GN spends the first segment of their GN News to responding to Linus's comments, and reveals that Linus mislead people on the Billet compensation.

GN absolutely destroys Linus in this video. I mean Linus gave him all the ammo by repeatedly lying and not owning up his mistakes, but still. He's calling like it is, without any sugarcoating.
I did change my sub from LTT to GN.
- Nah.
  GN didnt destroy Linus.
  GN just assembled everything into a easily digestable package.
  It was Linus's Ego that destroyed Linus.
  
  Nah.
  GN didnt destroy Linus.
  GN just assembled everything into a easily digestable package.
  It was Linus's Ego that destroyed Linus.
  Absolutely. I once had an absolutely terrible boss, 10000% a sociopath and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a headline that said she'd been caught with multiple bodies buried under her house, but I'm still thankful for the experience because of one sentence that she said to me:
  "People fire themselves."
  And that's 100% true.
  She then quoted Stalin's "Death of one is a tragedy, death of a million is a statistic" as justification for trying to fire an entire department immediately after that though, so maybe it was just an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters situation. Either way, it gave me whiplash.
  
  45 minutes of Steve talking isn't an easily digestible package, sorry.

...Yeah that's enough.
Blatantly, and knowingly, lying (let's not pretend that wasn't the intention) about his compensation to billet is too much. No excuses for that.
- You know what really sucks? Owning their stuff. I got the screwdriver (it’s pretty nice). I’m drinking from one of the water bottles right now (it’s also pretty nice).
  How am I supposed to go on using that shit? I can’t do it in front of anyone who knows. “Oh you like that LTT stuff? You know what they did right?”
  All that goodwill flushed because of ego. All that cost, sunk. And the worst part is that this discourages me from buying merch from anyone else again, lest I get burned again someday when it comes out they too are the opposite of the image they portray for money.
  I guess there truly is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
  
  Or.... just don't give a fuck and reply with "Bought it before the shennanigans, bro. Not gonna toss it."
  
  How am I supposed to go on using that shit?
  Lmao. I keep forgetting they sell merch. I refuse to buy merch from those guys. They've come across like a bunch of Windows gamers who built a bunch of gaming PCs and then became self proclaimed tech experts and started a YouTube channel.
  Yes, I know Linus worked at NCIX and has memorized a lot of product numbers, but that means nothing.
  Where you see his true (lack) of expertise is in the storage server failure video and all the Linux stuff he did.
  He got mad that Linux was outside of his Windows power-user comfort zone and crapped all over Linux to make himself feel better.
  He's a tool.
  
  I would dremel the logo off.
  
  You can lightly sand the water bottle and repaint over it.
  
  Just pretend that your specific money went into the pocket of one of the employees whose fault this isn't.
  
  Well at least you don't have the ltt underpants
  
  Just put a sticker over the logo if you don't want to sand it
  
  I bought a couple of hoodies from them on sale, so I'm in a similar situation. Luckily most of their merch is pretty stealthy so the only people who would recognise them are other ltt viewers. I just hope that Linus can get his head out of his ass and give a proper apology and make things right

This response has made me lose so much respect for LTT. Linus really needs to learn when to shut up and stop digging himself into these holes. He could have just apologized, compensated Billet properly and worked on fixing whatever communication issues his team has, but instead he wrote a long non-apology where he deflected blame, tripled down on the Billet situation and just straight up lied about compensating them. Very scummy behaviour from Linus.
- Linus is a narcissist.
  Narcissists have to prove how wrong everyone else was.
  They have to control the narrative.
  And when all else fails, they have to make themselves look like the victim, so they get all the positive attention.
  Thats why he cant shut up, and always doubles down to make everything worse.
  
