I mean he already got what he wanted.
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Linus Tech Tips is going to be testing audio gear? LTT Lab 1
- Thread starter sweetchaos
- Start date
Yeah. His reasoning was "I'm already wealthy, so what more do I need?" Is that based, or out of touch? On one hand, he didn't sell out. On the other, he was rich enough not to. Not exactly a struggling artist keeping true to his vision.
He said on an old wan show that the offer was before the lab investment, so it would've been a great time to cash out. Is 100m the floor for future offers? Or will people be wary making offers to someome who's so open about it?
Not that I think he should sell out. The latest wan show was about his sarcasm over a gpu review being misinterpreted, so if it wasn't clear, I've been joshing around over the past few pages.
It's one thing to say it another to do it, kudos to Linus, he's right though after you're upper middle class what else is there? There's some greedy mofos out there and people who can never step down from power after they are rich as hell *cough* Fienstein *cough*
OP
- Thread Starter
- #64
Latest update on his endeavour:
D
Deleted member 48726
Guest
I like Linus. He seems like an honest guy with the eyes focused upon his goals. Even if his video persona doesn't always show this I think his actions do.
I've followed him from the very start and you don't come as far as he without hard work and harsh decisions.
His persona doesn't seem to have changed from the past to now so there is no reason to believe he has been swallowed by big companies.
I wish him all the best on his endeavours. He deserves it.
I've followed him from the very start and you don't come as far as he without hard work and harsh decisions.
His persona doesn't seem to have changed from the past to now so there is no reason to believe he has been swallowed by big companies.
I wish him all the best on his endeavours. He deserves it.
You guys keeping up with the news? He unironically should've taken the $100m now.
That would've been before the labs. If they stuck to entertainment like GN said and didn't wade into technical data, they wouldn't have muscled in on GN's and HWU's turf, nor had as much scrutiny. The conflict was obvious from the moment Labs was announced: here's a big corp buying their way to success in a space where the little guys carved a niche for themselves, like MS buying ABK.
But GN's video does bring into question how reliable their audio data is. It's not just money: Steve's experience really shone through, allowing him to pick out mistakes just by looking at them. That plus the commercial pressures of daily content and the constant corrections through annotations and pinned comments shine doubt over the lab and LTT's transition to objective data.
Anyway, the rest of this is probably off-topic so I'm making a clean divide here between audio lab stuff and the drama.
I don't want to post 3 giant videos here, so here's the context:
GamersNexus did a video on LTT ethics and sloppy videos/data on 14/8
Linus gave a tone-deaf 1st response in his forum 3 hours later
GN did a followup video on 15/8 meming the response and all but cutting ties
Linus gave a more measured response on 16/8 where he keeps his mouth shut for most of it
At least 1 hour before, Madison (former LTT employee) documents her LTT experience - story involves abuse and self-harm
Is Linus owed right of reply? There's no law requiring it in the US or Canada, but it's usually saved for egregious accusations, like an actual journalist writing a story on Madison's tweets, not a SunnyV2-like hit-piece. Steve had to weigh up whether giving Linus right of reply was worth letting him get ahead of the story. LTT did a response video (and you can see who's comfortable in front of the camera and who isn't) where James said that the bad graphs were corrected, but then uncorrected because people didn't re-label graph.png to graph.png.old.
Take out the bad data, and what's left in the video? The Billet Labs fiasco, Framework conflict of interest and cosying up to Asus/Noctua. The graphs, mistakes and Pwnage mouse issues all stem from rushed content, which is only bad when it's sloppy. I would not have burned this bridge for a video I chose not to monetise (although LTT monetising their apology video was terrible optics that any amateur could've seen coming), especially if he wasn't being dramatic when he said he has YouTube contacts, and goes to Linus for backchannel stuff. I feel like he made the same mistake Linus did by not fixing his negative Billet Labs video - don't let facts get in the way of a good story. If he told Linus privately about the bad data, half the video wouldn't exist. Linus would correct and apologise. Although, I can see how being Linus' janitor doesn't encourage him to improve.
