Ian Cutress leaves Anandtech
anandtech.com
anandtech.com
I'll still be around, doing my YouTube channel on tickover before other ventures are ready. Just need to square some things away, and I'll probably announce via Twitter next week.
Anything input always welcome!
I guess we all already can take a guess at where you might end up haha
Cheers!
If you are going to continue to participate in written content on the internet, please remember that RSS is not dead and there are many of us who consume content exclusively via RSS. My 2 cents :-)
Your analysis helped convince me to go all in on some AMD stock purchases that ended up really saving me over past year. It’s beyond appreciated, and I’m far more knowledgeable about semiconductors thanks to you! Best of luck in your new journey
No names or details, but in hindsight was there ever news or review points that you felt should have been reported, but wasn't because of publishing / relationship concerns? (Read: actual, factual details... discounting pique at counterparties / PR being assholes from time to time and deserving to be blasted)
I've always been curious how that balances. Would hope the type of stuff AnandTech covers has more natural immunity (vs something like games journalism).
PS: Thanks for all your work over the years! Between you and Anand, you guided years of PC builds, starting with a Pentium IV on an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe to get my university fiber-to-the-room traffic off the PCI bus. ;)
I mean, there have been times where PR have been rude and incorrigible. Nothing to the extent that it'd be worth putting them on loudspeaker for, as that'd gut any future relationship, and sometimes it's down to one person in the chain causing the fuss, not the culture.
Part of what I've learned at AnandTech is how these chains of command work - you're not speaking with Company X, you're speaking to Person A on behalf of company X, and sometimes the information they are feeding you goes through 15 hands before it gets to you and if there's a bad apple in that chain, it could cause it all to go pear shaped. That's also part of the 'behind the curtain' I've tried to showcase in my reporting, rather than just simply dealing with a big box with company logo on it that prints money.
Part of the balance you describe is, in my mind, simply the result of reporting on people. If you stick to the science, the research, there's less room for disagreement.
Then again, Samsung stopped sampling us smartphones because every Snapdragon/Exynos review we did, with industry standard tests and power measurements, showed Snapdragon ahead for several years. They felt it wasn't in their best interests to sample us anymore, so we ended up buying the hardware after launch. At least, that was the PR team who didn't want to talk. The SoC team still wanted our input, but the way Samsung works, it was always difficult to have those discussions. Compare that to Samsung Foundry, who have invited me to consecutive industry events to learn about new features - they loved the coverage, and the questions I ask. Same company, different BUs, different media list, different blacklists.
Perhaps it's worth a book. When I'm retired.
That was considered "likely to instigate political discourse"? That's just depressing.
Seems like the real reason is "don't piss off the telecoms"...
Makes perfect sense. From outside the company, it feels like The Company speaks and acts. From inside, you realize it's actually the VP of whatever making a decision.
I always enjoyed the 'behind the curtain' aspect. It was humanizing to see that even Smart People doing Hard Things didn't always get them perfectly right, especially in the recurring "Annals of Bad Product Naming" theme.
This.
Well done and I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing you all the best.
In the end it was a bad subtitling transcription by YT on my first in person video with Wendell. Right near the end, it auto-transcribed something about me and AnandTech as 'TechTechPotato'. The tie in with chips and potatoes is an obvious one - 'twice the tech and all the chips' is a potential future tag for the channel.
About a month in, one of the community built the logo, completely unprompted. I loved it, and bought it off him.
It seems like the brain drain from every other field into computer stuff is a real and substantial loss for our culture. It makes me wonder whether we will keep it together, in the end. Societies decaying has happened; eventually they collapse. If it happens again, it will not be confined to this or that empire.
I think he is going to spend a lot more time on his Youtube Channel. OR,a possible scenario.... Would he be joining STH? I know he sometimes comes to HN :)
>and all I’ve wanted to do is lash out!
I am glad I am not the only one. And that is why I enjoy Anandtech and Ians writing so much. To educate the reader instead of being mislead by marketing and sloppy journalism that are only here for clicks.
So it becomes a labor of love. But that only goes so far, for so long.
IMHO, in an industry like that, you have to be honest about what you're bringing to the table for employees in lieu of compensation: an opportunity for increased name recognition and networking in a public role, and the fun of being a public face!
But! You also have to continually deepen the bench with new prospects, because you know you're going to be continually hemorrhaging top tier talent to job switching.
Credit to AnandTech that people stay for as long as they do. 10+ years is damned impressive!
Arguably, pay disparities in the industry exist more broadly even if you just restrict the conversation to developers/engineers. I suspect that the big tech companies are sucking a lot of the oxygen out of the room at least in the US. Some people may not want to work for those companies and others, whether because of lack of skill, poor interviewing, or just bad luck, can't get an offer. But if someone can get in, it will be hard for a lot of other companies to match the comp.
