Linus' reponse to the Gamer's Nexus Video
Linus' reponse to the Gamer's Nexus Video
This is quoted from Linus on the LTT forums:
"There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.
To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.
To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.
Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.
With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...
I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.
Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip. I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.
Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).
With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient.
We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.
Thanks for reading this."
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https://i.imgur.com/BFYsmdb.pngl
It looks like they are paying it back which was my biggest concern, and billet is defining the price here. Although according to his earlier response, LMG has yet to repay it.That fuck up is still massive, downplaying it as a "charity auction" is shitty and makes this 120~ person company look like amateur hour.
additional context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3byz3txpso
I was mislead and because how linus worded it, thought this was at least arranged prior to the whole situation and that this was not a quote or invoiced. According to billet lab this was not the case and they had yet to set a price as of that second videos recording.
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LMG are right assholes and deserve more to be punished financially for mocking and insulting a company across multiple podcasts before stealing and selling a prototype to, potentially, a competitor.
But I would not call this irreparable. Unless Billet sent a REALLY early prototype (I didn't see the original video, but it sounded functional... if the user weren't a womble), this is nearing production (to the extent a boutique product goes into production). If EK got a hold of it (and, to my knowledge, there is no indication EK would be the kind of company to abuse this), this gives them a headstart. But they still need to figure out how to manufacture it, what parts are worth stealing, etc. Which is probably order months for a product that likely would be launching in a few months to a year.
If it is a chinese knockoff company... yeah, there are serious worries there. But also, there are good odds the less reputable orgs already have the CAD files and machine code to manufacture them. Whether it is worth doing a run of is anyone's guess but... probably not. Again, this is a boutique product.
If there are truly unique heat pipe designs and internals? This is a problem, but it is one that would happen the moment it went on the market anyway.
Honestly? I suspect more damage was done by the LMG coverage than the LMG theft. Hopefully the GN coverage (and while he can be a bit of a dipshit, I am sure Jay is reaching out to try and get eyes on) will help negate a lot of that.
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The biggest fault that was committed is that Linus didn't just take the L and admit they fucked up and they would fix the problem instead of doubling down. Blaming GN for not telling him about it personally is not how journalism is supposed to work. Friend or not.
This also isn't the "gotcha" LMG tried to make it seem at the intro in their response. They basically said "GN didn't get our side of the story so they are making us bad, they didn't know we repaid Billet Labs!"
It's inexcusable how they tested, handled, and then auctioned the block, doesn't matter that they agreed something at the end, what GN said still stands.
Its also worth understanding that Billet are a tiny (I saw "two people" but no citation) business going up against a 100M company that has already made it clear they will drag a business through the muck over... not anticipating what GPU would be on their shelf.
So I hope that Billet are getting money to build a new prototype and a big something for their trouble of having their prototype given to some random person (who may be in the industry). But... I would be pretty shocked if they didn't just say "Oh, yeah. No problem. Please don't mention us ever again"