So you're left with 3 allusions to conflicts of interest (no smoking gun, i.e. email accepting cash for reviews) and one genuinely bad screwup with Billet Labs, which Linus' apology video explained was non-malicious. It's not really that shady that he tried making amends after learning about the problem. And if he was tipped off earlier, then that's one less video topic. As for being a Noctua/Asus shill, it's a running gag that Jayz2cents is an EVGA shill. The evidence is a feeling that he went too easy on Asus (not dogpiling during their motherboard snafu) and recommended the NH-D15 over water coolers even though it was thermal throttling a 13900K. "Trust me bro" was worse image-wise. Framework I agree with. It's one thing to take sponsor money, and another to be an investor. Although I doubt he'd lie about a laptop to shill a niche brand like Framework, it's bad optics. He shouldn't write reviews for competing products. Should he present a review written by others? Should he review Macbooks? Up to him, but for optics, best not to.
If Linus and/or his team really are abusive, then they could have all the right of reply in the world and it still wouldn't absolve them. The bad data was to generate a pattern of behaviours, culminating in selling Billet Labs' prototype. You could see Steve licking his lips in his followup video at Linus' eff-up with his unhinged response about "not selling, but auctioning it". Also, I love the divide and rule by pitting Linus against Luke in clips when they're together, and painting his staff as victims of LTT's daily schedule in a video they curated. Especially given the abuse allegation (and Reddit post about LTT's working environment) pegged at senior staff. If I was a cynic, I'd say the goal was to stop daily uploads, bolster Steve's reputation and cause algorithmic decline. What's funny is they would've burnt themselves out anyway, having created yet another channel recently.
But it did get Madison to drop a bombshell. That's actual grown-up company shizz. Like I'm watching Succession right now, and can't help but draw the parallels between millennials of a big media corp going through crisis management. The new CEO wouldn't look out of place as a Gerri, Frank or other company lifer. S2 is all about them separating storms in teacups from actual damaging news, and whether to grovel or stand firm as a response. If more women speak out, we could get a Cruises situation.
I'm not shilling GN or Linus. Just dissecting beef between my parasocial YouTube "friends" so I and others can have better media literacy. This is why I'd never want a "good guy" or "pro-consumer" persona. Remind people you're a human (although don't say it to deflect blame), or else they think you're infallible, and take it really badly when the illusion's shattered. You need the equivalent of a Roman servant whispering "remember you are but a man" in your ear, but for the audience, not you.
That would've been before the labs. If they stuck to entertainment like GN said and didn't wade into technical data, they wouldn't have muscled in on GN's and HWU's turf, nor had as much scrutiny. The conflict was obvious from the moment Labs was announced: here's a big corp buying their way to success in a space where the little guys carved a niche for themselves, like MS buying ABK.
But GN's video does bring into question how reliable their audio data is. It's not just money: Steve's experience really shone through, allowing him to pick out mistakes just by looking at them. That plus the commercial pressures of daily content and the constant corrections through annotations and pinned comments shine doubt over the lab and LTT's transition to objective data.
Anyway, the rest of this is probably off-topic so I'm making a clean divide here between audio lab stuff and the drama.
I don't want to post 3 giant videos here, so here's the context:
GamersNexus did a video on LTT ethics and sloppy videos/data on 14/8
Linus gave a tone-deaf 1st response in his forum 3 hours later
GN did a followup video on 15/8 meming the response and all but cutting ties
Linus gave a more measured response on 16/8 where he keeps his mouth shut for most of it
At least 1 hour before, Madison (former LTT employee) documents her LTT experience - story involves abuse and self-harm
Is Linus owed right of reply? There's no law requiring it in the US or Canada, but it's usually saved for egregious accusations, like an actual journalist writing a story on Madison's tweets, not a SunnyV2-like hit-piece. Steve had to weigh up whether giving Linus right of reply was worth letting him get ahead of the story. LTT did a response video (and you can see who's comfortable in front of the camera and who isn't) where James said that the bad graphs were corrected, but then uncorrected because people didn't re-label graph.png to graph.png.old.
Take out the bad data, and what's left in the video? The Billet Labs fiasco, Framework conflict of interest and cosying up to Asus/Noctua. The graphs, mistakes and Pwnage mouse issues all stem from rushed content, which is only bad when it's sloppy. I would not have burned this bridge for a video I chose not to monetise (although LTT monetising their apology video was terrible optics that any amateur could've seen coming), especially if he wasn't being dramatic when he said he has YouTube contacts, and goes to Linus for backchannel stuff. I feel like he made the same mistake Linus did by not fixing his negative Billet Labs video - don't let facts get in the way of a good story. If he told Linus privately about the bad data, half the video wouldn't exist. Linus would correct and apologise. Although, I can see how being Linus' janitor doesn't encourage him to improve.
