He and his wife are still the majority (perhaps only?) owners, so Linus is still in charge even if he is pretending to delegate some duties.
I think the fact he appeared in the latest video and was still so defensive is enough evidence to prove that point.
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.
Not entirely sure what you mean. Are you saying we should criticize YouTube for making the algorithm that creators have to cater to, and not LMG for bowing to the demands of that algorithm?
If so, I agree that YouTube should be criticized, but that doesn’t excuse LMG. Plenty of other channels have chosen not to go all-in on quantity and they have likely suffered financially for that decision. That is exactly what I mean by “priorities”.
I would be happy with Emily and Alex starting their own channels. Maybe Dan can join one of them and make the dryest jokes possible. That’s all I really watch for, anyway.
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.
Hey folks, looks like we found Linus’s Kbin account!
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.
They don’t “have” to do anything. LMG chose to hire dozens and then hundreds of people in an effort to grow as fast as possible. Linus could have prioritized accuracy or quality over quantity, but that would have made less money, so he didn’t.
How about the multiple merch plugs in the video itself or that the video was monetized, in direct contrast to the original video from GN not being monetized?
While also monetizing the video and plugging their merch, in direct contrast to GN not monetizing the original video that started this whole thing. Absolutely brutal move there.
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.
he wasn’t aware of the 4090 FE edition of this cooler
Yes he was, he commented on it in the original video, which the GN video included.
I don’t think they ever say useless in the original video.
My bad, I should not have quoted a word that they didn’t use directly. But still, his final conclusion, as included in the GN video, is that nobody should buy it, and not just because of cost.
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.
What does Google have to do with Adobe not supporting one specific browser not made by either company?
What a ridiculous, tech-ideology-above-all-else take. Not to mention over a decade past being relevant.
Flash could do things other technology at the time could not. It served a purpose at the time, thus its huge level of popularity.
Even if LK-99 does turn out to be a room-temperature superconductor, significant challenges around manufacturing and engineering would remain before it could be utilized in real-world applications.
This part seems irrelevant for this story. Of course there are going to be challenges and unknowns about taking a lab experiment to mass scale production. That is true of literally every thing that may eventually become mass produced.
What’s interesting about LK-99 is not whether this particular room temperature superconductor would be useful. It’s about proving that any such material is possible to exist. That would ignite a huge effort to discover why, which will lead to the development of other, better materials. Some of which will be scalable and affordable, most likely, given enough research time.
But until we know it’s possible, why spend all of that effort? The first discovery on the edges of science are almost always most important as a signal that research is headed in the right general direction.
Yes, I use the tools every day and understand how they work. Failing to fully explain the mechanics of LLMs does not materially change the meaning of my original statement.
There’s a reason that fan fiction is not regarded as true creative art that should be respected and discussed like other mediums: it;s not trying to do something new and original, the whole point is to re-combine and shuffle things around to sound and feel and look like the original work, just more, but not different in any real enough way to matter.
So then blame the real problem, which is not new and has always been the main enemy: capitalism and its demand for seeking profits despite any consequences.
That has nothing to do with “AI” and still doesn’t have anything to do with the original claim of whether or not the new wave of LLMs are capable of creativity.
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.