At least, some of the recent controversies.
From the majority of the team, this is a pretty good and textbook PR mea culpa. “Here’s how we screwed up, here’s how we’re fixing it.”
The pushing the merch was tone-deaf and the defensive whining from Linus was NOT on-point, though. I appreciate it ended with “how I’m going to fix it,” but he should keep the defensive shit to himself.
Glad to see this video, even with some of the drawbacks mentioned in the comments. I think everyone needs a path to redemption and LMG should get a chance. I think that this “reflection” should be more regular. LMG is no longer a small company and like it or not, they need to regularly be ahead of these situations. I really hope that they will take a week ever month or two to review any new screw ups and remedy them. Process will not solve everything, ensuring a company culture that has key values will triump process. It takes time however. I wish them the best.
I run a small company, at what size do I need to start worrying about treating people respectfully? My belief is companies shouldn’t get a pass, no matter the size. Why are we ok with it happening at all at this point? It’s not 1960 anymore.
I was referring to what was stated in the video. The issues with poor benchmarking and the billetlabs issue (email sent to the wrong recipient). I am not sure why you think any of it implied that it is ok to treat people without respect if the organisation is below a certain size. I was referring to ensuring that a company culture of being humble, responsible and accountable via a monthly or bi monthly review. It could have potentially caught the issue with billetlabs and even several issues with the benchmarking. This is perhaps easier done in a small company but needs to be nurtured and reinforced in a bigger one. I hope my position is more clear.
People are sharks for argument on forums like this.
It would be better if the CEO could learn to read a prompter so it looks like he’s not reading one.
This is pretty annoying to watch with his eyes looking above the camera and going left and right constantly.
Still better than the labs guy who just sounded like a robot
To be fair to them, they aren’t hosts. Its glaringly obvious they are not in-front-of-camera people. It does feel like its done on purpose to appeal emotionally.
I know Linus was pushing back REAL hard on getting a fact checker. And it would’ve likely prevented this situation entirely.
Edit: Other than the pushing of merch… Sigh… This is a pretty good PR mea culpa. At least from the rest of the team. I guess I should finish it. Pretty textbook. “We screwed up, here’s how we’re fixing it.”
Edit 2: Nevermind. I got to the part with Linus. FFS.
Relax. So they made some mistakes. Cringe mistakes that could easily be avoidable (a lot like much of my life has been). Either they do better in the future or they die. People are getting so upset and enraged it looks like this is something that matters. They are still fun, I like them. Im rooting for them to improve!
That does sound pretty bad. Seems they have deep rooted problems. I wonder if there is a high turnover rate.
And, finally, somebody actually gave some context for this video.
Thanks, lol.
or they die
enraged it looks like this is something that matters
Zen master how can I reach your wisdom of dying doesn’t even matter
You can’t
The fact they’re still hiding their testing methodologies behind floatplane makes me dubious of how effective this “housekeeping” week will be. Not that I plan on watching or interacting with anything LMG related going forward until the allegations brought up by Madison are properly handled anyway, in which then my final decision will be made.
Where can I see these allegations from Madison? I must have missed them.
Edit: I found them, right under this post on my front page lol.
Well that really hurts to read :( Madison was one of my favorites
I always assumed this guy was a d-bag.
Brought to you by our sponsor, dbrand.
I am carefully optimistic about this. They addressed the problems and seem to take some time to fix them. I hope they will focus on quality over quantity as they promised.
After all the shit Madison revealed, you’re going to give these creeps a chance?
The PC world truly is a toxic cesspool if you can sand behind these assholes a second longer.
To be fair: I (and probably you) don’t know her and she didn’t show any proof. So just take the accusations with a grain of salt. (That doesn’t mean that they should be ignored!)
This event is the first time I’ve heard of this company. I’ve built several PCs for friends over 20 years, never used YouTube for it, once. This feels like standard influencer drama, and much of the influencer space is a toxic cesspool. It’s not about a hobby, it’s about greedy assholes.
I will look at LTT to see the next new product, but I won’t go to them for technical specifications anymore, which was one of the primary reasons I watched his videos.
What got revealed?