So you're left with 3 allusions to conflicts of interest (no smoking gun, i.e. email accepting cash for reviews) and one genuinely bad screwup with Billet Labs, which Linus' apology video explained was non-malicious. It's not really that shady that he tried making amends after learning about the problem. And if he was tipped off earlier, then that's one less video topic. As for being a Noctua/Asus shill, it's a running gag that Jayz2cents is an EVGA shill. The evidence is a feeling that he went too easy on Asus (not dogpiling during their motherboard snafu) and recommended the NH-D15 over water coolers even though it was thermal throttling a 13900K. "Trust me bro" was worse image-wise. Framework I agree with. It's one thing to take sponsor money, and another to be an investor. Although I doubt he'd lie about a laptop to shill a niche brand like Framework, it's bad optics. He shouldn't write reviews for competing products. Should he present a review written by others? Should he review Macbooks? Up to him, but for optics, best not to.
If Linus and/or his team really are abusive, then they could have all the right of reply in the world and it still wouldn't absolve them. The bad data was to generate a pattern of behaviours, culminating in selling Billet Labs' prototype. You could see Steve licking his lips in his followup video at Linus' eff-up with his unhinged response about "not selling, but auctioning it". Also, I love the divide and rule by pitting Linus against Luke in clips when they're together, and painting his staff as victims of LTT's daily schedule in a video they curated. Especially given the abuse allegation (and Reddit post about LTT's working environment) pegged at senior staff. If I was a cynic, I'd say the goal was to stop daily uploads, bolster Steve's reputation and cause algorithmic decline. What's funny is they would've burnt themselves out anyway, having created yet another channel recently.
But it did get Madison to drop a bombshell. That's actual grown-up company shizz. Like I'm watching Succession right now, and can't help but draw the parallels between millennials of a big media corp going through crisis management. The new CEO wouldn't look out of place as a Gerri, Frank or other company lifer. S2 is all about them separating storms in teacups from actual damaging news, and whether to grovel or stand firm as a response. If more women speak out, we could get a Cruises situation.
I'm not shilling GN or Linus. Just dissecting beef between my parasocial YouTube "friends" so I and others can have better media literacy. This is why I'd never want a "good guy" or "pro-consumer" persona. Remind people you're a human (although don't say it to deflect blame), or else they think you're infallible, and take it really badly when the illusion's shattered. You need the equivalent of a Roman servant whispering "remember you are but a man" in your ear, but for the audience, not you.
LTT is going through growing pains entering the objective world. Not to say they have not been objective but now they are a test lab and with that comes accuracy and double checking ones' work.
I'm not convinced that Steve knows that much about audio either. The SPCR guy is a good consultant for computer noise, but I think he trusted him too much over those with formal training and now has a hemi-anechoic chamber that is twice the price (or more) but will still give worse results than a Klippel. I was excited to see what Linus was going to do, but so far it hasn't looked promising.
Between LTT x GN and KZ x DMS/Crinacle this week provided some quality popcorn entertainment.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #70
Looks like ethics are taking the backseat at LTT, after making money.
Sad to see.
Sad to see.
I don't mind people preferring products and even becoming shills for companies. Shilling is only bad if your purposely recommending a junkier product over a competitors product.
Jayztwocents shilling for EVGA never bothered me. I too would shill for a company that overall makes good products and is fun to work with. LTT shilling for ASUS/Noctua felt meh to me.
Jayztwocents shilling for EVGA never bothered me. I too would shill for a company that overall makes good products and is fun to work with. LTT shilling for ASUS/Noctua felt meh to me.
- ASUS product ranges are half-assed to pretty damn good, and that's the issue. Exactly same issue with Sony products. For example, I seen junky piano-keyed Sony cassette decks sell higher then feature-rich flat-soft-button Pioneer decks. Asus makes so many motherboard models (for specific chipsets), its not even funny. The only cool thing to me about ASUS, is that you can make a computer fully out of ASUS (or at least TUF partner) parts.
- Noctua is like a luxury car brand. Most people don't want to pay those high prices, even though there well made. Arctic makes fans that match Noctua's performance very well and for a actually good price. Right now, I can get a Arctic 420mm AIO for the price of a Noctua NH-D15 Air Cooler. If I want RGB fans?, Arctic and Be Quiet! has good priced options.
He's not testing speakers though. He's specifically testing for noise levels which you can't replace a very quiet space for.
