Author Topic: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer  (Read 20174 times)

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Offline nctnico

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #50 on: June 14, 2023, 03:30:41 pm »
The ideal amount of money is enough.  8)

Too little or too much is problematic.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Ed.Kloonk

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #51 on: July 01, 2023, 09:42:12 am »
Lets see what happens from here.

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Offline nigelwright7557

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #52 on: July 30, 2023, 07:25:44 pm »
Its a typical Linus publicity stunt.
He did same saying he was leaving the youtube show.
Turned out he was just giving the crap work to someone else and just doing the shows on youtube.

$100M ? for what a youtube channel ? While youtube channels make money its not worth any where near $100M.
 

Offline tom66

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #53 on: July 30, 2023, 08:51:17 pm »
Its a typical Linus publicity stunt.
He did same saying he was leaving the youtube show.
Turned out he was just giving the crap work to someone else and just doing the shows on youtube.

$100M ? for what a youtube channel ? While youtube channels make money its not worth any where near $100M.

Well, LTT has like 7 YT channels, a merchandise store, a brand and runs LAN parties.

All together the main YouTube channel has 15.6 million subscribers over 7.2 billion views.  In terms of YouTube revenue alone that's probably some $5 million per year.  Add in sponsorship money and store sales and you're looking at least around $10 million per year.

So a $100 million valuation does sound pretty fair.  Obviously it requires the buyer to take care of the channel and the brand to make it worthwhile, but it seems eminently reasonable.
 

Online SiliconWizard

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #54 on: July 30, 2023, 08:55:43 pm »
Linus's company is not just about the YT channel, even though it's one of its main vectors. It has surprisingly over 100 employees. It's a pretty big business.
I've seen tech companies designing and selling pretty advanced products, with about the same number of employees, sold for less than this, but $100M is not as unrealistic as you make it sound.
Definitely not your average "YT channel".
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #55 on: July 30, 2023, 11:07:16 pm »
$100M ? for what a youtube channel ? While youtube channels make money its not worth any where near $100M.

Yes, it is.
They would easily be bringing in $20-$30M/year in sponsorship money, merch, and ad revenue.
So a 3-5 times revenue multiple is pretty standard stuff in valuing a business.
$100M is actually rather low.
 

Offline coppice

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #56 on: July 30, 2023, 11:12:56 pm »
$100M ? for what a youtube channel ? While youtube channels make money its not worth any where near $100M.
Sounds a lot at first sight, but I read the other day that the top TikToker is running at $250M per annum.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #57 on: July 30, 2023, 11:16:51 pm »
Sounds a lot at first sight, but I read the other day that the top TikToker is running at $250M per annum.

Does TikTok even mave monetisation?
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #58 on: July 30, 2023, 11:18:45 pm »
Sounds a lot at first sight, but I read the other day that the top TikToker is running at $250M per annum.

Does TikTok even mave monetisation?

Seems they do. It's not much, just like Youtube.
https://www.nfi.edu/how-much-does-tiktok-pay/
So it would be direct brand deals that bring in the real money.
 

Offline hans

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #59 on: August 15, 2023, 04:53:55 pm »
Lets see what happens from here.








In case anyone cares. Its been 6 weeks, this rage not looking pretty. It all started at LTX where some member of their Labs team made some clumsy statement about their testing methodology where they dont reuse data between multiple product reviews, unlike sites "like GamersNexus or Hardware Unboxed" (which statements are partially false). You could say both are not entertained, as both have now responded on their YT channels.

I think GN (the first video I posted) has made a pretty risky step from posting that video. But from the tone and length its clear they had enough.
LTT's response is classical: deflect, gaslight, minimize the issue and also not apologize. Quite disappointing. I like their goofy videos and was interested to see how they were expanding, but this seems like a huge PR disaster.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2023, 04:56:05 pm by hans »
 
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Offline Veteran68

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #60 on: August 15, 2023, 09:40:22 pm »
I watched Steve's video the other day and was quite shocked at LTT's behavior here. I don't think Steve/GN did anything wrong by calling it out. I've liked Linus and LTT over the years, but I think it's obvious they've grown into the 800# commercial gorilla in this space and are driven more by the dollars than the creator passion they started with. Even their own employees were on camera saying they wish they could take more time to produce quality content, but are constantly pushed for quantity over quality.
 
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Offline thm_w

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #61 on: August 15, 2023, 09:59:50 pm »
I like their goofy videos and was interested to see how they were expanding, but this seems like a huge PR disaster.

Majority of his audience won't care.
Yeah he's good at entertainment and goofy videos, not 100% reliable data and in depth reviews. The whole "labs" idea as presented didn't really fit with his mentality.
If it was shown as a place where tech nerds can screw around with cool equipment, unscientifically, then almost none of this criticism would have been justified.

