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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • Linus also wants LMG to be about more than him, and a huge part of the controversy is tied to his decision making power overruling everyone else who says they are working too fast.

    He could have appeared, that’s fine, but that nobody was able to get him to drop the defensive attitude and just finally say “sorry” without any pity pleas would have been a very strong signal. That they either didn’t think to do that, couldn’t get Linus to agree or don’t have the power to force him also sends a strong signal in the other direction.


  • I am a semi-frequent WAN show watcher and I definitely get that vibe. Some people will say that Luke stands up to Linus, but from what I’ve seen it’s only superficial. I have never seen him push Linus enough that it becomes a real disagreement–not on an actual controversy like this, at least. The WAN show where they discussed the Billet Labs review is a perfect example: Luke says “well, maybe we should have re-tested” but then Linus goes off on his “$500 of employee time” tangent and Luke doesn’t call that out as completely ridiculous and hypocritical.

    He does voice his disagreement, but not in a way that is going to change anything.



  • You are correct to call me out on this. I edited my comment to clarify that I’ve now read her whole thread and her complaints are valid. The detail she provided with the frat-bro culture and sexual harassment is entirely unacceptable and I have no reason not to give her the benefit of the doubt.

    Also, to clarify the part you quoted, I was not trying to downplay Madison’s perspective at all. By “anything of value that she mentioned” I was primarily referring to the rushed production schedule, which is what I got mostly from my original read since that is what she focused on first.




  • Billet Labs has not done anything to promote the controversy as far as I can tell. Gamer’s Nexus is the one amplifying this, and rightfully so.

    The whole point of including that element in their video was as another example of how sloppy, rushed and unprofessional LMG has been operating. The complete lack of respect for an enthusiast tech startup, the exact kind of company that Linus always talks about wanting to support, is incredibly revealing about how the priorities and objectives of the company are practiced.





  • Sorry, but I didn’t see anything she posted that really has merit in this discussion. It’s from one junior, inexperienced ex-employee, and most of what she said is just normally “unhappy employee” stuff.

    Anything of value that she mentioned is already covered by other sources, most notably the video GN showed with LMG employees and Linus himself saying their pace is too fast.

    Edit: I took the time today to properly read her entire thread and I changed my mind. There’s a lot here that is very concerning and deserving of investigation.





  • Gamer’s Nexus recently released a video detailing how LMG’s pace-over-all-else attitude is in direct conflict with their “we’re going to be a serious data company” plans for LTT Labs. What has people the most upset, however, is the story around Billet Labs. LTT did a terrible, rushed, unprofessional job at reviewing a custom prototype from a small startup–they used the wrong hardware (after losing the GPU the company sent them to test with), didn’t care enough to re-test properly, and then auctioned off that hardware instead of returning it to the owners.

    Linus then responded (only in a space he controlled, of course) and said “we’re going to do better, trust me bro” and made everything 10x worse. GN was essentially forced to respond to that because Linus blatantly lied to cover up the timeline on the Billet Labs fuckup.

    Oh, and LTT also released a video in the middle of this that had a ton of testing problems, just like the original video outlined.

    Now we’re here, where the new CEO, Linus’s wife (and co-owner, to be clear) and the rest of the LMG leadership have to pick up the pieces to try and salvage their reputation.



  • How do they know it’s a bad product if they didn’t bother to test it under the conditions it was designed for? It was a prototype, not a final product. In the original video, Linus is surprised (and maybe a bit upset) that the other guy didn’t grab the right card or even notice that he didn’t get the right card.

    And to the point of the comment you replied to: it doesn’t matter what the cost of the cooler was. If it was the best of the best then it was worth showing that. LTT does not seem to have a consistent viewpoint of “practicality”. Even if we ignore that, saying “this product isn’t worth the cost” is very different than the “useless” comment they ended up with.

    The whole situation is what I like to refer to as “fractally wrong”. No matter the perspective, how close or far away, it’s always wrong.


  • The video from GN had footage from WAN show where he said that, so yes. I have not personally looked up the context, but it also sounds very much in character for how Linus thinks these days, so I am not at all surprised.

    I also think it’s an excuse to cover up the real problem: complete disorganization and the extreme pace of production. In the video itself, Linus seems legitimately upset with his employee that didn’t even realize they had the wrong GPU. He did not seem surprised, however, which is very telling.