Linus Sebastian has issued a lengthy statement in response to criticism from Gamers Nexus. While admitted to some degree of “sloppiness” amid a recent company shakeup, he expressed “disappointment” in how the situation has now unfolded in the public eye.
Fellow Tech YouTuber group Gamers Nexus unleashed a scathing criticism of Linus Tech Tips on August 14. Throughout their 44-minute long video, Steve Burke addressed concerns with accuracy in recent Linus Media Group projects, while also pinpointing a number of ethical quandaries with Linus’ personal investments and collaborations.
Mere hours after ‘The Problem with Linus Tech Tips’ went live on YouTube, hundreds of thousands had already viewed the video. While not wanting to address the matter in his own video, Linus nonetheless replied online through the LTT forums with a lengthy written statement.
Throughout this response, the former LMG CEO addressed criticism head-on while also questioning the ‘hypocrisy’ of Gamers Nexus’ approach in making matters public without first contacting him privately.
Opening the statement, Linus claimed the team will not be uploading a full-fledged video response to the matter, claiming that “most of what I have to say, I’ve already said, and done so privately.”
The popular content creator detailed how he reached out to Steve Burke of Gamers Nexus directly, explaining his “disappointment that he didn’t go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable.”
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Pivoting to discuss the particular criticism, Linus quickly admitted that their team isn’t infallible. “We are going through some growing pains and it’s clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication,” he admitted.
“We’ve already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but that’s no excuse for sloppiness.”
The writing staff at LMG have allegedly been set KPIs regarding accuracy. Furthermore, Linus added “We are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure things continue to get better. If you haven’t seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you’re really looking for it…”
Rounding out the response, Linus admitted he was ‘saddened’ “by how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this.” With thousands helping circulate the video and countless more lashing out on social media, he described the situation as “disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us.
“Believe it or not, I’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.”