  I’m not either for narcissistic behavior or ADHD being the cause.
  I have several TBIs (traumatic brain induries) and I act like he does sometimes. Most of the time I can catch myself but everyone once in a while I’ll go into full “you’re all wrong, I’m right and stop hating on me” mode even when I am wrong. But I always admit I’m wrong afterwards.
  It’s a maturity and, hate to say it, grace thing. Even when you mess up this bad, and then do it again, and then a third time, you have to step up and admit you made a mistake.
  I have brain damage and I can do it. It’s just learning how to do it. Making that effort. I don’t think he knows how to do it or has never fucked up bad enough to want to learn how to admit to mistakes, or the reactions have never been negative enough for him to own up to it.
  Either way - he messed up and should sit and think about it before doing anything else. He didn’t do that and it’s going to cost him. Maybe not a lot but something.
- While this definitely wasn't an okay response, I still prefer this transparency over every single response having to go through a filter/PR representative. At least we are closer to knowing what he is actually thinking.
  Is this the straw that leads to LTT going full corporate mode?
- Yeah, apologizing, paying Billet, and promising to slow down to improve quality would have been the perfect response. That would have been enough to keep me watching. But with the way he responded instead, I unsubbed and will avoid their videos, because he's made it clear he can't be trusted and doesn't deserve my money.
  And I was the perfect kind of viewer. I have money, have bought things from YouTube sponsorships, have Patreoned people, and I've actually been considering buying stuff from LTT's store for a while (the only thing that stopped me was that their best shirts were sold out).
  I suspect that for the most part, the kinds of people who would pay to support otherwise free content are those who are more informed and also care highly about the quality of what they pay for. The only reason I Patreon to stuff is because the creator has high quality and good ethics. I'm not gonna give money for no reason to someone who can't be bothered to act ethically.
- He said it himself, he doesn't know how to read the room.

Money and fame went to linus' head, didn't think it would happen considering they preach to be transparent but here it is.
If only that bald guy at LTT would have kept his mouth shut about how their testing was better than GN/Hardware Unboxed, all this drama wouldn't have blown up on ltt's face LMFAO
- I straight up had the shocked Pikachu face when he said that. Being someone with a background in chemistry, I love the level of care GN puts into their testing. To have an LTT employeee be so fucking brazen with how they shit on someone WHO DOES IT RIGHT made me unsub right then and there. Linus' reaction only made me feel even more secure in my choice.
  
  Don’t put it on the employee when the Owner is the problem.
- If only that bald guy at LTT would have kept his mouth shut
  Do you happen to have a link to that video? I unsubbed from these clowns a long time ago, so I have no clue where I would even find it. I'm curious to see that clip now.
  
  It was someone else's video, where they took a tour of Linus's studio
  8:38
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybR3VAvBkXY
  
  GN's first video shows that bald guy, so just watch the first video.
- Do you have a link to that ltt video? I would love to watch that as well. Thanks.
  
  It's a tour from MurfsGaming:
  https://youtu.be/ybR3VAvBkXY

What a joke. Linus’s response was horrible and I’m glad Steve is calling him out on it.

I've enjoyed LTT for a long time. The quality definitely went down, which I had chalked up to growing pains.
But this is different. This is an absolute loss of trust from me, especially the response Linus posted. What a shame.
GN has another subscriber, though.

The quality was already going down, but now I'm unsubbed and I'll never click on a LTT video again. Sorry, but this behavior is just unacceptable.
"We didn't sell it, we auctioned it", Jesus H. fucking Christ.
- GN also literally said "auction" not "sold" in his first video, so Linus's response was doubly stupid.
  
  It doesn't even matter. An auction is selling too, same thing. If I put my stuff on eBay and someone buys it I don't say I "auctioned it off", I say "I sold it to some guy on eBay". It's just fixed price vs a bidding, in the end a price gets reached and a transaction occurs.
  Linus can't seem to take the L and just digs the grave deeper. Unfortunately at this point LTT is too big to fail, but I hope it puts a dent in their numbers and makes them eat some humble pie. Maybe they can fix their internal issues then.
  
