Ouch. I can see now why Linus has taken a back seat.
The new CEO has a bit of work to do.
Hardware Unboxed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcSkrkXd2H0&t=101s
UFD Tech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pw-NT3zBRY
Overall this is good criticism, it gives the CEO things to address. They're big enough now that people will scrutinise & poke them
I'd subconsciously noticed more and more errors/pinned corrections & 'winging it' in the videos but never really thought much of it especially as I mainly like their 'big' stuff like Data Centre visits etc.
I rarely watch any of their smaller channels, but having GN call it out makes you see how common it is becoming. With their investment in testing gear/labs and the size of the company (having Linus still front & centre does make it seem like a friendly, smaller outfit) they really need to have got this under control by now and cut down on their release schedule. I'd never seen the interviews with staff but jesus they're all saying the same thing and nothing has changed!
I don't watch LTT, haven't done for many years now but they still appear on my youtube feed for some reason, all the new videos he still appears to be in. Doesn't seem to have taken that much of a back seat?
Jon
Back seat in terms of the comany, he's no longer CEO but its 'CVO'.
How much that differs from Elon Musk no longer being Twitter CEO (but totally still calls the shots) is unknown, at least by me.
Jonj1611 (15-08-2023)
Never been a fan of him to be honest, was happy when said would be taking a back seat, shame it didn't mean just that.
Jon
"Has LTT become too large?"
Yes and it shows. Its been heading this way for a number of years but its come to a head now and well people can see it for themselves.
Without wishing to seem a f fanboy, I do watch the wan show most weeks (though getting increasingly irritated by it) and to my memory he never said he was taking a back seat. He went to considerable lengths to explain he was taking a back seat from the CEO role.Originally Posted by Jonj1611
He said, very emphatically, that it was the day-to-day running of the business he wanted to get out from under, that he didn’t want to be the “buck stops here” person dealing with all the boring management stuff, like being who everybody goes to to moan about the brand of biscuits supplied in the break room, etc.
It did. Strike me that if he was till being approached with that level of trivia he wasn’t CEOing right in the first place. H?e needed a manager, maybe office manager to deal with all that (and may have had one) but then needed to get the message to all staff that he was NOT the right person to pester. I shudder to think of the reaction of the CEO of some of the multi-billion £/$ companies I’ve worked for in the past if anyone pestered them with trivia.
Obviously, the CEO thing was about far more errors stuff too, but his point was that he wanted more time to be involved with the creative side, and especially to be in front of camera, and not dealing with employment decisions, building management and so on. So he never was going to step back from the visible aspects, from front of camera.
He also pointed out that as CVO, the new CEO was his boss. But as one of two equal shareholders (with his wife) the CEO also worked for him/them. Sort-of.
He seems to be doing pretty much exactly what he said he was going to do, but it wasn’t “step back” so much as “step back from boring management drudgery of countless decisions”. Regardless of current controversy, I certainly sympathise with him on that much.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
With regard to the controversy though, I have FAR less sympathy over that. Despite the whole “trust me Bro” thing, which he tried to laugh off, that was one of the most egregious failures to “read the room” of his customers I’ve ever seen, as was the crack-kanded way he tried to shrug it off. I had decided to buy both screwdriver and backpack, but that was what caused me to cancel both (and the rest of the order). And no, my few hundred bucks won’t hurt the company, but if the thrust of GN Steve’s criticism is justified, that could seriously hurt them. For me, Steve’s comments just jelled too well with little things I’d noticed recently (year or two) but that hadn’t linked into a cohesive thing, just a vague nervousness.
My conclusion is that I wonder if he’s becoming a little too arrogant, and if he himself is buying into the image he carefully puts out there. I.e. believing his own PR?
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
This^^^
I used to watch a lot of his videos, but recently, things didn't seem right, and the way he has, personally, responded to Steve is a mishmash of narcissism, arrogance and ego to say the least..
Jesus, it's getting worse...
https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTi...tt_experience/
Apex (17-08-2023)
That Maddison stuff is hard to read, I've worked in a crappy job before where I ended up in a pretty dark place, it was going one way or the other, luckily for you guys I quit the job and am now much better off, but to hear what she had to put up with, while not verified, is pretty harsh..