I don't know why they don't just administer real tests. Probably some kind of demographic or legal nightmare?
https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/svk7m4/dr_ian_cut...
1. Make low(er) budget videos regularly that may not earn you a ton but keep the algorithm happy and the money flowing.
2. Every now and then, make a few high-budget videos that "pop", which expands your audience and keeps the regulars hooked.
If you check their channel right now, most of the daily videos are kind of boring/stupid YouTube bait - I even stopped watching their channel because of that! But if you check back every month, there's maybe two-three videos that are genuinely unique or interesting. So I think LTT wouldn't care about RoI from an expensive hire on a per-video/per-view basis - it would be worth it for them if they could use that hire to build a captive audience to watch their cheaper video.
Wasn’t Ian associated with Anandtech for 10 years? That seems like a long enough in today’s world.
Also please note that working for Anandtech gives you a lot of profile and publicity. Other people in the industry may want to snap you up!
I don't think we should necessarily celebrate people continuing to do the same thing over a long period of time. Humans like to grow and experience a variety of things. Change is good. You have 11 lifetimes:
1.) People can grow and change within a single organization, especially given that they're not spending a lot of time to learn a new place and
2.) We also shouldn't celebrate people because they jump around every 18 months when something isn't going quite their way or they've gotten bored.
It's kinda sad to watch all the big name editorials I used to read as a teenager like Anandtech and Toms Hardware lost their spark and are withering away, and LTT is now becoming the tech review juggernaut.
I hope there will always be a place for Anandtech's and Tom's Hardwares in this world, though. Text content with decent illustrations can't be adequately replaced by video.
[1] https://twitter.com/LinusTech/status/1486918784401088515
This just isn't what the tweet shows? Unless you are counting AdSense as sponsors? That doesn't seems to make sense.
You seem to be saying LTT is beholden to their sponsors? There is always an argument to be made there but misrepresenting: floatplane, AdSense and other sources that I don't see how you can call sponsors, which make up another 33% seems very disingenuous.
Unless I am misinformed about how AdSense works.
Yes, I am going by Google's own definition of AdSense which describes them as "sponsored links". If revenue from sponsored links does not count as sponsorship revenue then to each their own.
>You seem to be saying LTT is beholden to their sponsors?
This is such a massive jump I have no idea if it's even worth responding to it. I have no idea how posting a link to a literal pie chart directly from a source can be construed as saying that said source is beholden to sponsors.
If there's anything disingenuous, it would be the idea that not mentioning floatplane which makes up a mere 4% of revenue is a form of misrepresentation. That said I will defer to Hanlon's razor on that one [1]
LTT's sponsored content is clearly marked and for videos with an ad read, the writing staff isn't informed what companies will get a spot in the video while writing. Seems like pretty solid editorial independence to me?
If [sponsor X] has done five high-dollar 'product showcase' videos in the past year contributing [Y] in revenue, and a separate review of [sponsor X]'s product is coming up, does the writer and/or editorial staff have any possible filters (whether or not intended) to protect the revenue stream for future 'product showcase' videos from that sponsor?
I tend to give LTT the benefit of the doubt, but that's why I say it's a tightrope. Once you have paid content (in any form), and not just ad spots, it complicates the relationships you have with your audience, and with your sponsors/advertisers.
I dont mind LTT, the problem is just it is way too dumbed down. It is part of the reason why Hardware discussions, even on HN is pretty average to say the least.
May be people just dont like reading long and detail review but instead only want short form video.
I've been reading Anandtech for ~20 years. It has stayed virtually the same [1]. Linus has turned his venture into a giant media and entertainment house. I hope LTT labs is completely different but it is hard to imagine it given Linus' vision and business interests.
[1] This aspect is basically unheard of these days. Hard to find anything that stayed the same ~20 years, they refined their vision instead of slowly destroying it.
So I hope he’s not joining them. It would be great if he formed his own venture instead.
It's cool to see them try a different format and hope they succeed in bringing proper empirical-mindedness to the top of the presentation.
If I drop into a random page of a random Ian Cutress article, there's a high probability it will be interesting and well thought-out content.
If I drop into a random LTT video and scroll to a random timestamp, it's most likely going to be some minimal content arbitrarily stretched past the 10 minute threshold for YouTube monetization. I can usually find the answer to the clickbait headline with enough seeking around, but many of his videos contain so little actual content that it could probably be summarized in a couple of Tweets. His specialty is expanding it into 10+ minutes of overly enthusiastic, slow-paced talking about it.
The information density is at polar opposites of the spectrum, and that's by design. YouTube favors quantity and clickbait, and it's no secret that Linus is playing that game as aggressively as he can.
Doesn’t mean that entertainment doesn’t benefit from rigorous science and methodology.
