SUPPORT OUR REPORTING: Buy a coaster pack, solder mat, or more at store.gamersnexus.net/ Original GN Drink Coaster 4-Pack: store.gamersnexus.net/products/3d-coaster-pack-4-component-coasters Limited Gold & Blue CyberSkeleton Shirt: store.gamersnexus.net/products/limited-edition-foil-cyberskeleton2-cotton-tshirt GN Anti-Static Modmat: store.gamersnexus.net/products/large-modmat-gn15-anniversary GN Project & Soldering Mats: store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-project-soldering-mat Copper Plated Mule Mugs: store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-copper-plated-stainless-steel-mule-mug-thermal-conductivity-of-copper Watch the prior parts here - 1: ua-cam.com/video/b73xG1HlFhY/v-deo.html And Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/8A7cykj0pCg/v-deo.html
I would seriously think about enhanceing security, I suspect theres even more to this with some very scary individuals involoved. it just has a very bad smell about it.
my dadwas part of something like this awhile ago, the boss essentially strings the employees along with the promise of "getting you caught up" on your pay check. and if break away or end up in the dog pound, how ever many months of backpay they owe you just essentially becomes pixie dust and will infact not happen
It is a common tactic in Croatia and all ex-Yugoslavian countries. The old mentality from transitional period from communism to whatever the hell this is, because sure it's no democracy, was: better to have work and not be paid than to be unemployed. The problem is that they are running out of old folk and with them all the skilled labor. I have been in Germany for some time now and it is incredible to me how much you can accomplish and get paid for the hours invested as in Croatia for which I was never paid. Also, German work ethic is bs, those guys are masters at cutting corners and avoiding work. Good news for me, it keeps me employed and slowly spreading my business in Germany.
It’s disheartening to hear EK say that this video will further harm their reputation, while it is in fact their actions that have harmed their reputation.
@@christopherjames9843 congrats on being part of the problem. Both parties in the US are complete trash, however the democrats are the ones trouncing over democracy to shoe horn the candidate they want in for the last 3 elections. Bernie would have been the nominee in 2016 and 2020 if the democrats weren't completely corrupt. Who knows who it could have been this year, they just forced Kamala in.
@@christopherjames9843 *many politicians, celebrities, CEOs, bullies, basically anyone in position of influence, to varying degrees. Applying things the entirety of a single unrelated group isn't fair, accurate, nor reasonable. Blaming others of their own actions or for causing the results of said actions is over of the top tools for those in positions of influence to maintain said influence. Politicians are well versed with many examples. By saying 'Republicans', "Democrats ', or any party, nationality, or other demographic is demeaning to many good people just trying to go about their day or do their best for their community. And pointless in this context beyond throwing dirt on 'the other team'.
I remember I had a problem understanding him when I first found the channel, years ago, since English is not my first language. I felt I had caught up, a long time ago... right up until the 46 minute mark.
For ppl that say he only does this to get clicks, you need to snap into reality 90% of the videos on UA-cam now are driven by sponsors and controlled by big corporations. You should really treasure these types of videos. I sure as hell do!
There's a kind of hidden malace associated with a comment like that. "Doing it to get clicks" implies there's a lack of truth. Drama or sensationalism or stuff just made up yo grab your attention. Instead, this is what journalism *is supposed to look like*
I for one, enjoy the youtubers that make videos explicity for nobody to watch. Who in their right mind would make videos with the intent for people to watch them, and lord help me if they do it to make money.
My dad started a small business when I was a kid which he grew from 1-2 employees to over 20 at it's biggest. Over the decades I watched him deal with booms, busts, embezzlers, suppliers flaking, not being paid on contracts, and having to make tough staffing decisions. In all that the only person to ever miss a paycheck was himself, a couple times he even took out loans to pay his people over a rough patch. Stiffing your employees is mind boggling to me. Then thinking the problem is people finding out you stiffed them and not the fact that you did it MULTIPLE TIMES is straight up villain behavior.
in my past business I didn't get paid myself for at least 6 months cause we're having a rough patch. but I make sure my people always get paid on time. If you treat those people that work for you with no diginity, you won't have any hope to bounce back
My thoughts exactly on the boom and bust experiences; when a business struggles, the typical path to insolvency is not paying taxes, then not paying bills, then not paying payroll. The "expose" heavily implying there's hidden financial fraud is off-putting IMO and disingenuous - the sales numbers are irrelevant if divorced from net margin - especially since $250M in revenue across more than a decade doesn't even put the company into the mid-market category. If the video cut the sensationalism to present an honest story it'd likely echo the struggles of many many small businesses that try to grow too fast too soon and implode from the various costs their management (typically CEO or founder) overlooked due to misguided ambition.
Kudos to the whole team at GN, this type of reporting is costly and time consuming but easily the most important type of work for the industry. Hope you guys keep holding other companies to the same standards as always.
@@Cyberdeamonclassic and toxic as fuck. EKWB deserves every bit of press they're getting. He should move on to taking about their dealings with "partners". There's nothing quite like having an exec tell you to confide in them about strategy, only for them to steal ideas and methodology for their own use. Ask me how I know.
This was a thoroughly researched, beautifully curated narrative, and completely engaged my attention. I have not given any documentary this much attention since the old BBC Planet Earth series with David Attenborough. Thank you, Steve and team.
Your investigative journalism with regards to the tech sector is so refreshing and second to none, because there is simply no one else. I wish that all journalists would have you and your teams values and integrity when putting together their own reports on any topic.
other media are owned by the big five: SONY, P&G, Bertelsmann media, Universal and WB so they control the narrative. other than that GN team can take a halt on production while someone else wouldn't allow that kind of workflow for the sake of shareholders and whatnot. but mainly because of the narrative that needs to be put out there. this is also a high praise to the Gamers Nexus team for their respective time and dedication like no other media is willing or unable to ascertain.
@@blackrifle673630% I think. Also, I think that if it’s from the UA-cam iOS app, Apple takes 30% off the top first for an in-app purchase. So in that case the recipient only gets 49% of the donated amount.
