Dont even need to watch the whole video. This is all you gotta see.
Damn they tried to plug LTT store too. GN made a long serious video with stats, data, no jokes, no sponsors or plugs.
Yeah no they’re not salvageable. Linus is a clown. My friends even told me, but I didn’t see it. That’s the consequence of growing up surrounded by toxicity: you think it’s normal and don’t see it.
Linus is a clown. Literally. That is his brand of entertainment, clowning around with tech.
That’s where he fucked up with Billet labs - he argued that he was defending consumers because nobody should buy that thing - but that’s not the job of a clown, a clown is meant to entertain people.
I’m not saying Linus is a clown as an insult, I mean that’s genuinely his brand and how he entertains people - memes, jokes, laughs, that’s great stuff most of the time but when you arbitrarily switch lanes it better be for a good reason.
Otherwise, stay in the clown car and make people laugh.
I watched LTT videos for entertainment, not product suggestions / benchmarks / as an information source. Clown it is!
Granted I already unsubscribed from the channels I followed and won’t use him for even that anymore.
I find it a little bit hard to enjoy the content, now that I know how to interpret it.
It’s kinda like when you find a great restaurant around the corner, go there a lot, enjoy the food, and then you realize they abuse their personal, lie to everyone about what is in the dishes (allergens etc), and so on. Can’t really enjoy the food anymore. The taste hasn’t changed, but it hits different.
GN did have their merch on display in the video. They didn’t ANNOUNCE it or make any direction to it. But they still had merch ON DISPLAY. Not trying to dampen the shit that is going on with LMG, but I feel it’s an important thing to make clear.
GN did have their merch on display in the video
That’s because it’s part of the set.
And saying “lttstore.com” is a part of every video.
There’s a pretty big difference in having something on display as part of a set in a video about issues at another outlet, and calling out a link to a product to be purchased in what is supposed to be an apology video by said outlet. LMG also originally had this video monetised and had links to their store and products in the description before finally removing those. GN did none of this because they understood the seriousness of what they were doing - they even called out that the video wouldn’t be monetised at the start of it.
I get the point you’re trying to make, but it’s a bad one.
Good Lord bro. Imagine having self-awareness. With the Madison stuff also coming to light, they would have already been in the pit regardless, but this ‘apology’ video is kind of insulting.
Yes I also watched the whole thing and still found it equally as insulting as the highlights.
My wife and I watched the whole thing, and I’ve frequently watched LTT in the past. We both agreed that the humor wasn’t really well placed, given the situation and came off a bit cringey in my opinion. I know some folks are saying damned if you do, damned if you don’t, which is fair. However I think that if they kept the humor out and it was a “generic apology video” there would be less criticism about it. But again, that’s just my opinion.
That’s just it for me. At this stage there really isn’t much more to do than to give a generic apology and the promise to investigate, improve and make up for things. Nobody (should) expect to see any instant consequences.
The bar is so low and yet they can’t even do that. And GN even showed them how it is done in their video. Specifically calling out that this is a matter that should not be monetized.
Linus should have employed a professional CEO, Managers, PR and HR years ago, right at the start of the labs expansion.
Their problems in the last couple of years could have been avoided or greatly reduced with better management, and employees not afraid to be open when things go wrong, this will set them back years.
Probably not many to be honest. This will be a minor blip in 12 months time, they way every drama seems to be, but as the business gets bigger and bigger, without having a proper management team the knife edge gets sharper and the risks increase.
And on the issue of harrassment allegations (since all the rumours point to the main problem being a long serving crew member, not a faceless new hire in a back office), you can do everything you can to discourage it but inevitably people will do stupid shit, say stupid shit, they will fuck up, they make mistakes, they are even malicious at times, but if you cant reprimand them or fire them for it because they’re your mate, a member of the OG crew or they’re popular with the audience then you are going to have a major problem on your hands as problems silently snowball in the background.
Their paid service saw a significant loss in users. Something like 12% before they shut down the counter.
You can still see the count on their Floatplane page here: https://www.floatplane.com/channel/linustechtips/home
As of time of this comment it’s at 36396 and still slowly trending down. It started at over 42000 when the GN video came out.
I’ll come back to Techlinked when they post again. I also listen to David (camera operator/writer) and Jon’s (ex-marketing) podcast that they have outside of LMG. I still like the personalities. LMG is great at recruiting interesting on-camera people after all
Problematically for LMG, the people who subscribe on floatplane and buy their merch make them the most money, and they are not “just watching the videos”.
