnecessary drama can certainly be a problem, but unnecessarily making dramatic things boring is not necessarily the solution.
I can agree with that. It may be that ever since I no longer subscribe to the tech elite (LTT, MKBHD, Nexus, Jays2Cents, etc) - I only come across their content when there is drama!