@@JK-gm6kk that's part of yt's mindfu*k/gaslighting. They can kill your comment for nothing, or leave something that one could expect to be taken down. They can take down a video and then recommend it's 1:1 reupload by another channel. "They fear us because we have the power to kill arbitrarily." (C)
@@Amrylin1337 though this isn't video game related, the fact the channel is called Gamers Nexus would of made one think the channel would just be something that focused on things related to gaming. Of course the name for anyone not familiar with them has a lot covering computer related things and not just benchmarks on gpus.
Managers and leaders should take the salary hit in the first place, and not the people who are getting the minimum and will struggle the most when there is no salary. This is truly outrageous.
It is the managers and leaders who decide who takes salary hit. There are very few people in the world who would take the hit themselves instead of stripping their subordinates of their salaries. I blame the evolutionary element - the "survival of the fittest" strategy means that human instinct is to put yourself ahead of other people.
@@theodentherenewed4785 Yeah the only one I know who did that was Satoru Iwata who slashed his pay in half when the Wii U flopped so that in spite of that failure the employees of Nintendo wouldn't lose their jobs.
@@theodentherenewed4785 nah man, you got it wrong. this is Balkans scheming as the norm of operations. many companies in Croatia went bankrupt on the same model and CEO's and other "upper level" people gained massive amounts of money and we call them "tajkuni" which is a sort of a typhoon but a person. to this day noone ever got processed by the law and will not ever be because all of those people are now the respective Croatian government OR an integral systems owners like Sisak-moslavina county road infrastracture service company that is legally non-buyable but is in fact owned by a private citizen and an ex county leader. how? by-laws made it possible for him while in power get the biggest share of county owned company because he was the county.
This would be a second round from me at least, first time having been from Steve covering Artesian Builds. Even as someone that never bought Ek products this is all interesting to see how a company falls down hard.
@anthonyguerrero4612 i know rite? quiet a few times i came to the conclusion that some TV channel even should be broadcasting this or so hehe ^^ put that as a netflix show, could you imagine? :D
EK CEO : "Yeah we paid all the CEO, Owner and Executive first tho-.." EK other employee : "So.. " *point finger at self EK CEO : *Slap and push employee out of spotlight : "..yeah don't worry about.. well the rest of our employee.. which the one who obey our order and not go out of line.. talking too much to outsider.."
thank god we have GN, without their channel the "working" part of the company would not have a voice. the bullshit of "paid properly" in their minds is paying execs and PR to try cover shit up.
I work in financial services for Mid-Cap Companies (one of the biggest banks in the world) and this story of lower middle market/middle market Companies going bananas during COVID, decision makers treating the Company like their personal piggy bank, and a sharp return to reality is just so common. This situation clearly involved an extra level of management with selfish goals that held little regard for the long term viability of their Company and the people who work for them. Props to the production quality and investigation done by you and the GN team!
Covid broke a lot of the brains in middle-upper management, then the interest hikes in Silicon Valley broke the Csuite. Now companies who have people leading without pattern recognition are just bleeding money.
Excellent summation. I wonder how much of this wild spending from the 'personal piggy banks' was funded from stimulus based purchases verses folks working from home having lessened expenses and social spending. I didn't understand the arguments against those at the time, but from that perspective, I think I understand. It allowed companies to see people were 'willing' and 'able' to pay absurdly high prices for certain products (everything?) I could be way off, but if nothing else, this video is thought provoking. (Your comment as well)
Yeah, the Serbian management, jeezus... That's so painfully obviously financial crimes and embezzlement, the Serbian state should be pressing charges (as should EK, honestly...)🤦
@@Grandwigg A Lot. It's crazy how when an unbalanced company gets stimulus their immediate response is to give owners bonuses and do special projects rather than actually shoring up the business itself. Almost like running a business doesn't say anything about how responsible you are.
"Oh, just put it on the company card, we can write it off on the taxes as a business expense." "Wait, what do you mean we don't have any more cash on hand?"
I’m not a regular viewer of Gamers Nexus, but this video showed up in my Home feed. I literally had never heard a single bad thing about EK, or had any idea there was any controversy whatsoever! I watched the whole thing and it was fascinating. I have never water-cooled any of my builds and frankly I never plan to, but it still feels kind of sad to hear about the state of a company that I always saw as highly premium and a go-to for some of the best builds.
People like you are exactly who need to see this content most! Those of us deep in the weeds of water cooling already knew not to trust EK products anymore, but they still carried a reputation of a premium brand. I'm glad GN's coverage is reaching new people and potentially helping consumers not get ripped off
Yes, this is exactly right. I am designing a build at the moment and was at the point where I wanted to work out cooling, I had no idea and after seeing this don’t think I can trust EK and will design accordingly.
I relate to your comment completely - no idea and thought high premium. This video sure is admired for effort, knowing the importance for public knowledge + doing it in a consumable way :)
41:00 Can we all appreciate what a good guy Steve is that he disregarded the opportunity to go to the booth just to potentially save a lower level employee’s job who he may never even meet again? Class act Steve, this is why we love you
Interesting, it probably will not be. Banks will continue to give them loans. They saving grace is they have basically no assets, so if they declare bankruptcy, banks will not have any chance to get it money back. Here (by here, I mean in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia...) banks have reasoning because the company was secsesfull in past thay will give them more and more loans in hope that in one time they will be able to return it, if they stop it now they will go bankrupt and banks will get nothing (bacouse they have no assets). I saw that behaviour from banks too many times.
@@measlesplease1266 Knell is the word for the sound of the bell rung at funerals. Coffins were closed with nails, with the insertion of the final nail being a sign that the person was truly dead, there's no chance they can get better now.
Thank you GN for putting together this report and also for ending it on the positive note of some former EK employees getting hired from reputable places!
For a company like EK I think it makes sense. They were always quick to execute on (or outright set ) the latest trend. But ultimately they sold "fad-ware". At the slightest economic downturn these are the things people forgo without even blinking. The first casualty of financial hardship is always luxury. But they forgot that this principle also applies to the company structure itself.... You can chose to not place manufacturing orders at the drop of a hat. But you can't downsize a complex company structure at the drop of a hat.
