The dude who doesn't let his employees talk about pay is a shit bag? Who would have guessed?
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Not an LMG fan but I assumed better of them in this regard, wow.
While calling himself a socialist and virtue signalling about it on twitter, to boot.
Seeing Linus not address about LMG agreed to send the protype back to Billet Labs, plus Billet Labs publicly stating "No, we never agreed to financial compensation, we asked for it to be returned" and Linus saying it was auctioned for charity makes Linus Media Group a thief.
Yes,I'm saying LMG stole the protype from Billet Laps since it was sold and not retuned.
Thievery implies intent. I think I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt here and say it not being returned may well have been unintentional, through carelessness or straight up hubris ("I can do whatever I want with stuff people send to me!"). Either way, it's incredibly bad, but one is obviously worse than the other.
Billet Labs asked for it to be returned. LMG agreed the their request and told Billet Labs "Yes, we will return it to you." Then LMG auctioned it off. LMG committed theft. There very well may be a valid legal case for Billet Labs to sue for punitive damages if LMG does not give them a sizeable amount of money.
I mean discovery will have to prove intent. What happened was shitty but we do have to remember there are about 120+ people in LTT. Billet labs probably emailed 1 person in the company twice, that person probably wasn't in logistics or in the team that was organizing LTX. So this is likely a huge fuck up but I think people are acting like they did this just out of spite when really it seems to be an organizational issue that got swept up in the mix. Who ever is the contact for Billet Labs may honestly get their job axed since this is a pretty big fuck up. I know people are trying to paint Linus as the one who did this but I don't think it is. We can blame him for his shit response and how he made it seem that they were already handling Billet Lab's with compensation but maybe I'm being optimistic but I honestly think GN's video was the first Linus has heard about what happened to the prototype besides maybe it being auctioned but I think he wasn't aware it needed to be returned.
Why side note to start, why do people like start a conversation with "I mean...." when there was nothing said previously? That is a phrase usually reserved for when someone is clarify a previous statement regarding what they meant to say beforehand, that's why I ask, how do initiate first contact with "I mean..."?
For LMG, the position of the person in contact with Billet Lab is irrelevent. In a healthy company, there is frequent contact between the different deparments during work. Interdepartment agencies. When someone at LMG got the request for the prototype to be returned, it would be their duty and responsivility to pass the memo on to the person(s) involved and notify them in the appropriate position of the request with a statement that it has to packaged up so the individuals who handle all incoming and outgoing packges can get it sent back to Billet Labs. It's not the person who received the request that is then responsible for the packaging and mailing of it.
It's different employees in that chain who are responsible and as they complete it they pass it on to the next in line in the process for getting it ready to go out.
Whether intentional or not, they stole trade secrets. There might not be any legal repercussions of there wasn't intent, but that's incredibly unethical. Especially given Linus is a public investor in a tech startup, he used his platform to trash another startup and then give away their intellectual property.
Sure it's unethical, lazy, sloppy, plus any number of adjectives. But as they say: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
It absolutely does not. If a package gets delivered to your house by mistake and you sell whatever it is, you are 100% liable for stealing someones mail. Doesn't matter if you didn't think the people would ever come for it and you didn't mean to steal anything.
...unless you're a tech reviewer that receives hundreds of products a month from people that never expects to get them back.
I don't know how to be more clear on this, this is a failure on LTT's part, no question. There should be better processes in place to prevent this from happening. But there's a difference between knowingly and willfully pawning off something that they knew didn't belong to them, and incompetently assuming everything everything they sell off has been vetted with the vendor. There's a large enough team that a miscommunication could have broken down along the chain, somewhere between vendor reps and the person setting up that auction.
I like LMG. They make some decent content, that’s easily understood. That being said, they’re handling this VERY badly. Shame on Linus, and LMG.
Linus has been sticking his foot in his mouth often enough that it's starting to develop in to the persona he thinks he needs to/is supposed to have. The WAN Show is pretty much the only LTT content I care to watch anymore, but it has become increasingly common over the last ~year or more that he has a spicy take that gets embroiled in some mild controversy. But now he's like "well this is the part of the show where I have spicy takes" and is almost actively looking to do it. I see Luke becoming increasingly frustrated with it too. Stepping down as CEO is probably the right call, but this move to "CVO" seems a little too lateral. I think Linus needs to pull back out of the spotlight, for the health of his company. But I really think he thinks his personality is the brand.
