This is quoted from Linus on the LTT forums:

"There wonā€™t be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, Iā€™ve already said, and Iā€™ve done so privately.

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didnā€™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 didnā€™t ā€˜sellā€™ the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunicationā€¦ AND the fact that while we havenā€™t sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but Iā€™ve told him that I wonā€™t be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that Iā€™ll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of ā€˜Team Mediaā€™. When/if heā€™s ready to do so again Iā€™ll be ready.

To my team (and my CEOā€™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 - weā€™ve been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and itā€™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 wasnā€™t built in a day, but thatā€™s no excuse for sloppiness.

Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that weā€™re not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But itā€™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 weā€™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? Yeahā€¦ What weā€™re doing hasnā€™t 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 doesnā€™t materially change the recommendation. That doesnā€™t mean these things donā€™t matter. Weā€™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 havenā€™t seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if youā€™re 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. Iā€™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 Iā€™ve already addressed above) is an ā€˜accuracyā€™ issue. Itā€™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 (againā€¦ mystery) would have been impossibleā€¦ and also didnā€™t 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 wouldnā€™t 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 didnā€™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 doesnā€™t mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip. I missed that, but it wasnā€™t because I didnā€™t 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 Iā€™ve watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. Itā€™s an astonishingly unforgiving market.

Either way, Iā€™m sorry I got the communityā€™s priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didnā€™t show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasnā€™t to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because itā€™s an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, yā€™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 Iā€™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 thatā€¦ with this post. Will the ā€œIt was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and theyā€™re taking care of itā€ reality manage to have the same reach? Letā€™s see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but itā€™s been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, Iā€™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."

  • qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Which is completely fine for entertainment content like building a flying PC, but thereā€™s different expectations for more serious pieces they are trying to sell to consumers as being trustworthy.

    Itā€™s almost like it should be split into two different channels.