I guess i was unclear, Steve mentioned they dont even have their own lathe, that's insane for a product company that deals with tubing. Having a machining facility does not necessitate it to be some massive factory capable of pushing out 30,000 pieces a day. You can have a small facility for internal R&D.
@@bomas_ulz their cpu blocks are around $200 or more, considering someone like thermal grizzly, which does their manufacturing in Germany can hit 110 with a low volume direct die block, I don't think it's unfair to assume that ek should be able to manufacture it in Europe
@@andersjjensen No, it does not make sense, It's called having valuable assets, CNC machines make a ton of money and hold value for a very long time, so if your company is struggling and you want to downsize you can sell machines that aren't being used and they keep you afloat for a bit longer. And for machining simple water blocks you can just buy older used machines, you don't need million dollar bleeding edge machines.
A salary itself is theft mate, employers wouldn't hire people if said people weren't put into a gig where they produce more value than they get paid. Also not surprising that the overseers at a business are generally paid more than the labourers while they generally do the least work. It's a very elaborate value siphoning scheeme that's essentially become the backbone of society
As a teen, I worked at Taco Bell in the USA. You'd think that would be the last place you'd find wage theft. But one pay period, they asked me to work over 70 hours in a week and when my paycheck came around, 10 hours of overtime was missing. The manager said I never worked that long and to produce a time slip to prove it. If I hadn't found one, I would have been out that money. Looking back at it now, that was an intentional attempt at wage theft, most likely fueled by the manager missing a bonus check because of those 10 hours. Also, I find it hard to believe that a store manager has the ability to manipulate logged computer hours. Higher up helped him.
Not in Brazil, or at least if it does happen its cus shit has already blown up to unsalvageable heights. Employee pay and work laws are like priority 1 in any process, the system will come for basically everything the employer has, so you know that if a company stops paying employees its because its already fucked beyond saving.
I did contract work for a small shovelware game studio for about a year and a half. Investor money dried up due to a prolonged development cycle caused by poor project management, and as a result the company failed to pay me 4 months in a row. My decision to quit was pretty clear after that. Still haven't seen that money, and I really never will.
An employee steals from the business and it is a felony. An employer steals from an employee, it is just a fine. Not hard to guess which group had a hand in writing the laws.
This is AMAZING. This is journalism. It is almost to a T exactly what happened in Japan in 2007 when an out-of-control owner and his lieutenants ran the biggest English conversation school in the country into the ground. I was one of the employees who worked for months with no pay. It was harrowing and sent thousands of teachers and employees into unemployment lines. Truly the hardest time in my life; I feel for these victims. Just striking that what's happening with EKWB right now also happened to NOVA 17 years ago.
This used to be the sort of journalism you could get from CBC (Canada Broadcasting Corporation) before conservative/right wing politicians threatened and did gut their government financing.
i had a tenant that fell for that trap. he was having trouble finding employment here and took the risk of going out there hoping it would open some doors for him since he was fluent in Japanese. turned out he showed up right before the entire thing collapsed and he got stuck there with no money to his name and couldn't leave the country. ultimately had to go to the US embassy and beg them to help him get back to the US.
@@Keirnoth There's a story in the Guardian if you Google "Nova bankruptcy." But unfortunately it was mostly covered by Japanese media at the time and there aren't a lot of English resources on it. Says 1000 British teacher and there were many times that number from the U.S., Canada, Aus, and all over the world.
@@sirmonkey1985 It was really bad. People were just stranded here. Some didn't have enough money to buy plane tickets home. I myself spent several months eating rice with ketchup on it once per day on most days of the week.
If I owned a company where I got a letter from a business partner that said, "We'd be doing great if Gamers Nexus weren't investigating us", I'd immediately call our top people in the room and start planning how we can cut our ties with that partner and have my comms people there to handle what we'll tell everyone. Great job. Thank you for doing this. I'll keep buying merch whenever I can get away with it to support you. :)
This is the content nobody else can even come close to producing. I will be purchasing some more T-shirts, a new mod mat and some coasters. I've ordered some of your shirts before and they're legit some of the best quality clothing I've received from a normal shop. So I will not hesitate to support your efforts in cleaning up our space from these crooked companies.
Thank you so much for all the kind words. We will keep trying to live up to them. And also, love hearing that you like the shirt quality. We're very picky about our printers!
@@GamersNexus Just finished it, and I'm sad to see EK is this far gone. As to the comment about people mentioning these videos are made for "clicks" obviously have zero business acumen to understand the "Opportunity Cost" that is associated with this level of detail. You've missed out on revenue from other videos, sponsors you could've been doing, the amount can add up very quickly. Which is why I respect GN on another level, they're not in this for the money, he truly enjoys it.
This must be one of the absolutely more awesome, genuine and warm hearted credit that I've ever read or heard. Without a doubt, definitely earned! Just felt like I had to comment cause that comment just this mans heart very warm of warmness! 😊
@@GamersNexus how you guys havent got a Pulitzer for your reporting yet i do not know i know its only tech news but you guys have broke some HUGE stories in the tech world
@@Elios0000Have you still not figured out how the world works? Real journalism is inconvenient to those who control legacy media. Awards are for those who can eloquently regurgitate a certain narrative. Real journalism doesn’t win you prizes… it “wins” you lawsuits for slander. Bless your naive heart though, I genuinely mean no offense. I used to trust legacy media too. Once you see it… Ignorance truly is bliss.
To all GN staff (especially Steve): I've been watching your videos for a number of years now and can say without question that this is (bar none) the best video you guys have ever done and the first hour+ long UA-cam video in years that I have sat through from beginning to end (not counting a bio break 🙂). I am a subscriber and will be purchasing anything I need that you sell, from GN store. GN appears to be a channel/company which possesses that rare combination of integrity, knowledge, experience and quality. Thank you for everything you guys put out.