In any case people are suggesting Ian join LTT Labs, not LTT.
So do you blame the creator or Google who makes these rules?
This is why I've long since preferred AnandTech to LTT. They employ people like Cuttress, who has a respect for scientific rigor and can go deep into the technological weeds and actually report usefully from them, whereas I feel LTT was limited mostly to surface-level observations when I watched regularly.
I don't see a problem here. The keyboard thing sounds entertaining, so I'll go check it out.
I do think his heart is in the right place and his team is able to produce high quality, both in terms of the content and the production. If LTT is serious about LTT Labs, then they need someone like Ian Cutress, and LTT is one of the few place that would be able make him a genuine offer.
LTT wouldn't be as big if they did highly technical "boring" analysis, they can be so big and influential because they are light, layman-friendly almost at a stupid level.
Youtube is about attracting the crowd and let me tell you something, the crowd isn't very smart for the most part.
The first thing I though before googling it up was that Linus Torvalds got into youtubing.
Linus has literally said that he doesn't like the clickbait himself but it's almost essential to get decent views thanks to YouTube's algorithms. It's true that a lot of their work is more surface-level compared to AnandTech but that's just partly because a. You need a lot of talent that they might not have had, and b. They actually ARE expanding in that direction.
Side note: Tom Scott/Rohin Francis/Veritasium have also started having more clickbaity video thumbnails. Do I blame them? No, I blame YouTube. Don't forget, Linux has a huge team he needs to pay and support.
Plus they have made a big investment into doing even more advanced testing and reviewing. So I don't really agree that they are "all-in". They do it because that's what makes money, but Linus also wants his channel to be a place for high quality journalism.
If you told me ten years ago that BuzzFeed's news site would end up winning many prestigious awards including a Pulitzer Prize I would have thought you were joking.
I think it's a TED talk but I'm not entirely sure. Buzzfeed was an MIT grad product to figure out how far they could go with virality and virality alone. If the project proved succesful, they'd invest in serious journalism.
It's all there in the video I don't have a link to!
Honestly, I don't mind what current LTT videos do. I've spend enough time around tech and doing design work that a lot of the mistakes and situations are familiar. Sure the staff is aware they have to be entertaining and play it up, but a lot of the mistakes are genuine. Plus it makes videos quicker to shoot if you aren't trying to get a perfect take.
Heck, even if they where hours long, some stuff is just better suited to be read than watched.
Given the level of respect he's shown Cuttress in the past and the timing, combined with how excited he's been on WAN Show about the person he was finalizing a deal to hire to lead these efforts, there's probably a decent chance Cuttress is the hire. That's all speculation at this point, though.
And i see no problem with LTT and their approach to hardware, it is entertaining but make no mistake, that they know what they are talking about.
But let's see what LTT is up to.
LTT Labs is their attempt at producing more investigative and informative content that is less rooted in entertainment like their main channels are.
Ian is my favourite CPU journalist. That insistence on reminding everyone, all the time, that he has a doctorate is seriously awkward, though.
Not 100% the same topics, but still informative.
He didn't even use it until fairly recently. In the past 3-4 years? I think he had his doctorate even before he joined Anandtech. He only started using it because people were asking him why he didn't put his Dr. in his title.
And it means a lot in different context. Basically it could be used as the biggest middle finger to marketing and PR department to STFU and get a proper engineer to talk to me. Especially in the context of foundry where his research was on Electrochemistry.
For some reason people equate this to me shoving it down their throats. There was a big reddit thread about it recently.
I don't know about "strong opinions in both directions" (I don't think I've ever met someone who felt strongly that an academic doctorate title should never be mentioned?) but there are certainly some people who are serious about "ring-knocking" and will get super offended if you don't say it, and given the 'do whatever' instruction, people may be defaulting to putting it in, just in case. Perhaps, again, not even out of fear you'll jump on them, as much as someone else might.
In other words, it might not be you so much as the other assholes.
Your actual person I of course know nothing about and pass neither judgement nor praise for. That is none of my business!
LOVE that site..(and it’s forums, and Patrick)
Ian’s articles were fantastic every time they came out, though. Hopefully his next venture allows him to continue doing the same work in another venue.
But I'm impressed it managed to make it past Anand's departure.
Those technologists that work in a field of interest only publish in illegible patent speak or keep trade secrets.
I get a thorough review can't come out on day one, but they need to get something out. Maybe a first look with some opinions, followed by a more thorough review a week later.
Also, Samsung doesn't sample AnandTech.
and Ian Curtis.. Vs Ian Cutress...
Haven't been frequenting the site as much since Anand left and I felt the site's days were numbered. They still had good content coming out but with Ian leaving, I think most (all?) of the old guard has left and this is probably the final nail in the coffin.