this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Linus Tech Tips
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I honestly never got his channel. Does Linus actually have a tech/engineering background which makes him an authority on this stuff? Watching his videos leads me to believe that he doesn't. He gets basic shit wrong way too often.
Linus is both knowledgable and a good entertainer. The problem is he's grown from a casual reviewer to running a 100+ employee business, pumping out multiple videos a week with his face on it - He simply cannot possibly know anything about the product besides what's on the script.
When he is interested in something, it really shows. The way he talks about the LTT Screwdriver or the Framework laptop for example almost never even has a correction, let alone errors. Linus just has no ability to upscale that quality.
I think it's even more what GN has highlighted: They try to go from entertainment first to hard facts and data. It's very clear that they have not thought this through completely.
Yes, some of their testing solutions are very sophisticated, but there are definitely problems on the management side of things. This seems very much like a structural problem. Communications goes horribly wrong in multiple ways, including errors not being corrected properly. Errors appear very frequently and the employees themselves question the quality of their videos.
Linus himself claimed that he had to improvise a workshop with employees, because they lacked training for what they were supposed to do. Furthermore that he substantially changed things on the fly, because they were garbage from his POV. All of this indicates bad management, but not learning from mistakes and making the exact same ones again proves it.
This is horseshit, no offense; Linus straight up says he's not interested in doing it right as it's cost $1-500... Which is nothing to them.
He's a sales sleeze semi-technical media nerd that is at best a good entertainer.
He chooses not to enforce quality.
LTT is entertainment. Not news or credibly fact based.
Yeah, the channel was great many years ago. Basically the same time they moved to the warehouse building is when it went downhill, and fast. They started pumping out more lower quality videos, and it was nearly all covered in click bait. They also created the side channel where they tried to make funny content. That's when I unsubscribed. I don't know if that's all still the same, but they clearly got caught up in trying to expand and following youtube trends that they forgot what they were good at.
He's does not have a technical background and he's said as much, gaming and computers are just a passion for him.
He's an entertainer, not an authority. But he speaks so passionately it's easy for a non-technical person to believe he's an authority.
He's honestly just jayz2cents with better marketing.
Except Jay is usually pretty honest and upfront about how little he knows, which now makes him miles better than Linus "I definitely benchmark better than tech jesus" sebastian.
Jays2cents is literally the car modder of tech channels. "Here's how you install a 5.1 sound system into your waterblock". And I mean that in a loving way.
Absolutely. It's why I love his videos. He sometimes has bad takes, but they aren't bad in a "I'm a shitty person" kind of takes and any time a mistake (not an opinion but harmful factual error) gets pointed out he responds pretty well.
And about 2 months ago, when called out on a bad review video (I think a 4060 ti?), Jay immediately deleted said record and posted an apology. He was humble and obviously annoyed at what they had output. He refused to film a replacement review video, instead suggesting people find a record of that product from another channel.
That is someone who knows they messed up and wants to do better.
The outlandish videos they do are pretty entertaining, I don't see how they're going to succeed as a data driven review channel given Linus' temperament. Like compare them to something like rtings and it's really night and day
Well he is throwing probably tens of thousands of dollars of people and equipment at a whole lab for more efficient and accurate testing. So there's that.
Linus himself has no engineering background, but his team has many engineers. They do not make mistakes for lack of knowledge. What they need is more quality control over their videos
Linus used to work for a computer store^[1], and has 15+ years experience doing this sort of stuff. I would say he's more knowledgable than most
He was a college dropout sales rep at NCIX, the equivalent of any random dude working at Microcenter, who moonlighted at making low effort youtube videos. His 15+ years of "experience" are him figuring out literally everything as he went.
He's more knowledgeable than the average layman, but he's a total fucking amateur at everything he does compared to the actual experts, often including his own employees who he frequently ignores or talks over.
I think Linus is a relatively decent, somewhat funny guy, honestly. But he's not fit for his roles besides being an on camera personality.
LTT is just an infomercial
Correct, answer. It's also a platform for Linus to stroke his ego.
He doesn't. He's just being a computer technician for as long as he has worked.
And before that, he was the NCIX guy that did all the videos for their site.
Watching his videos leads me to believe that he does, the random knowledge drops he has about hardware and the deeper levels of the software stack convince me of that.
Even if he is parroting knowledge he's getting from his engineers, and I don't think he is, he still sounds very knowledgable. I think everyone's simply jumping on a hate bandwagon for the fun of it.
Yeah... Anyone who thinks Linus doesn't know much about computers is straight up wrong. He's not an engineer but he doesn't claim to be. Personally I don't watch LTT for the hard data...that's what NG is for. I also like Paul's Hardware for general product reviews.
But with all that said, I do kind of like that this is blowing up and especially so after reading LTT's response. Linus has done some questionable things and they always get swept under the rug....despite the arrogant responses he always gives. He deserves most the anger being directed at him because the Billet thing is the worst one yet
No he was basically a marketing guy