It took me like 3 sittings to finish the video. That is a compliment, I don't always look forward to long format videos (even when I know I will enjoy the content in the end), but this one "told a story" as mentioned. It was easy to come back to it and pick it up knowing things were well researched and would give an accurate representation. Hopefully the employees and former employees can find stability going forward, which is the one thing many of us are looking for.
Thank you for this. Thanks for the reporting, for the work it took, for telling us consumers whats on. But most importantly, THANK YOU for looking out for EKWBs employees in a time when EKWB is seemingly unwilling to do so. Love you guys!
"So what you'r saying is if we pay you you'll stop talking about this." "No you fool, I'm saying pay the f'in employees or there won't even be a company to pay me." "Understood, here's the money. We keep this business secret." "Wtf??"
I can only imagine how speechless Jay would have been... What can you even do in that situation..? If you send the money back, you can't guarantee that the company will even pay their staff... I do not envy being the receiver in that situation, especially when he had publicly made such a statement... If EK DID make that payment deliberately, I can only imagine it being to set a slander trap... Yuck.
@@wallywest2360I suspect Jay knew this piece was coming and roughly what it was going to say and I'm sure he is being careful to let this story be the story- no doubt once the full story has done the rounds and then settled back down a bit, he will say any remaining words he feels are necessary. He is the type of person to have gotten any major clarifications fixed and put in place via a statement to Steve ahead of publication if he felt it was needed. That to me would suggest a scale for how significant he feels any further words he has, could be.
My God. 5 mins in and this is already a masterpiece. The work and care that must have gone into this is unfathomable. Thank you so much Steve and the rest of GN for the light you shine on the hardware industry, for the benefit of us and these poor employees screwed over by it
As always, thank you so much for all the work you guys are putting into these reports. As someone who just last year bought a whole new setup from EK, I'm incredibly disappointed to see this company be run into the ground like this. Now I gotta start looking around for alternative sources for coolants and other parts. Not fun.
As someone with a friend that worked for their Texas office remotely, it's about time this came out. The shit I heard and had been shown was more than enough to keep me away from EK, and yet any time I brought it up online on forums or PC groups, the EK fan boys would go crazy and vehemently deny the sheer possibility of what they were doing. Hopefully this'll be a nice large swing for people like that.
I've loved their products, and I'm mixed between being scared that they're gone, and excited at what will take their place. Maybe we'll soon get affordable quality waterblocks from a variety of manufacturers
First time sending up a Thanks. So, Edit-> I cant watch this all the way through and not pay for the Educational, Informative and sheer amount of Investigative Journalism this provides. Thanks GN Team for being leaders in this space and being so relentless with these reports for the benefit of the community/ consumers.
Not familiar with legal letters in US, but it's so funny (and horrifying if you're the recipient) to see "GREETINGS: YOU HAVE BEEN SUED" first thing on the letter lmao
Try being late with Dutch taxes. It says "Compelling order, in the name of the King" Does some yadda yadda. Then "You may be criminally prosecuted and/or imprisoned if you fail to comply" And then went on "You owe us € 6,14" (typo by the bookkeeper) Plus like €190 costs for recovering that €6,14, of course.
Just wanted to say thank you for in-depth content like this GN. It was a bit long but these videos are where we actually learn something meaningful. This is why I'll always be a subscriber of GN.
Steve and the team at GN are literally showing what journalism as a profession SHOULD be. Digging deep, following the breadcrumbs until you figure out all the right questions, and not stopping until you get the answers. I wish to hell journalism like this was common.
the problem is the people that do this kind of stuff exist but the cost to allow them to do deep dives like this have no ROI. news media agencies would rather stick with low cost high profit garbage. it's why private profit driven media is horse crap.
These journalists do still exist. They run the student newspaper at their school, go ahead to study journalism, take on a job as a real journalist … and are immediately gagged and kneecapped because that's not wanted. It doesn't sell as well as cheap scandal, it's too much work for too little profit, it might even spell trouble to anger the wrong people by exposing them. So they get their ideals and ambition ground to bits, slowly but inevitably, until cheap scandal it is, or not even that. Horoscope, weather report, a photo suggesting some skin, and always the same boring headlines. Real journalism has become a luxury you have to be able to afford, not a job you can feed your family with.
If you want more investigative journalism, support your local newspapers and journalists. They used to do this kind of work all the time, but many have since gone out of business. That kind of journalism takes a huge amount of time and resources with no payoff until the story actually gets published. The huge mainstream media companies won't do this kind of work because money matters too much.
A former Employer is in with about 250k Euro of backpay to a couple employees, he has a repo order onto the company, and is currently trying to use insolvency to get out of it and to hand the 'inventory' of the company (as opposed to the company in total) to his chosen 'crown prince'. Obviously, he would retain 'Procura', aka the right to sign and do every decision as if he was actually the legal boss. Most in the company have 140 hours of unpaid overtime banked. Me? I saw the writing on the wall when he had payment issued 3 months in a row around the change of the year, and I had already been seeking for a ripcord to get out, which I pulled in time. They didn't want to pay me out, but I took all overtime hours, for a full month of paid leave, I took all my banked vacation days....basically, I left with nothing owed to me. And 4 months later, he filed for insolvency, when the final payment chance before his company being repoed out under his ass passed. Like, the repo only aims to get the 250k. And they don't give a damn over what the stuff is actually worth, they would simply pick stuff up and firesale it until having the money.
You are HUGE. The GN team really is beneficial to the industry in so many ways. You call out the bad people dont dare talk about, highlight the goods people dont consider worth mentionning and help people in need. Outstanding work as always on this piece, congratulations to all of you.
This is so sad 😔I loved EKWB but now I'm broken inside. Good to know that Atilla, Joe and Dave found new jobs. I hope the rest of the crew like Erik and others will do well too.
There is a saying in Croatia "Ne dao bog da ti Andrija Jarak ispred kuće izvještavao", meaning "God forbid that Andrija Jarak reports live at front of your house". Andrija Jarak is a notable reporter in Croatia mostly known for reporting on heavy crime and investigations... I think there soon might be a similar saying in Slovenian, something like "God forbid that Steve from Gamers Nexus reports live at front of your house" ... 😀😀 Great work and video GN, thanks for the work, I will be visiting GN Store shortly...