  He admits he doesn’t watch videos but instead reads the comments. Commenters often oversimplify things like this.
- expired
  
  I'm going to borrow things "to try" from my friends house, say they sucked, and then sell them on eBay.
  I'll just say I auctioned them.
  GOT EM.
- Trust me bro

Linus has become time a big multi-millionaire media tycoon and acting as such. I really hope this takes a big chunk out his company's bottom line (to have a learning effect), he has been getting high on success for far too long.
Now say it with me lads : "You Either Die A Hero Or Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain"
- The way that he talked about spending 100, 200, 300, 400, even $500 of staff time on re-testing not being an option, when he rakes in THOUSANDS per video is pretty illustrative of where his head is at.
  I was pretty excited when Linus announced that he was stepping aside, but he clearly still has way too much say on the direction of LMG and his motivations are entirely too obvious. Go away, Linus. We've had enough of you.
  
  expired
- If I understood his position of the retesting properly, he was saying that the cost of the block, regardless of if it cooled well, was too much to be viable. Fine, you'd come to that same conclusion regardless, but you have to do the testing right and explain that. ALSO, its not even a final, or near final product, why are you giving it review already? And thats not even going into the auctioning of the item.
  
  His position was essentially "it doesn't matter that our review was completely invalid because the product is too expensive". And he considers himself to have a serious review company.

If now was a time to bring in a full time CEO and relegate Linus into "creative director", or whatever title he wants to give himself, now is that time.
GN has simply pulled back the curtain to show another corporation who put their bottom line before their viewers. And his response only shows this even further.
Truly disappointed by the whole debacle.
- I can't tell if this is a joke or not...but "that time" was a month and a half ago
  On May 18, 2023, Sebastian announced that he would be stepping down as Chief Executive Officer and would be transitioning into a creative role, effective July 1, 2023. Terren Tong, previously an executive of Corsair Gaming and whom Sebastian worked under during his time at NCIX, was named to replace Sebastian as CEO
  
  Maybe he means step down as in really step down and not Vince McMahon it.
  Question is, who's going to be the Triple H that will make LTT followers go "wow, I like this" when he/she takes over?
- He already did step down as CEO. Which is funny, because there's a clip of him from the GN video complaining about the lack of time to make content... my friend, you were the one who created this working environment.
- Nah, LMG isn't a corporation. It's a CREW, of cool people!

So incredibly disappointing, I thought Linus was smart, but instead of just owning up to his mistakes and making a proper apology, he just doubled down and dug his own grave even further. If he had just apologized and explained how he would do better and make things right, and how he would prevent these mistakes from happening again, I'm sure a lot of people would've gave him another chance, but he really showed him and his company's true colors.
This is very sad to see, I was definitely a fan of LTT and enjoyed their videos, I watched and supported them for years, but now I'll no longer be watching or trusting them after this. Its heartbreaking.
- Have you ever watched the WAN show? He almost always refuses to admit he's wrong. He's a douchebag.
  
  Have you ever watched the WAN show?
  I've tried but
  He almost always refuses to admit he's wrong.
  
  The wan show is primarily for doubling down / justifying poor decisions. At least that's how it feels given how he's handled it with previous issues
  
  Half the time, I'm watching WAN show for Luke. He's really the star of the show. Without him, I think it would be a lot different.
  
  I've only seen clips of it here and there, never fully watched or listened, but definitely seems pretty bad based on what I'm hearing...
  Too bad he's like this, honestly the guy's definitely talented and makes good content (if he actually puts the work and proper time in), but seems he's just way too arrogant to admit when he's wrong. I just expected more honestly, just sad to see after being a viewer for this long, and always getting the impression that he was transparent and more down to earth, which now its evident the opposite is true.
- Yeah he really just needed take the L and say we're taking measures to correct past mistakes (and having a new CEO will help). I think that would have been an easy reply to all of this.
- The apparent transparency was something that stood out to me as a major respectable plus of the channel. These actions and responses are not at all in line with my understanding of the channel, and I'm mostly just sad. If I dont trust the content, I won't watch. I just wish Linus in particular had stepped back to realize what he was throwing away.

