In one of their videos one of the employees said they do better and more accurate GPU tests than other YouTubers called Gamers Nexus and Hardware Unboxed. Then of course those mentioned YouTubers started to hit back and show how often LTT is wrong and makes wrong assumptions, because they don’t do proper due diligence. Since they have to release several videos per week. Gamers Nexus also exposed that LTT auctioned off a prototype GPU cooler from a small startup. But they had no permission to sell the unit. It was only for reviewing. The startup even asked to get the unit back several times. Linus, the owner of LTT, then released a non-apology. Afterwards a former employee came out and told why she left the company and it turns out the work environment is very toxic at LTT. She also reminded everyone that pettiness by Linus caused his fans to harass a small YouTuber called MindChop. Who eventually committed suicide. He fell into a depression because of the harassment and later his mom also committed suicide. She couldn’t bear the loss of her son.
“Several videos a week”.
Twenty-five (25) videos a week. Five a day, four if they work weekends which they likely do. Plus the WAN show and other social media. Their velocity is far too high for accuracy to be a priority. As their own employees said in their video, they wish they had more time. And as Linus himself said, their velocity is so high that the instant they publish a video it has to be forgotten because they have to turn to the next one.
Holy shit, I can’t wrap my head around channels that release more than one video a day
They have like a hundred employees, which makes it a lot easier to figure out. Though some of those employees aren’t directly involved in creating videos, such as doing accounting or creating the many kinds of custom merch that they sell.
They have a bunch of employees doing specialized roles. Not just the usual roles like editing or writing, but they also what they call a “lab” that does stuff like identify findings about tech. But even with so many employees and all the specialization, they’re still clearly rushing. Eg, if they make a massive error, rather than fix it and do a reshoot, they’ll release it with the error, which is a terrible approach.
That’s exactly what happened in their biggest controversy with an expensive water block cooler. They used a completely wrong graphics card despite knowing that it was completely wrong and with an incompatible motherboard, then spent most of the video bad mouthing how it didn’t fit the motherboard or card instead of recognizing that they needed to just identify a compatible board, find the right card, and redo the shoot.
There is no actual proof for the suicide of the son and the mom, would love to see actual proof if you have it but i wouldn’t really use this as an argument. I admit his behaviour was too much but pointing the blame for the suicide of a child is also too extreme
found this twitter post about it: https://twitter.com/reddit_lies/status/1691895748286177765 Just realized that Twitter account is quite stupid but I still can’t find any evidence for it being true or not
Edit: I don’t know if I want to believe if MindChop truly did what the reddit post is talking about, but I feel like Linus wasn’t at fault for his community bullying the Owner.
Another thing I just found: https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15sjv78/for_anyone_wondering_why_madison_stayed_silent/jwfeg5a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
This whole thing is very complicated and I am not trying to discredit the madison allegations with this, they are a completely different topic
THAT whole thing SHOULD NOT be included in this round of criticism. NO ONE is responsible for everything their fans do. That was a messed up situation that LTT only happened to be involved in. Most of their angst and trouble came from a terrible YT media group (not LMG) pulling their small channel around.
Small note on the cooler subject; the cooler was auctioned to charity - they didn’t keep the money for themselves.
It doesn’t matter. It literally doesn’t matter.
The problem is THAT it left LMG to anywhere except the manufacturer, NOT how it left. The problem is it left the company at all to the wrong place.
And then offered to pay for the BOM of the device acting as though that completely makes up for the mistake, ignoring the potential harm to Billets intellectual property.
Then their apology is all butt hurt that they THOUGHT they’d offered to pay for it, but only sent the email internally, not realizing their mistake until called out again. Then whining that no one is giving them the benefit of the doubt when they’ve demonstrated lack of judgement throughout the whole ordeal.
Love that they clarified that after being called out, as if that somehow makes it more acceptable. “See? It was to charity guys, you think making money for charity is a bad thing?” While still missing the mark completely and refusing to send said prototype back.
Talk about moving goalposts. They fucked up.
It’s still a bad mistake, absolutely. If the cooler hadn’t been sent out already, I’d call it malice. I don’t think they’re claiming themselves blameless, just admitting that while they’re dumb, they’re not greedy.