It took me a few sit downs to make in through the entire piece (well worth it!) and kudos to you Steve and the entire @GamersNexus team for the AMAZING journalism and compassion in assisting former EK workers secure new, meaningful employment 👌🏼 I tip my hat to you.
I've observed that there appears to be a _lot_ of companies who view their workforce as an adversary, or a cost to minimize. One of the leaders told an employee, "Are you doing union stuff here? Why are you getting political?" Paying your employees is not communism, oddly enough. Failing to pay employees and demanding they continue working is bait-and-switch slavery, breach of contract, etc. Every single member of EK's leadership team belongs in prison.
I've worked with a lot of multinationals. And sadly, you are right. Employees are seen as a cost to do business. For now, I've given up swimming against the flow; for 15 years I worked as a consultant, always promoting "combined brain power brings you to the top". 1 too many times I got tackled by mediocre money creeps, wanting to keep the credits and way too good at whining.
@@nemtudom5074 tell that to the people help in concentration camps. In capitalism, at least a person who is not paid is free to go anywhere else. Now, in communism, not so much.
@@Luiz__Silva If your idea of communism is that its the same as tyranny, then so be it, but you're still going to be wrong. Also, just cuz i hate capitalism doesnt mean i support communism. Your binary world view shows how narrow minded you are
I'm so grateful channels like yours have brought this information to light. I almost invested in an all EK loop for one of my latest high end builds and boy am I glad I listened to you. Whew, this was a rollercoaster of a video. Awesome work. Especially loved the wall with the red strings!
Thanks Steve! And the rest of GN. For the investigative journalism. So awesome to see this level of down to sources research. (And the production value of your videos is amazing)
I don't spend time watching content in the tech space all that often but every time I see GN covering companies like this I always end up binging the entire series of videos. The level of research and passion for both consumers and the employees impacted by situations like this is unparalleled. Incredible work GN.
Huge thanks for having myself and Joe on Steve. One thing I will say is that some staff aren't as lucky as us and are still stuck at EK and they're fantastic people.
Dave and Joe you are legends for going on record about all of this! There are so many more stories about EK that many don't know about. I think there are lots of media and creators who have had really strange and odd agreements with EK that they never followed through on, including us.
You would think that nerds of the era that saw the death of home micro companies, like Commodore and Atari, would know that not paying your suppliers is a death spiral.
I think with those the main issue was they bridged the gap between home console and PC before home consoles like Playstation were really a thing, not as good as a PC for what a PC is for and not as good as a home console for what a home console is for (gaming), didn't matter before PlayStations etc because there wasn't really any competition on the gaming end so they could exist, after PlayStations etc they're was nothing they were best at and they died, if they weren't paying suppliers my guess would be that was a symptom of them not making sales rather than the cause of their collapse. To be clear, I'm saying I think you may be misattributing that as the true cause there to try and sound clever 🤗 But I only have my teenage impressions from back in the day to go by rather than any particular knowledge of what those corporations were doing so I could always be wrong there 😉
Such good reporting here. I've put a few orders into your store over the years and hope you do continue this kind of content when the opportunity is present. Also for anyone on the fence about a product, I reached out about an issue in the past and they dealt with it in such a way that I was completely shocked. The issue was user error and they had such amazing customer service. They went over and above what would have been expected. Could not recommend them more.
@@lorenztor1990exactly! What's important is one who has both integrity and understanding/skill in business management. (Frankly, the integrity and competency should be primary in any role, amount with willingness to learn). Ivy League isn't necessary for any of those characteristics. It can come from community colleges just as well. What Ivy League schools get is connections, which can be useful as a shortcut to quick success, often comes with pitfalls. Pitfalls such as 'I helped you, not you have to pay it back by taking this deal or hiring this employee.' Not necessarily nefarious, but potential sources of inefficiency at the least.
C-Suite Executives being greedy, shortsighted, and unable to take criticism, thus leading to the decline in favor of their company in the eyes of consumers? Im SHOCKED I tell you. Shocked.
Awesome piece again. I will always support your channel because of the determination and perserverance you put into spreading the truth, rather than clickbait crap. Keep up the awesome work!
Jesus. This could EASILY be prosecuted under RICO and organized fraud. That connections segment ALONE is...brutal. A lawyer would have a field day with that.
Oh, no,this is the norm in Slovenia, there is even a term for it called "grozdenje" which roughly translates to "bunching up like grapes" where you bunch up small entities that pay each other money for non-existent services to extract money from a larger private or government entity. They are very difficult to prosecute and stop in Slovenia and they all depend on an insider like Mitrović who is the key player here.
@@MarkoCloud Yeah, this is unfortunately the norm and part of the legacy of USSR occupation. None of these people will be prosecuted because all of the government officials responsible are all doing the exact same thing themselves. The moment I saw Serbia in there I knew we were in for a wild ride. My thoughts to the employees and unpaid suppliers.
@@MarkoCloud That doesn't mean things are that easy. The US CEO is still someone that can be prosecuted, and extradition treaties exist. Even more importantly, big international news headlines are way different than small time operations.
@@MarkoCloud Normal in Australia too. So many excellent initiatives rolled out by our national government, that end up routing tens/hundreds of millions of $$ to organised crime with similar fake invoices and other scams.
Honestly, its not as uncommon as you think for companies to do stupid things like that. A company I worked for once, paid a firm a few million over a year to rebrand and rename the company. After a year what did they come back with? Oh, just keep your current name. Yep, that was it. A few months later they laid off 20% of the staff to save some money.
Cannot confirm any legitimacy of these claims, I'll leave it to the professionals (such as Steve, that's why we're here), but can confirm the effort the team went through translating all the Slovenian text and voice recordings as well as learning how to pronounce all the names properly, Kudos to you, guys. It's not the easiest language and pronunciation model to learn. Now... where do I look for watercooling equipment if my own countrymen can't be trusted?
