There wonāt be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, Iāve already said, and Iāve done so privately.
To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didnāt 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 didnāt āsellā the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunicationā¦ AND the fact that while we havenāt sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but Iāve told him that I wonāt be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that Iāll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of āTeam Mediaā. When/if heās ready to do so again Iāll be ready.
To my team (and my CEOās 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 - weāve been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and itās 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 wasnāt built in a day, but thatās no excuse for sloppiness.
Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that weāre not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But itās 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 weāve communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeahā¦ What weāre doing hasnāt been in many years, if everā¦ 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 doesnāt materially change the recommendation. That doesnāt mean these things donāt matter. Weāve 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 havenāt seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if youāre really looking for itā¦ 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. Iām 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 Iāve already addressed above) is an āaccuracyā issue. Itās 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 (againā¦ mystery) would have been impossibleā¦ and also didnāt affect the conclusion of the videoā¦ OR SO I THOUGHTā¦
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 wouldnāt make sense to buyā¦ 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 didnāt 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 doesnāt mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip. I missed that, but it wasnāt because I didnāt care about the consumerā¦ 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 Iāve watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. Itās an astonishingly unforgiving market.
Either way, Iām sorry I got the communityās priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didnāt show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasnāt to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because itās an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, yāknow, 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 Iāve 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 thatā¦ with this post. Will the āIt was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and theyāre taking care of itā reality manage to have the same reach? Letās see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but itās been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, Iām 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.[1]
Check LinusTechās profile for further discussion and comments heās had.[2]
Why is it that Billet Labs themselves havenāt spoken publicly about this? At this point, the story is being told second hand. Iām not saying itās not true, Iām just saying that taking it at face value is a bit iffy considering itās coming from someone else. Maybe I missed it, and they DID say something, but I literally have to take it at face value that Steve is telling the ENTIRE story, or that he even got the ENTIRE story.
Iām not against accountability, but a lot of this could have been handled privately. Again, not taking sides here, but Steve gets most of his attention from just going after other companies, whether deserved or not. I rarely hear about GN unless there is SOME kind of controversy going on (hardware issues and him having very valid input on it, or basically company drama). I just feel like this is pointlessly dividing a community in to Team LMG vs. Team GN thing, and itās dumb.
No really, hear me out on this. Steve has said in the past he wants to be treated like he is doing journalism, and intends to hold himself to journalistic standards (he said this during the NewEgg thing). Itās pretty standard when doing a story to get commentary from the party your story is about. Because journalism is, at least supposed to be, about telling the WHOLE story. Both sides. Instead, itās more of a hatchet job. There are ways to go about ācalling outā a company that doesnāt involve telling what is ultimately a one-sided story with the veiled challenge of āprove me wrong.ā Thatās not journalism. Thatās drama for views.
Billet Labs have spoken out about this (GN shows YT comment they made on the LMG vedio). They are not being very vocal about this. GN shows a video of items LMG has on display to be sold at the auction. You can clearly see the GPU water block on the table. Everything GN reported on is public record, including LMG responses. Nothing GN said is speculative. The video is just a report on public facts. Contacting LMG is superfluous.
Calling out BS doesnāt make you the bad guy. GN made it quiet clear, that point of the video was not for drama but help LMG do better for the sake of the industry and the consumer.
Iām not on team LMG or team GN. Iām on team a larger company has no right to hurt a smaller company because they donāt think their product has merit.
I mean it is common journalistic courtesy to allow the criticized side to give you a statement when youāre doing a piece on them, but itās also reasonable to not do it in some cases.
Iād be worried that Linus would (unknowingly/āaccidentallyā) prime his fan base against this critique if he talked about it, say, on the WAN show, and often the first to come out with something seems more ātrustworthyā so it mightāve been a shitstorm for GN too.
I also doubt heād have anything reasonable to add, which he clearly doesnāt, judging from what he posted since the video released.