Just trust me guys -big media company guy

- its not unprofessional to give the subject of a story that is doing active harm a heads up so they can use their position to pressure you into silence, or try to come up with some last minute hooplah to try to discredit the reporting rather than addressing the core issues in their own company.
  Thats like telling a company that is actively dumping toxic waste into a river that you know they are doing it, and you would like comment before they report on scene next week. All you do is give them time to stop the dumping, clean up the obvious signs, and put out an undercutting statement to try and discredit/dismiss the legitimacy of the story.
- Surprised Linus didn't make them sign an NDA with how shady he played that.
  So fucking sad to see. I want nothing more than Linus and LTT to continue to be massively successful but FFS he needs to pull his head out of his ass and accept a bit a constructive criticism now and then. Even LTT's own staff agreed on a number of Steve's points but Linus keeps putting his ego ahead of everything else.

People here acting surprised as Linus like hw didn't do the same years ago with the crappy merchandise without warranties that he sold and double down about how everyone was wrong and he was right.

LTT has grown to the point they can not act as equal to any small time team or start up. Linus decision has consequence larger than he can afford by pretending "I'm just another tech youtuber". With 100+ employee, and far outsized influence in tech, LTT must be professional in their decisions.

What a way to dig himself in even deeper. Yikes.

- With the DeArrow browser plugin it's possible to identify the 1 in 12 videos that's not shitty clickbait and worth checking out.
  Last one I watched was something about plugging as many USB devices in as possible. That was fun. Most of the rest sucks these days.
- I generally take everything tech related with a healthy dose of skepticism. Even if the information is accurate, I want to do my own checking before I start using or endorsing a product. I work in tech, and generally I find myself often in a position where I'm suggesting or recommending hardware and/or software.
  I'm definitely not going to take some half baked reporting from any one source and immediately start pushing it onto the people who depend on me to make well informed decisions. As is my job.
  I watch LTT for entertainment, and at most discovery of new software and hardware.
  Even what's happening right now, it's all very entertaining to me. What sucks is that I'm certain many people rely on LTT as a reliable source of information, the same way that the people I know rely on me for the same, and that's a bit frightening, since the people who listen to the advice, and act without doing any other verification or investigation are potentially going to end up in situations where they're calling someone like me to fix the problems... I don't want to take those calls.
- I usually just watch them when I'm baked, it's a great show for stoner's who want to watch people dick around with technology and get nothing out of it.
  I've never used them as a legit review channel, just dumb entertainment, like the real housewives show.

I may just be emotionally distanced enough from the channel to feel this way but I feel like this just isn't that big of a deal. At worst everything seems like negligence and/or incompetence and I don't see his main audience caring unless they already have a few bones to pick with Linus personally like a lot of people in these comments seem to.
- The cover up is worse than the crime. Being wrong like that is bad, but it’s fixable and understandable the way the company is growing. Selling the prototype is a huge deal, both ethically and for future collaborations. But his statement after the fact stopped me from re-subbing to Floatplane. The response pissed me off.
  
  expired
- Occasional inaccuracies/mistakes are to be expected and are excusable; but a regular and consistent pattern of these mistakes bridges the gap to willful, almost intentional, negligence.
  That is not ok. (and is a huge part of why I don't regularly watch LTT anymore.)
  LTT has chosen to focus on quantity instead of quality, so much so that the quality has slipped well below what many find useful/helpful. Having lots of content isn't beneficial if none of that content holds any value so far fewer people want to watch it.
  I think pretty much any creator can agree 1 banger video with 100m views is far better than producing 100videos each only getting 1m.
  Put more effort into quality; then reaching that self-imposed weekly video count won't be so important to the bottom line.

Unsubscribe from both and watch the may alternatives, or sit here and whine about it? Which team are you on? Pathetic.
- Says the guy sitting here, whining.
  
  What do you think that word means? Lol
- If you have nothing to contribute, why comment at all? There are people here who care about this stuff. It is okay that you don't.