The CEO that built their company in the earlier years (2013-2017, I believe it was) is now at Corsair. Though, they likely are overpriced a bit, but having gone through their RMA for a headset recently that was stupidly smooth and over a headband peeling and one of its mounts breaking, I can at least say they are reputable and easy to communicate with
AAAAALLLLL OF THIS... instead of just paying employees/contractors & rebuilding? The egos of rich business owners know no bounds. Absolutely fantastic reporting.
You have no idea how upset I was when I came in the morning after we set this up and half of it had fallen down because the string was too heavy, hahaha
Place where I work qualified for one of those pandemic loans. We stayed fully operational all during the outbreak. So the company owner applied for those loans to support the business. It is public record. He got the loan. What he DID was immediately go use most of the money to buy a gigantic and expensive luxury SUV. We employees cannot help but see this vehicle where the loan money went. None of it went to employees. But this was legal because we kept working, which we would have done anyway. But they were able to say, oh we protected these jobs so what we do with the money is our choice. The jobs were never under threat so it was all lies. He just wanted the new SUV.
Japanese execs have proven time and time again that higher ups taking pay cuts to help lower level employees actually helps the company, not just from a financial standpoint, but from a PR one too.
Keanu reeves is a good western example. There's very *very* few people who in full genuine meaning, dislike Keanu reeves. And off the top of my head there's only a hand full of people that come to mind with a similar reputation among actors..
@ThatWhichObserves I was reading how Marcus Chong (who played Tank in The Matrix) had sone nasty things to say about Keanu. But none of it sounded credible Especially the idea that Keanu and Lawrence Fishburn did cochineal in their trailers. Makes sense that Marcus was apparently a nightmare to work with.
I was unfortunate enough to experience these crisis managers. They took higher monthly payments than any other employee at our company at that time. And we are talking 5x higher payments compared to our best paid engineers. The result was that after 6-7 months the company closed doors and most employees have never received their payments. If you ever see a "crisis manager" in your company, leave... leave immediately and try to make a collective lawsuit with fellow unpaid employees against the company. Ideally do it before the company closes.
@@theodentherenewed4785 Good. It's a stupid waste of money. Every penny of their useless careers is a resource that could have been spent on something that actually lets people lead better lives.
This is a situation that seems almost BEYOND tragic... Actual people's lives are ruined//being ruined so dumpster fire seems like an undersell. It's really heartening to see even just a little good news from it though. And shout-out to Jay as well. It's amazing to see that some people on YT still have good morals and values, honestly. Thanks guys.
I'm eternally thankful you guys restocked the mule mugs. Bought myself one and now feel compelled to drink mules on a regular basis to maximize my purchase. Also glad to support my favorite tech UA-cam channel with incredible merch.
I’ve worked for 7 startups and almost all of them were ruined by one person, the founder. They act like tyrants and blame everyone else for failure besides themselves due to micromanagement, inability to delegate, and pure megalomania.
Sounds like my present boss. with only 20 employees and a few million dollars in revenue dude wants to hoard money and cut every corner possible and the company has become a sinking ship.
One of the rough things about the evolution of VC funding as an economic force is it enables people to play pretend that they are successful business tycoons without really understanding the kind of product research and practical business acumen necessary to become one. And it's trendy, so every rich family's second son and charlaitan with delusions of grandeur wants to get in on it, it's a fashion thing.
@@xavdeman It’s their nature. 19 out of 20 startups fail. 2 of them IPO’d so I did get a decent payout including enough to buy a house in SF. Not everyone is cut out do work at them.
I subbed for the gaming chair reviews, stayed because you are one of the only tech reviewers that goes into such depth to expose big businesses like EK for the improperly run shit companies they are and wont back down when threatened. Your dedication to being impartial, getting the truth and ensuring not only customers are taken care of, but employees as well, of these companies is commendable.
To sum it up, it's almost always upper management that dictates whether things fail or succeed. The 2 owners thought they knew better even tho they specifically brought in the original CEO to do the things they couldn't and the company flourished them they decided they knew better and this eventually tanked the company.
@@FelipeBudinich Some people are motivated by holding a position of prestige and power, and will never be satisfied unless that position is steadily rising. Just look at Kat Silberstein. She was publicly living the high life on EK's money, bragging about all the top-ranking tech firms she "worked" for, and posting pictures of her rubbing shoulders with industry giants in exotic locations on social media, yet we have no clue what function she actually performed for EK - other than making them look like they were bigger and more influential than they ever actually were. Because she had no function. She'd found a way to feel big and important and show that to the world, and she was going to ride it as long as possible.
Gamer Nexus helped me guide me to move to air cooling from AIOs. I did briefly consider water cooling, but GN's data and coverage of cases, expected temperatures on CPUs, along with repeated advice for what you should be looking for based on budget, preference etc helped push me in the right direction. This video proves once AGAIN to me that Gamer Nexus's is invaluable to me as the consumer and the NEED that corporations NEED TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. THANK YOU GN. I don't even need them but I am buying the copper mules and other items. I truly can't express how grateful I am for your coverage, data and everything in between.
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Watch the prior parts here - 1: ua-cam.com/video/b73xG1HlFhY/v-deo.html
And Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/8A7cykj0pCg/v-deo.html
thanks steve!
Thanks Steve for the indepth investigation (once again)! Hope you get tons of support for your reporting!
Thanks for this, this is fantastic
Dude, even the Doom Slayer would pay respect to Steve.
I would seriously think about enhanceing security, I suspect theres even more to this with some very scary individuals involoved. it just has a very bad smell about it.
Threats of termination don't mean too much for employees who aren't getting paid...
my dadwas part of something like this awhile ago, the boss essentially strings the employees along with the promise of "getting you caught up" on your pay check. and if break away or end up in the dog pound, how ever many months of backpay they owe you just essentially becomes pixie dust and will infact not happen
"Stop! Or we'll ask you to stop again"
Unless they meant something else by "Termination".