JSmith
Master Contributor
Online and publicly aired laundry like this is still creating "drama" and thus is advertising in itself.
JSmith
JSmith
D
Deleted member 48726
Guest
I'd like not to judge so fast. The world is not black or white. Of course they need to make money, if you've been following LTT for years you'd be aware of the MASSIVE growth the company's been having. My take is that things have gotten too big too fast and the man that started it all wanted to be in charge of all things for far too long. This is something I've seen soo many times with companies I've hired and done work for. It's a classic example of "not letting go".
A great line I heard from a money man was: "pigs get slaughtered!" Greed is such an enemy of common sense. He had an offer of $100 with $60M of it in cash and $40M in stock and he turned it down? What else does he want from life that $60M wouldn't have cured at his age no less? With an upside of that $40M in stock to boot?
i think at some point its not about money
some people want a 'legacy' or an empire
also I will never forget what Linus said about this... the $100 mil. was a 'slice in time' valuation... in that they were at the apogee of what that company was worth... ie. they had spent very little on capital investment and had low headcount and they were riding a wave of high subscribers, clicks, patreon and it was all super blue sky.
After that it was all 'downhill' in as far as they sank money into new facilities, their new venture into audio testing a $30 mil. sound lab etc. etc. - and headcount blew up.
And so I get it where people go... "take the money, retire, buy real estate and blue chip stocks"... you won the game of real life Monopoly.
BUt to some 'retirement' isnt a goal. They need to keep at it. They have something to prove, more mountains to climb.
Some of us will think... you know what? what is $20 mil. $30 mil. $50 mil. $100 mil. - they are all pie in the sky numbers.
If you had any of this you're done. You're finished. its over. Enjoy the rest of your life.
I cannot speak to how it in the US but over here you can comfortably finish at $5 mil. in assets. Your own house, property and stock portfoilo.
You aint buying Ferraris and yachts but you got just about all you could realistically want.
Linus has all this already.
he could have sold at the top like how Yahoo turned down an offer from Microsoft at $44 bil. - and ended up being sold to someone for $4 bil.
some people want a 'legacy' or an empire
also I will never forget what Linus said about this... the $100 mil. was a 'slice in time' valuation... in that they were at the apogee of what that company was worth... ie. they had spent very little on capital investment and had low headcount and they were riding a wave of high subscribers, clicks, patreon and it was all super blue sky.
After that it was all 'downhill' in as far as they sank money into new facilities, their new venture into audio testing a $30 mil. sound lab etc. etc. - and headcount blew up.
And so I get it where people go... "take the money, retire, buy real estate and blue chip stocks"... you won the game of real life Monopoly.
BUt to some 'retirement' isnt a goal. They need to keep at it. They have something to prove, more mountains to climb.
Some of us will think... you know what? what is $20 mil. $30 mil. $50 mil. $100 mil. - they are all pie in the sky numbers.
If you had any of this you're done. You're finished. its over. Enjoy the rest of your life.
I cannot speak to how it in the US but over here you can comfortably finish at $5 mil. in assets. Your own house, property and stock portfoilo.
You aint buying Ferraris and yachts but you got just about all you could realistically want.
Linus has all this already.
he could have sold at the top like how Yahoo turned down an offer from Microsoft at $44 bil. - and ended up being sold to someone for $4 bil.
I mean why did you make this forum? why do you spend hours measuring stuff that you will never personally use?
Why does anyone do anything? I don't think telling people what they should be doing to be happy makes any sense at all.
what the hell? what did they buy?
Keeps my mind working in retirement age and is a fun hobby (most of the time). I test something when I want. I don't have to wake up to drive to work and have 10 meetings a day like I used to. No comparison to a young person turning down more cash than many dream to have in retirement.
It is word of wisdom that hopefully stays at the back of someone's mind as they go on that journey. One day like Linux they may be at that crossroad and hopefully, my post will make them think. That if they are doing it because they could make even more money, they pause and think whether they could lose it all.
Search for a company called PointCast which back in 1990s seemed to be the hottest ticket on the Internet. I used it daily to keep up with the news and was amazed what a polished service it was. The "push" service was so popular that it started to suck out a lot of bandwidth from company networks as employees got their fix of news. They seemed to do no wrong and that prompted them to turn down a half a billion dollar offer from Murdoch. Two years later the company was near extinction and sold for just $7m.