Madison, a former employee, basically described a terrible working environment. She was bait and switched on several aspects of the role, and only found out after giving up her US visa and moving to Canada. She was constantly berated, sexually harassed in many ways, made to manage an only-fans despite making her discomfort known, the expectations of releases were unreasonable and her coworkers sabotaged her by knowingly setting her up to release videos with incorrect facts. Taking any of this to HR, or even Linus himself, ended with her being laughed off or told to stop being a tattle tale
All this is alleged and there’s a lot more, but the kicker to me is the fact she cut her leg bad enough to need staples, because going to the ER was the only way she felt she could get badly needed time off.
That’s what seals it for me - either she’s a borderline nightmare, or the working situation is far beyond the pale. Add in the fact the pressure to release, inaccuracies, and public glimpses of Linus’s attitude, and I’m inclined to believe it’s more true than false
Madison, a former LMG employee who handled the social media part of the business, posted a series of tweets alleging a slew of accusations of sexual harassment and paints a picture of a very toxic and abusive workplace.
Personally, I don’t know how much stock I put into all of that just yet. She didn’t come with receipts, so right now that part of the story is still mostly “he said she said” until either Madison posts more details about specific incidents or if LMG responds to her claims directly.
Edit: Link to Madison’s tweets, mirrored off-site from Twitter: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1691693740254228741.html
https://kbin.social/m/linustechtips@lemmy.ml/t/347639/Madison-on-why-she-quit
It’s damage control.
Of course it is. But admitting errors and avoiding to make them again is a pretty effective form of damage control, and it is the kind we should want from any company.
While also monetizing the video and plugging their merch, in direct contrast to GN not monetizing the original video that started this whole thing. Absolutely brutal move there.
GN not monetizing the original video
GN monetized their follow up video just the same, pure drama for clicks about a total non issue. But Internet loves this shit. That GN likes to put huge focus on not monetizing and playing “holier than thou”-card isn’t exactly a good look either.
Removed by mod
The problem is the founder is still a thin-skinned whiny jerk that made it about ‘his poor feelings’ and doubled down.
When everyone else in a video is doing the right thing, and the founder is not, you can bet there’s a huge toxic culture that a dedicated, but peripheral group is trying to work around - and Madison’s tweets show that there’s a hell of a lot more toxicity than just their ethical and editorial failings.
The problem is the founder is still a thin-skinned whiny jerk that made it about ‘his poor feelings’ and doubled down.
That’s not at all what happened, and I think you’re seriously lacking empathy here. He explained he reacted emotionally, and he’s still emotional. This is in no small part his baby. He made the decision to step down before this ever happened because he wanted someone that could do it better at the helm, he realized he had been promoted past his competency, that’s not nothing.
People just love drama…
Wow, well, that’s one way to attempt to rewrite history. Either you are uninformed, misinformed, or delusional. I suggest you read some of the LTT related topics on the front page.
Try just watching the video. Linus is to my eye being extremely genuine.
I don’t get the absurd crusade to crucify someone one barely knows for a situation one barely understands in the name of what… Some self indulgent moral superiority?
It happens every time. “Big publicly recognized figure/company/whatever makes a mistake” and everyone wants their life ruined, speculates to infinity and beyond, and writes off their humanity, etc. And it’s happening over increasingly trivial things.
It’s an internet mob out on a witch hunt and it’s disgusting. This dude and his wife built a company from nothing that has been good to many many people from everything I’ve taken in over the years. They didn’t kill anyone, they screwed up some data in a YouTube video, an employee sold something they shouldn’t have (which Linus then tried to rectify), and some allegations have been made without proof by one former employee with no information from the LTT side (and no proof Linus or his team knew anything about the situation or its severity). Meanwhile, y’all are out here screaming for the demise of the whole damn thing, and to screw any second chances. It’s a completely disproportionate and unjustified response.
I absolutely hate to see people treat other people in this way.
There is tons of info in this thread about what happened. None of that was a mistake.
Apparently you are just misinformed and seem to have no will to take in the relevant information, which renders your opinion on the matter meaningless.
Monetizing an apology video of all things says it all.
Actions speak louder than words…
Their action was to monetize the apology video, which is especially funny after Gamers Nexus explicitely didn’t monetize their video. They advertised their shop and floatplane and teased a new product. Just incredible.
They really cannot help themselves. Money corrupts all.
The description text is full of their ad stuff too while the GN videos is not.
What do we do now?
Just shut the company down. LMG peaked years ago, and went downhill from there. And even back then it was worst amongst the big tech channels.