It is a common tactic in Croatia and all ex-Yugoslavian countries. The old mentality from transitional period from communism to whatever the hell this is, because sure it's no democracy, was: better to have work and not be paid than to be unemployed. The problem is that they are running out of old folk and with them all the skilled labor. I have been in Germany for some time now and it is incredible to me how much you can accomplish and get paid for the hours invested as in Croatia for which I was never paid. Also, German work ethic is bs, those guys are masters at cutting corners and avoiding work. Good news for me, it keeps me employed and slowly spreading my business in Germany.
EK wasn't paying them, but then apple wasn't paying them either
could they consider themselves to be apple employees as well? :P
It’s disheartening to hear EK say that this video will further harm their reputation, while it is in fact their actions that have harmed their reputation.
Lol, that is the way of the entirety of the Republican party in the USA. Sad state of affairs.
Its a classic move of deflection. Blame the sunlight, not the rot.
“If you’ll just give up your critical faculties, a world of idiotic bliss can be yours.”
- Christopher Hitchens
@@christopherjames9843 congrats on being part of the problem. Both parties in the US are complete trash, however the democrats are the ones trouncing over democracy to shoe horn the candidate they want in for the last 3 elections. Bernie would have been the nominee in 2016 and 2020 if the democrats weren't completely corrupt. Who knows who it could have been this year, they just forced Kamala in.
@@christopherjames9843 *many politicians, celebrities, CEOs, bullies, basically anyone in position of influence, to varying degrees.
Applying things the entirety of a single unrelated group isn't fair, accurate, nor reasonable.
Blaming others of their own actions or for causing the results of said actions is over of the top tools for those in positions of influence to maintain said influence. Politicians are well versed with many examples.
By saying 'Republicans', "Democrats ', or any party, nationality, or other demographic is demeaning to many good people just trying to go about their day or do their best for their community.
And pointless in this context beyond throwing dirt on 'the other team'.
The very first leak being a recording of CEO talking about how leaks won't be tolerated absolutely killed me
Yeah, in their authoritarian mindset, they control everything.
To see it exposed like that as a wild egocentric child fantasy, is funny AF.
pretty melodramatic
Seems very fitting for a watercooling company am i rite?
@@nhatminhle4450 A water cooling company that sprang so many leaks it ran dry.
@@nhatminhle4450 it doesnt seem like the fittings were very water-tight
This documentary made my blood freeze and boil at the same time. Horrifying, but exactly the kind of journalism we need in these times. Thank you!
was it good at thermal conductivity at least? or did you require watercooling😂
I liked the part where Steve had to talk super fast to fit in all the scandal
i was wondering when Steve would pause to breathe, but they cut all the breathing pauses out xD
I remember I had a problem understanding him when I first found the channel, years ago, since English is not my first language. I felt I had caught up, a long time ago... right up until the 46 minute mark.
I had some Rossmann flashbacks during that part
@@FoxBatius I used to like his website but videos was to fast speaking for me. He has defiantly slowed down a pace well now.
I usually listen to stuff like this on double speed, but that part was just too much.... 😂
For ppl that say he only does this to get clicks, you need to snap into reality 90% of the videos on UA-cam now are driven by sponsors and controlled by big corporations. You should really treasure these types of videos. I sure as hell do!
Also “he makes videos because he thinks people will want to watch them” is a weird accusation to make.
Someone doing something for money in a country where getting sick can bankrupt you?! THE NERVE!!!
There's a kind of hidden malace associated with a comment like that. "Doing it to get clicks" implies there's a lack of truth. Drama or sensationalism or stuff just made up yo grab your attention.
Instead, this is what journalism *is supposed to look like*
nahh he went from OC, benchmarks to dramas. hahahah check out his other videos, always like this.
I for one, enjoy the youtubers that make videos explicity for nobody to watch. Who in their right mind would make videos with the intent for people to watch them, and lord help me if they do it to make money.
My dad started a small business when I was a kid which he grew from 1-2 employees to over 20 at it's biggest. Over the decades I watched him deal with booms, busts, embezzlers, suppliers flaking, not being paid on contracts, and having to make tough staffing decisions. In all that the only person to ever miss a paycheck was himself, a couple times he even took out loans to pay his people over a rough patch.
Stiffing your employees is mind boggling to me. Then thinking the problem is people finding out you stiffed them and not the fact that you did it MULTIPLE TIMES is straight up villain behavior.
W dad
in my past business I didn't get paid myself for at least 6 months cause we're having a rough patch. but I make sure my people always get paid on time. If you treat those people that work for you with no diginity, you won't have any hope to bounce back
it's unfortunately _incredibly_ common, usually not quite so blatant as EK tho
My thoughts exactly on the boom and bust experiences; when a business struggles, the typical path to insolvency is not paying taxes, then not paying bills, then not paying payroll. The "expose" heavily implying there's hidden financial fraud is off-putting IMO and disingenuous - the sales numbers are irrelevant if divorced from net margin - especially since $250M in revenue across more than a decade doesn't even put the company into the mid-market category. If the video cut the sensationalism to present an honest story it'd likely echo the struggles of many many small businesses that try to grow too fast too soon and implode from the various costs their management (typically CEO or founder) overlooked due to misguided ambition.
yep exact same feeling and story here
Kudos to the whole team at GN, this type of reporting is costly and time consuming but easily the most important type of work for the industry.
Hope you guys keep holding other companies to the same standards as always.
The classic company "splurged during COVID" thinking those years of boosted sales were the new normal became their downfall. Many such cases.
But they are supposed to be experts, sure! LOL
The business people replacing engineering, killing businesses
nah, this started way before that, EK's downfall was just accelerated by the covid era "splurge".
@@Juniorlich TRUST THE PLAN! EK WILL HAVE IT ALL SOLVED IN 72 HOURS! IN TWO WEEKS ALL THIS WILL BE MEMORYHOLED!1!
they bled the company dry. using covid as an excuse is just too easy. greed caused this. end of story.
37:42, says "You fixed our fucked up product, and we failed to support you. As a result, PAY US $10K". What in the actual fuck is this shit?