There is a video starting to circulate now though from the CEO, just about to watch it now and see how well they're reading the room now, or how much BS there is in it..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_con...&v=0cTpTMl8kFY
Watching now, few poorly placed 'jokes' and product placements, general apologies and mention of future transparency and catching errors. They also have shown the Billet labs prototype cost in an email, which billet labs specifically blacked out as they didn't want people to know.
No mention of the Madison issue but to be fair that probably came up after they'd started this apology video.
Last edited by Rob_B; 16-08-2023 at 12:02 PM.
I have to wonder if a route cause of this is the whole "labs" project? I mean. from what I can make out, it's a very expensive proposition, and must be piling huge pressure on. I don't envy him that.
One of the reasons .... nah, the main reaso I got to watching, was the "entertainment" aspect. I suspect Steve has nailed something there. What you need to be an "entertainment" review channel is one set of skills, and his cheeky chappy, nudge-nudge, 'drop expensive kit - OOPS prankery was well suited.
But what you need to do a proper job of a "labs" channel is an entirely different mindset. Granted, he's bought in apparently qualified and experienced labs staff but, I wonder how well the rigours demanded by a wholly data-led approach are fitting in with his apparent "get content out, and 'good enough' will do" schedule, are mixing?
Aw, good enough, whateverz, is not going to cut it in a rigourous data-led operation, which seems to be the central conflict Steve is driving at.
I just hope LS's success, to date, in the entertainment side doesn't blind him to the core criticism that "good enough" isn't good enough, by a large margin, in a lab context.
Hopefully, the new CEO can see the conflict and resolve it in favour of labs output needs to be RIGHT, not just good enough, because the 'good enough' mindset is going to put a very large dent in the credibility of the labs and, if not addressed, could well doom the entire labs project. if nobody trusts the data because it's more important to save that few hundred bucks and just get "good enough" stuff out on deadline, why bother having a labs in the first place.
I get the distinct impression Steve was very uncomfortable with this whose episode but is trying, very hard, to produce costructive criticism. I just wonder if Linus' ego is going to let him see it as that? Because if not, it don't bode well.
Linus needs to remember that, in true Lord of te Rings style, the labs approach has one central principle to remember .... your reputation is the "one rule to bind them all" bit, and it's very easy (and fast) to lose it, and very, very difficult and slow, or even just downright impossible, to get it back if you do. This is, I fear, an existential crisis for LTT and I just hope LS can see it. In time.
This week's WAN show has all the promise of being a right doozy. "Hot take", or what, Linus?
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
Just started to watch the above-linked video, and my previous post was before seeng it.
I'm 90 seconds in, and have to stop, as visitors arrived. But SO FAR it seems Terren and Yvonne are taking it seriously. i do hope so. One thing we all ought to bear in mind is that Linus is, it seems, extremely driven and has self-admitted ad even joked about, attention-span issues.
To be honest, and with no medical training whatever, i see signs in him that I recognise from some family members that are clinicly diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, and spectrum is indeed what it is. Even if I was clinicly trained, all I know of Linus is what i see on videos and, as he himself regularly points out, he's acting and it's not the 'real' Linus.
I just hope Linus can step back from this and not take it too personally, though when LTT is his extra child, that isn't going to be easy, especially if there is any tendency towards an autism approach. Based on my very limited exposure, he may well not find it easy to do.
Anyway, gotta go or our visitors (or the boss) are going to lynch me.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
Sorry yep I meant from the managerial side of things rather than appearances or influence in the company.
He's definitely failed at deligating along with QC/QA. In the latest video on Rob_Bs post, he actually looks run down.
I think the smart move has been to get a CEO onboard and start steering the ship back on course.
I have to say like others, the last few years of videos on the main channel hasn't been the content I'm looking for.
Jonj1611 (16-08-2023)
I suspect the Madison issue is going to hit them harder, I cant imagine many companies will want to be associated with them now..
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