I watched Steve's video the other day and was quite shocked at LTT's behavior here. I don't think Steve/GN did anything wrong by calling it out. I've liked Linus and LTT over the years, but I think it's obvious they've grown into the 800# commercial gorilla in this space and are driven more by the dollars than the creator passion they started with. Even their own employees were on camera saying they wish they could take more time to produce quality content, but are constantly pushed for quantity over quality.

You can argue not asking LTT for comment is the one mistake GN made, they almost always ask for a comment before releasing a video.
Profile -> Modify profile -> Look and Layout ->  Don't show users' signatures
 
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Offline John B

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #62 on: August 15, 2023, 10:17:42 pm »
The errors in their videos are more forgiveable than the monoblock fiasco. Linus can claim that it was sold in error (sorry, auctioned for charity), but the fact that it crossed anyone's mind to pawn off something like that rather than giving it back to the original owners speaks a lot to the mentality of the culture there. I think once they get big enough and get accustomed to large corporations throwing free stuff at them left right and centre, they lose perspective of the time and effort involved in other peoples products and labour.
 
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Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #63 on: August 16, 2023, 05:44:03 am »
Majority of his audience won't care.
Yeah he's good at entertainment and goofy videos, not 100% reliable data and in depth reviews. The whole "labs" idea as presented didn't really fit with his mentality.
If it was shown as a place where tech nerds can screw around with cool equipment, unscientifically, then almost none of this criticism would have been justified.

As awesome (and automated?) as the new labs are, processes for software testing are still very manual and I imagine it's easy to make mistakes. I've done it in my own videos when comparing stuff. I did it just yesterday in a CPU vs GPU speed test video, but luckily I caught it and could reshoot that bit.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #64 on: August 16, 2023, 05:44:58 am »
The errors in their videos are more forgiveable than the monoblock fiasco. Linus can claim that it was sold in error (sorry, auctioned for charity), but the fact that it crossed anyone's mind to pawn off something like that rather than giving it back to the original owners speaks a lot to the mentality of the culture there. I think once they get big enough and get accustomed to large corporations throwing free stuff at them left right and centre, they lose perspective of the time and effort involved in other peoples products and labour.

I don't get the intense citicism here. They made a mistake, one time  :-//
 
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Offline John B

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #65 on: August 16, 2023, 06:30:49 am »
The errors in their videos are more forgiveable than the monoblock fiasco. Linus can claim that it was sold in error (sorry, auctioned for charity), but the fact that it crossed anyone's mind to pawn off something like that rather than giving it back to the original owners speaks a lot to the mentality of the culture there. I think once they get big enough and get accustomed to large corporations throwing free stuff at them left right and centre, they lose perspective of the time and effort involved in other peoples products and labour.

I don't get the intense citicism here. They made a mistake, one time  :-//

I can't speak to what it's like getting free stuff sent in, but does it really cross your mind after a review to sell items like that?
 

Offline hans

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #66 on: August 16, 2023, 07:25:36 am »
Its maybe not a single individuals fault.

They have writers. They have accounting/business relationships, inventory, procurement, social media, and even a single individual (or is team already?) that organizes events such as LTX.

It may be one half of the staff knows the value of that block, but someone else just YOLO'ed it.
They did have a sign up describing what it is. So it is still a bit beyond me.

From what I understand, review items can be shipped in OEM or retail packaging. Someones manufacturers ask for it back, but a bigger channel can ask to hold onto it as they may need it for future videos.
If they may keep it and have retail packaging, it should have full retail value. In OEM packaging it obviously be a bit different. But that is to say they were confident it was a keeper. Seeing as it was a one of a kind prototype, it seems unlikely.

I've scrolled through LTTs reddit today. Apparently all auction winners were emailed to reply what they had won, because they lost their winners sheet and they it need for "tax reports".
BilletLabs then posted later that Linus had found the auction winner, and they should be able to get the block back. Billet refused, because they were already building a new one, and basically lost confidence in LTT and a private individual(which can't really be faulted) for getting it back in a timely manner and good shape.

And someone made a live FloatPlane sub tracker. Apparently it was up as high as 42k before all this: https://grafana.elizabeth.codes/public-dashboards/10023c4c479744e191760225708c0124?orgId=1&from=now-24h&to=now

 :popcorn:
 
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #67 on: August 16, 2023, 07:29:08 am »
The errors in their videos are more forgiveable than the monoblock fiasco. Linus can claim that it was sold in error (sorry, auctioned for charity), but the fact that it crossed anyone's mind to pawn off something like that rather than giving it back to the original owners speaks a lot to the mentality of the culture there. I think once they get big enough and get accustomed to large corporations throwing free stuff at them left right and centre, they lose perspective of the time and effort involved in other peoples products and labour.

I don't get the intense citicism here. They made a mistake, one time  :-//

I can't speak to what it's like getting free stuff sent in, but does it really cross your mind after a review to sell items like that?