You don’t have to be that drastic. Sure, I’m done watching their videos but if they truly want to keep their remaining audience, 1. Linus needs to step down from appearing in any vídeos, 2. Put out a statement to both the community and vendors that they are going to do better and list each change being addressed, and 3. Slow down the video release schedule to ensure proper benchmarks and results can be validated and accurately captured.
Jesus, Michael Dell vibes over here
Lol.
You can just not watch their videos. That’s always been allowed.
I agree that it’s good they’re acknowledging the problems but that video felt like an interrogation. So corporate and weird.
Nevermind
How many takes do you think each of them needed before they all managed to look at the camera while talking, read the script appropriately, and move their head and hands enthusiastically?
In fairness, they would have been absolutely stupid to have not done a 100% prewritten, teleprompted PR riddled pre-written response given the situation. Linus sitting down in front of a camera and just letting his mind do Linus things isn’t gonna help anyone lol.
You mean like he did on the forums about three hours after the GN video dropped?
It definitely helped everyone to see their true color…
Bingo!
Have a link by any chance, or has it been deleted?
@Chozo The end of the video:
But Dbrand did offer
… is basically advertisement for the brand, packed into “a joke”. Why would they mention it otherwise?
You ever heard of this thing called jokes?
@LufyCZ Did you even read what I wrote?
I did, and disagree with you completely. You don’t have to be so pesimistic about life and look for the worst things in it. They wanted to lighten a mood a bit, maybe it didn’t land well for you but It don’t see any ill intentions behind it.
Btw, how would dbrand know they’re making this video? I doubt LMG reached out to them and told them, wouldn’t make any sense.
And the video itself is monetized.
Not anymore according to the update in the pinned comment
After the community backlash… At least they’re listening ig?
They have a meme relationship with dbrand
Just recently a creator I watch talked about how YouTubers sometimes create drama between each other to gain more relevance. Then they go for drinks together. Is this the case here? No way to realistically know for sure.
I don’t think Gamers Nexus would do something like that, they have a good history of calling out companies for bullshit they try and pull. doing that would damage their reputation.
Calling out the integrity of a channel after that channels spent millions trying to shed the perception of them as just an entertainment channel as opposed to a trustworthy and reliable review channel by investing in the lab? Who comes off here thinking LTT is even more trustworthy when it comes to their reviews which weren’t trusted in the community to begin with.
If this were just some personality driven non tech recommending channel I could agree, but LTT is a channel reviewing hardware like Intel and amd to name a few alongside their wacky lets build a teleporting PC. There’s just some channels where hits to reputation would hurt them as opposed to help.
Probably not from Gamers Nexus’ side of things. Their video is very professional, and focuses on the damage done to other companies featured on the channel, and challenges LTT and LMG to be more professional. They also said in their followup that they won’t be making any more videos on the topic, their goal was to raise awareness, and now it’s LTT’s responsibility to decide what to change, if anything. Is LTT playing it up as drama? Maybe, but I think it’s more likely that they want it treated as drama rather than legitimate criticism so that they can ignore it and move on, rather than to increase attention/ relevance.
I don’t know, Linus is still trying to excuse and justify. It would seem taking him out of the driver’s seat was the right call. As for the rest, they are responding because their backs are against the wall. Time will tell if they will really make any changes.
Oh my god i am so tired of seeing posts about this, PLEASE can we give it a rest? i want to leave this trend hounding shit on reddit
People did move here from reddit after all. That’s why I recommend apps like lemmy connect on Android with keyword filtering. You can’t control what people post, but you can regain control by controlling what you see.
Browse link aggregator website. Complain about links being aggregated
No but that’s specifically what i’m complaining isn’t happening, i see the same link 5 times in a row.
It’s been like 3 days dude, calm down.
It feels like we need an extra level of aggregation for posts. It would be great if all posts for a certain topic could be grouped together. Maybe hashtags or something.
Yeah it’s honestly very strange that they don’t implement a proper tag system, i can’t imagine it would be difficult (like bro it’s an extra array for every post) and it would give a ton of flexibility to the ecosystem.
It’s also a feature reddit has…
I would love hashtags as metadata or in the text of the post
Kbin supports hashtags (and I included a few when I posted this), but there’s no filtering option yet (that I’m aware of, at least), so it’s still mostly just for discovery purposes.
Decent video until Linus gets on and immediately starts making excuses.