He likes and wants to be on camera, and he knows a ton from years in the industry, but I wonder if he wouldn't be better as like... chief script advisor who also teaches other employees tips and tricks on how to compose videos, stage scenes, manage the flow of content, where to splice in B roll, how to read the weave of the youtube algorithm... They've grown remarkably, and I like what Linus states is the goal of the Labs project. But I worry he's both becoming increasingly convinced his personality is an important part of the channel cachet, and also increasingly impulsive with regards to making decisions and spending money in an effort to go fast.
Stepping down as CEO is probably the right call, but this move to "CVO" seems a little too lateral. I think Linus needs to pull back out of the spotlight, for the health of his company. But I really think he thinks his personality is the brand.
If ownership hasn't changed, and he's still essentially the CEO's boss since he selects them, it's rearranging deck chairs. He hired someone to do administrative tasks.
This is probably the most coherent take I've read. He's having trouble taking it from a yt channel to an actual company, and it's kicking his arse.
I’ve called this since the backpack warranty debacle. Linus needs to be pulled back to earth or risk having LTT lose their credibility.
There's credibility in the first place? O_o I always assumed it's like Top Gear for cars; it's entertainment for younger people of its time.
I liked their budget build guides, it provided me with a baseline list of components depending on my available budget for the build. I’ve also based some of my decision regarding setting up my house networking from their videos.
TL:DR On this backpack warranty thing? I keep reading comments mentioning it, but I am not aware of what happened.
LTT made a 250 USD backpack. When people asked about the warranty, Linus basically said “trust me bro” and mocked people who voiced their concerns of buying a brand new quite expensive backpack without any warranty.
lol. amazing
my goodness, they need to slow the video output rate so that they can carefully consider the content of responses to valid criticism.
I think Linus is convinced that if they slow down at all, the entire company will collapse because they've grown so huge. They also ran up huge debt to build the Labs which will not start generating revenue for a long time.
Well, then it's a good thing that he didn't also blow a bunch of money on a mansion, a "true" mansion, and then a badminton court. That would have been a real waste of money that could have gone to a safety net for the company instead, so, you know, it's great that he didn't do anything like that.
I felt that whole series was so out of touch and so cringy, oh my..
Wait are you saying he was mixing his own personal money and the businesses money? I am very much curious about the context/story here.
I've been wondering about that too; really not sure where the ROI was going to come from for such a massive investment. Sure, it enhances the videos, but by that much? Unlikely. Where's the income generation happening on all that equipment?
They have the infrastructure to be a testing powerhouse, putting out a lot more data than other sites. That said, they seem to be doing it very inefficiently and don't seem to have the staff and knowledge to make it all work.
All the videos on the equipment. :p
I mostly think this is the main thing about the lab. It’s content, lots of content, which he can monetize. His giant house. Lots of projects, more content.
The data is a far secondary goal. The equipment would never pay for itself without the content it generates.
I watched some of their videos maybe 10+ years ago. I don't know how they managed to get so big, but I think they should probably get small again.
It gets worse
Madison (a former LMG employee) took to Twitter to unload her experience of widespread sexual harassment, bullying, intimidation and other issues. She's just thrown a whole tanker of gasoline on the fire.
https://twitter.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741
Linus is about to end up homeless...
Oh. I liked her on the videos. Explains why havent seen her anymore. This is pretty sad to read.
This is a pretty bad look. I think maybe someone head is too far up where it shouldn't be to get that.
He’s an entertainer, but also an idiot
I can only hope for any kind of positive outcome.
I can only hope for ~~any kind of positive outcome~~ a t-shirt for sale at lttstore.com at 25% off that makes light of the situation.
Feels more fitting.
It's about time that this misinformation spreading bozo is stopped. That whole channel is a joke & I never understood why people watch this shit. And the reaction is not surprising.