AIUI, Billet contacted LTT half an hour after he said the heatsink had been sold (it was their prototype so irreplaceable and certainly not disposable at a profit). LTT ignored them for four days, and then 10 minutes after GN had blown it open Linus personally contacted them to say it was auctioned and they would sort out recompense for Billet.

Doesn't sound like a mistake to me. Sounds more like a freebie sink and fuck the vendors.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2023, 07:35:28 am by PlainName »
 
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Offline Veteran68

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #68 on: August 16, 2023, 02:04:34 pm »
So, here's the damage control response.

https://youtu.be/0cTpTMl8kFY

I have to say, I was having a very good feeling from everyone in the video -- the new CEO, Yvonne, the new lab head, business development head, head writer, etc. Everyone was contrite, acknowledging their issues, and talking about changes to make it better, starting with an immediate pause on producing content until they have new processes in place. Nobody deflected or made excuses... until it was Linus' turn, and then while acknowledging that he responded out of emotion, immediately went emotional again and started deflecting and excusing their behavior.

I get it, it's his baby, and he built it up from nothing to this media "empire." So I don't blame him for being emotional about it. But recognize that you're emotional about it, and just... step back and shut up. Stop digging the hole deeper. Acknowledge you were wrong and then stop talking, let your team help you to make things right.
 
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Offline wraper

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #69 on: August 16, 2023, 02:30:01 pm »
The errors in their videos are more forgiveable than the monoblock fiasco. Linus can claim that it was sold in error (sorry, auctioned for charity), but the fact that it crossed anyone's mind to pawn off something like that rather than giving it back to the original owners speaks a lot to the mentality of the culture there. I think once they get big enough and get accustomed to large corporations throwing free stuff at them left right and centre, they lose perspective of the time and effort involved in other peoples products and labour.

I don't get the intense citicism here. They made a mistake, one time  :-//

I can't speak to what it's like getting free stuff sent in, but does it really cross your mind after a review to sell items like that?

AIUI, Billet contacted LTT half an hour after he said the heatsink had been sold (it was their prototype so irreplaceable and certainly not disposable at a profit). LTT ignored them for four days, and then 10 minutes after GN had blown it open Linus personally contacted them to say it was auctioned and they would sort out recompense for Billet.

Doesn't sound like a mistake to me. Sounds more like a freebie sink and fuck the vendors.
Auction money has gone to charity. However the gist of the Billet situation and the rest that was discussed is a gross negligence which happens because LMG made a business decision to push out more videos and maximizing profit than they can reasonably do whiteout knowingly making cutting corners as the normal way to do things. And the double down that Linus made about Billet before the GN video is outrageous. Linus yet again shat on a 2 guy startup and said he cannot be bothered to spend a few hundred bucks worth of labor to test it properly.  Yet totally ignoring the fact that the effort that has gone into making this thing is worth way more than. And he just trashed the thing with no due diligence whatsoever, and doubled down on top of that. And then effing sold their prototype which must never happen for a prototype of not yet released product even if it's not one of a kind, which only makes it worse. Not to say Billet apparently provided their own 3090 Ti (correct GPU) for testing which got lost somewhere at LMG.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2023, 02:35:47 pm by wraper »
 

Offline wraper

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #70 on: August 16, 2023, 02:48:40 pm »
The errors in their videos are more forgiveable than the monoblock fiasco. Linus can claim that it was sold in error (sorry, auctioned for charity), but the fact that it crossed anyone's mind to pawn off something like that rather than giving it back to the original owners speaks a lot to the mentality of the culture there. I think once they get big enough and get accustomed to large corporations throwing free stuff at them left right and centre, they lose perspective of the time and effort involved in other peoples products and labour.

I don't get the intense citicism here. They made a mistake, one time  :-//
Nope, losing their RTX 3090 Ti and selling the prototype water block was just a cherry on top after shitting on their product after improper testing and doubling down on that. They were totally aware they cannot do it properly at the moment right from the start but did not bother to halt recording of the video and do it properly afterwards. Besides that, their review videos are an error fest. Not just subtle mistakes but so blatant and frequent that it's ridiculous it ever got released. And not properly fixing extremely blatant errors after the fact as wall.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2023, 04:50:53 pm by wraper »
 

Offline Veteran68

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #71 on: August 16, 2023, 03:00:19 pm »
The errors in their videos are more forgiveable than the monoblock fiasco. Linus can claim that it was sold in error (sorry, auctioned for charity), but the fact that it crossed anyone's mind to pawn off something like that rather than giving it back to the original owners speaks a lot to the mentality of the culture there. I think once they get big enough and get accustomed to large corporations throwing free stuff at them left right and centre, they lose perspective of the time and effort involved in other peoples products and labour.