Supposedly Linus didn’t think he could trust anyone else to essentially act as his proxy. And he’s just been bugging Terren for years to come to LTT. And it only now worked out. If you can call all this “working out”
It’s not just about trust, professional experienced ceos, who have been educated in business management know how to run businesses, it’s what they do, it doesn’t matter what the product or service is, that can be learned. Linus was too proud to hand control of his baby over, that’s very, very common with businesses that start to grow faster than they can handle and it’s a reason why start ups fail despite their successes and promise. Lmg is extremely lucky to have gotten as far and as large as it did without the necessary restructure to go to the next step.
Once you get into the 50+ full time employee range you need pro’s on the team because shit will happen, mistakes will be made, people will fuck up, that’s unavoidable. Good strong businesses handle it well, it’s rough cause sometimes you have to fire an OG team member and close friend and ruin a friendship. It sucks and people will hate you, but that’s part of running a large company.
Lmg had been incredibly successful and that’s great, kudos the them for that, but you have to have the humility to stand up at some point and day “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I need” any business adviser or analyst will tell you that.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I need” any business adviser or analyst will tell you that.
Much easier to do when you’re not dealing with a narcissist who, if he cant be right no matter how much he doubles down, then he’ll atleast make himself look like a victim to get that sweet sympathy feed for his narcissism.
You are completely right, but I wonder how self aware Linus is. I haven’t been watching his channel closely, but I’ve binged on episodes in the past. I was not aware of his anti-labor views or how he had his employees working on his house - these are things that a non-self aware person does; someone who doesn’t understand the optics are bad to the “commoner” who feels they are being taken advantage by business owners. I’ll reserve judgement for now but I’ve found this entire thing very disappointing.
Pretty un-self-aware indeed. He got so distracted/butthurt over internet reactions accusing him of maliciously stealing the prototype… Like obviously not, people are just pissed about the injustice. His ego benefits from the size and influence of his business qua business. But his ego leads him to see himself still as that scrappy YouTuber whose just tryna do what he does, forgetting that he’s got greater power now and greater responsibility.
I cringed so hard, I got muscle cramps 😬
To be fair to Luke, in regards to the “six nines” comment in the video that a lot of people think is part of a sex joke (and how the video is framing it), in the proper context he was talking about IT infrastructure and this comment actually refers to a target for high availability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability
99.9999% availability (ie. uptime) = “six nines”
He was basically saying that they’re setting a target for higher availability of their infrastructure, because it’s been unstable at times, causing staff frustration and delaying certain workflows.
I can’t blame a lot of average people who don’t work in any sort of IT field for confusing it with the “69” sex position (wondering what the heck “six nines” means), but that’s not at all what he was making reference to.
I’m not at all defending anything else in relation to this debacle besides this unfair portrayal of this particular snippet.
EDIT: Just wanted to add, I think it’s pretty sad that pistol fingers and a wink these days apparently must mean you’re making a sex joke (or are trying to offend people in some other way). As a kid I remember this gesture being used to “act cool”. We did it all the time back then, and it was all in fun. Luke’s from my generation, so maybe he thought the same, or maybe we didn’t get the memo that this gesture is off-limits now.
Really? You don’t see the innuendo? They intentionally chose the six nines figure. He even made the “nice” face, raised his brows and gave the camera two finger pistols. Are you like, new to human interaction?
“Six nines” is practically a meme in the IT infrastructure and DevOps world, and has nothing at all to do with any kind of sex joke. For years “six nines” has been touted as the pinnacle SLA target for high availability and uptime of services. You’ll find references all over the Internet to this SLA from all kind of companies, both big and small, in their marketing.
Examples from a quick and random Google search:
- “NetApp’s six nines guarantee”: https://www.netapp.com/blog/asa-san-storage/
- “CenturyLink Targets Six Nines”: https://availabilitydigest.com/public_articles/1106/centruylink_six_nines.pdf
- “HPE Get 6-Nines Guarantee […]”: https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/4aa5-2846enw
Companies such as Microsoft, Amazon (AWS specifically) and Google tout the “six nines” as their HA SLA in loads of their marketing, and it’s easy to find.
I could go on forever but that should give you an idea. You can read more about “The Rule Of Nines” here if you’re interested: https://vastdata.com/blog/the-rule-of-nines
My point is, this isn’t a figure they made up for a sex joke. It’s a very real SLA that is explicitly touted in IT marketing all over the Internet and has been for some time.