I don't get the intense citicism here. They made a mistake, one time  :-//

I think that's a gross oversimplification. First, they didn't make one mistake, one time. They are looked at as an "authoritative" source by their huge audience, and have been far too cavalier and careless with some of the incorrect information they've been putting out, mainly in an effort to flood the world with their content. Quantity over quality. Not to mention the Billet Labs fiasco which was handled poorly.

While I've never been a fan of the pitchfork-and-torches cancel culture that likes to publicly crucify others for their mistakes, unless they're just clearly evil (and I don't believe LTT is), what's far more important than screwing up is how you acknowledge and address the mistakes, and that's where LTT has failed miserably.

Again, their latest video I posted above is a step in the right direction, but would have gone over even better if Linus hadn't even been in the video. Or just started out contrite as everyone else did, and not try to explain or justify his reactions (again). He's just been tone deaf through the whole thing.

I like Linus and respect his accomplishments, I'm just being candid about where he's dropped a major ball here.
 
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Offline tszaboo

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #72 on: August 16, 2023, 03:08:16 pm »
The errors in their videos are more forgiveable than the monoblock fiasco. Linus can claim that it was sold in error (sorry, auctioned for charity), but the fact that it crossed anyone's mind to pawn off something like that rather than giving it back to the original owners speaks a lot to the mentality of the culture there. I think once they get big enough and get accustomed to large corporations throwing free stuff at them left right and centre, they lose perspective of the time and effort involved in other peoples products and labour.

I don't get the intense citicism here. They made a mistake, one time  :-//

I can't speak to what it's like getting free stuff sent in, but does it really cross your mind after a review to sell items like that?

AIUI, Billet contacted LTT half an hour after he said the heatsink had been sold (it was their prototype so irreplaceable and certainly not disposable at a profit). LTT ignored them for four days, and then 10 minutes after GN had blown it open Linus personally contacted them to say it was auctioned and they would sort out recompense for Billet.

Doesn't sound like a mistake to me. Sounds more like a freebie sink and fuck the vendors.
Auction money has gone to charity. However the gist of the Billet situation and the rest that was discussed is a gross negligence which happens because LMG made a business decision to push out more videos and maximizing profit than they can reasonably do whiteout knowingly making cutting corners as the normal way to do things. And the double down that Linus made about Billet before the GN video is outrageous. Linus yet again shat on a 2 guy startup and said he cannot be bothered to spend a few hundred bucks worth of labor to test it properly.  Yet totally ignoring the fact that the effort that has gone into making this thing is worth way more than. And he just trashed the thing with no due diligence whatsoever, and doubled down on top of that. And then effing sold their prototype which must never happen for a prototype of not yet released product even if it's not one of a kind, which only makes it worse. Not to say Billet apparently provided their own 3090 Ti (correct GPU) for testing which got lost somewhere at LMG.
A few questions: Why would you ship your only prototype to LMG for review? Seriously, who does that?
Why would LMG spend their time testing and reviewing a product that they don't intend to make in quantity? Remember, LMG is an entertainment company making Youtube videos, not an independent testing house. They have a production schedule.
Have you seen the contract that they had before agreeing to make a video? Probably it had a lot of lawyer text that describes the situation, and places no fault on Linus if he accidentally drops it, or sells it.
It may be one half of the staff knows the value of that block, but someone else just YOLO'ed it.
Or even, someone went through the inventory, seeing what can be sold and what cannot, and made a decision in 2 seconds.  It was probably listed "GPU waterblock, terrible, 800 USD"

But yes, they could have handled it better.
 

Offline wraper

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #73 on: August 16, 2023, 03:15:42 pm »
A few questions: Why would you ship your only prototype to LMG for review? Seriously, who does that?
A two guy startup with no deep pockets and which had a great opportunity to gain exposure.
 
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Offline Veteran68

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Re: Linus Sebastion Turned Down $100M Offer
« Reply #74 on: August 16, 2023, 03:48:53 pm »
A few questions: Why would you ship your only prototype to LMG for review? Seriously, who does that?
A two guy startup with no deep pockets and which had a great opportunity to gain exposure.

This.

LTT is the largest tech channel on YouTube. 15.5M subscribers. Their reach is enormous. Much larger tech companies than Billet Labs fall all over themselves to get that kind of exposure. So I'm sure they were hoping this would launch interest, attract investors, etc. The cavalier attitude towards testing it OUTSIDE OF ITS SPECIFICATIONS and then crapping on it when it didn't work is simply egregious. Then being told by his people, including his wife and his on-air co-host/CTO, that maybe they should retest it as designed, but him blowing it off and saying it's not worth the few hundred dollars in labor to retest it, just makes it even worse. Then finally, the cherry on top: auctioning it off.

To reiterate, it's not the mistakes made that bother me. It's the response to them (mainly from Linus).
 
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