So where does the “innuendo” come from then? The uninformed viewer’s own imagination, I think. Because from my perspective, I just see an IT guy trying to brag about how he’s going to ensure his infrastructure reaches a slick “six nines” target for high availability, snapping his fingers and showboating the camera in pride about it.
It’s up to the viewer to interpret what they see, of course, but it’s also wrong once you know what the true intention more likely was to continue to insist that it was something else entirely. If anything, what he really meant is inconclusive, I personally think it’s a real stretch to assume it was a sex joke.
All the LMG channels regularly make “69” sex jokes, if you think they weren’t using the opportunity of the coincidence of “six-nines” coming up to make a double entendre (especially with the body language) then I have to assume you haven’t been paying attention, are extremely poor at human interaction, or are willingly trying to cover for them.
It is SO completely obvious. Like, beyond any doubt.
And we all know what six-nines uptime means, as it relates to servers.
LMG should hire you. Linus need clean boots and you seem willing to lick them.
I haven’t watched the video, so am asking legitimately. Assuming it was a sex joke was it out of order, or fine? In my mind, as an adult, the odd innuendo at an appropriate moment can be hilarious. If he’s not objectifying etc etc, then surely that’s OK? But, I’ve not watched it, so seeing what your onion is.
Edit. Down voted for asking. Is this reddit? What happened to lemmy?
In the video they are allegedly apologizing for being unprofessional and unethical and promising to halt all production to take time to be better at their job. You tell me if you would make a sex joke while being scolded for misbehaving in a professional setting? Then, it turns out they are being accused of fostering sexual harassment.
Edit. Down voted for asking. Is this reddit? What happened to lemmy?
That’s the vibe I was getting here too, there’s been a lot of downvoting of totally innocent questions and non-aggressive commentary. I don’t get where all of the anger’s coming from over some of the productive conversations and sharing of ideas going on here.
But to share my opinion about your question, even if Luke were making a sex joke during his segment, having watched the entire video, I personally feel it was pretty tame. The only thing he did during his entire time on-screen that anyone is upset about is exactly the clip you saw in the linked video. Just those couple of seconds as they are. Everything before that was plain and simple talk about plans for improving the state of their infrastructure, and the tone of that was quite professional. So at worst, his attempt at a sex joke here was pretty lame and fell flat, because there was no build-up to it at all.
In an apology video regarding accusations of sexual harassment and assault at the company? Yikes. Not really the time or place to make sex jokes.
Yeah the wink and the finger guns and the coy voice really scream “server uptime” to me
Go touch grass. It was an double entendre and LMG is fucking gross.
I don’t know man, I just saw it as some IT guy on screen setting an SLA goal I see all the time and trying to do an “act cool” gesture. People can interpret it how they want, but that’s how I saw it.
Reading through some of these pearl clutching comments and reactions here relating to Luke’s statement specifically is pretty jarring, you’d think he’d been best mates with Bill Cosby or on the management team at Blizzard for how people are reacting.
Unrelated, but also interesting imo and mildly hilarious. Also a little sad.
The Wiggles do the finger guns constantly because as men around kids and taking photos etc etc, they may be accused of things. If the hands are always visible, nobody can cast aspersions about what the hands may have been up to.
I don’t think Luke was referencing this, but if anything… Pistol fingers means this ISN’T a sex joke. At least imo
Doubt he was referencing that, but I think it’s clear that pistol fingers isn’t inherently something to be offended by on its own.
Its an innuendo. 5 nines is basically impossible, not even FAANG can really hit it 100%.
It doesn’t matter if the SLA is realistically reachable or not, it’s basically a marketing meme and one of the most common target SLAs in IT (“target” doesn’t mean you can actually reach it, you’re aiming for it though).
See here: https://lemmy.pub/comment/1046563
I understand its a marketing term. But context matters and when its done with the tech bro chuckle/stammer and wink…its an innuendo…
I mean…tone matters here. Look at how its stated.
LOL That number of nines is specifically referenced by an industry dominated by tech bros though. It could just as easily be 5 9s or 7 9s but for some reason it has to be 6 9s? And I know it’s a recurring joke for LTT but that doesn’t mean you should put it, or ANY joke into an apology video of all things?! What were they THINKING?! Besides it’s a tired and souless attempt at humour that should’ve been retired years ago