The classic "You made us and our product look bad so we're gonna sue"
@@Cyberdeamonclassic and toxic as fuck. EKWB deserves every bit of press they're getting. He should move on to taking about their dealings with "partners". There's nothing quite like having an exec tell you to confide in them about strategy, only for them to steal ideas and methodology for their own use. Ask me how I know.
Its old EK too, from over a decade ago.
We feel like this is new, but König has been doing moves like these since he was born.
@@PaulFlart-MallBlart So how do you know ?
@@scudger99 I second that.
This was a thoroughly researched, beautifully curated narrative, and completely engaged my attention. I have not given any documentary this much attention since the old BBC Planet Earth series with David Attenborough.
Thank you, Steve and team.
That's a huge compliment and we can't live up to Planet Earth, but we'll do our best! Thank you.
@@GamersNexushonesty and integrity are in short supply; they go a long way.
Thanks Steve! Always appreciate the work and integrity ❤
I emailed your support asking for these coasters to come back, after my puppy chewed on them, so I immediately had to go buy them again. Thanks Steve!
I hope they at least made a good chew toy!
They're a little bland, needs more bacon flavoring.
@@drewnewby More? Mine didn't have any. Ate them all anyway, though.
@@GamersNexus Make a GN Chew Toy.
@@GamersNexus are they edible? I would be interested
Your investigative journalism with regards to the tech sector is so refreshing and second to none, because there is simply no one else. I wish that all journalists would have you and your teams values and integrity when putting together their own reports on any topic.
other media are owned by the big five: SONY, P&G, Bertelsmann media, Universal and WB so they control the narrative. other than that GN team can take a halt on production while someone else wouldn't allow that kind of workflow for the sake of shareholders and whatnot. but mainly because of the narrative that needs to be put out there.
this is also a high praise to the Gamers Nexus team for their respective time and dedication like no other media is willing or unable to ascertain.
*Your generosity is exemplary and praiseworthy. Pity is, YT receives a 25% cut of every donation.*
Dont give Google money! Go buy something from the store
@@blackrifle673630% I think.
Also, I think that if it’s from the UA-cam iOS app, Apple takes 30% off the top first for an in-app purchase.
So in that case the recipient only gets 49% of the donated amount.
Better off buying from their store, or donating on their website.
Patreon is another option but they still take a (smaller) cut.
Reminder that Steve of GamersNexus is not suicidal and has no desire to accidentally fall through a window.
Surprised youtube doesn't delete this comment and anything like it within 20 seconds. It's pretty ridiculous
@@JK-gm6kk that's part of yt's mindfu*k/gaslighting.
They can kill your comment for nothing, or leave something that one could expect to be taken down.
They can take down a video and then recommend it's 1:1 reupload by another channel.
"They fear us because we have the power to kill arbitrarily." (C)
and close it after himself
What does this video have to do with Boeing?
@@JK-gm6kk Found the Nazi
Thanks for going above and beyond, researching all this must have been a seemingly insurmountable effort.
Great to still see good journalism!
This is not "game journalism". This IS journalism. Pure and simple real, genuine journalism. Great job!
And here I thought that this kind of journalism had gone extinct during the 90’s
You know game journalism refers to journalism about games, yeah? This has nothing to do with games in the first place.
I agree. And quite impressive journalism.
Gamers Nexus and Richard Lewis are absolutely amazing when it comes to this stuff.
@@Amrylin1337 though this isn't video game related, the fact the channel is called Gamers Nexus would of made one think the channel would just be something that focused on things related to gaming. Of course the name for anyone not familiar with them has a lot covering computer related things and not just benchmarks on gpus.
Managers and leaders should take the salary hit in the first place, and not the people who are getting the minimum and will struggle the most when there is no salary.
This is truly outrageous.
That sadly is how most the world works.
Unless we democratized the work place, shit like this will always happen.
It is the managers and leaders who decide who takes salary hit. There are very few people in the world who would take the hit themselves instead of stripping their subordinates of their salaries. I blame the evolutionary element - the "survival of the fittest" strategy means that human instinct is to put yourself ahead of other people.
@@theodentherenewed4785 Yeah the only one I know who did that was Satoru Iwata who slashed his pay in half when the Wii U flopped so that in spite of that failure the employees of Nintendo wouldn't lose their jobs.
@@theodentherenewed4785 nah man, you got it wrong. this is Balkans scheming as the norm of operations. many companies in Croatia went bankrupt on the same model and CEO's and other "upper level" people gained massive amounts of money and we call them "tajkuni" which is a sort of a typhoon but a person. to this day noone ever got processed by the law and will not ever be because all of those people are now the respective Croatian government OR an integral systems owners like Sisak-moslavina county road infrastracture service company that is legally non-buyable but is in fact owned by a private citizen and an ex county leader. how? by-laws made it possible for him while in power get the biggest share of county owned company because he was the county.
@@primodragoneitaliano It wasn't Miyamoto, it was Satoru Iwata who took cut his own salary
Jesus, Gamers Nexus isn't just a product review outlet. They're proper investigative journalists. A round of applause for this wonderful work 👏.
This would be a second round from me at least, first time having been from Steve covering Artesian Builds. Even as someone that never bought Ek products this is all interesting to see how a company falls down hard.
That's called a Video Journal.
This is 100% inspired by Coffezilla's video format and I'm all for it.
@@LightTheMars 100% it's just good for everyone and so long as its accurate reporting I'd welcome more of it
@anthonyguerrero4612 i know rite? quiet a few times i came to the conclusion that some TV channel even should be broadcasting this or so hehe ^^ put that as a netflix show, could you imagine? :D
Can't think of anything clever to say, just, thank you to the whole team for the hard work! :)
"Paid Properly", paid properly includes actually paying employees.
EK CEO : "Yeah we paid all the CEO, Owner and Executive first tho-.."
EK other employee : "So.. " *point finger at self
EK CEO : *Slap and push employee out of spotlight
: "..yeah don't worry about.. well the rest of our employee.. which the one who obey our order and not go out of line.. talking too much to outsider.."
Maybe in the eyes of this particular CEO they were being paid properly... as in "nothing" lol.
thank god we have GN, without their channel the "working" part of the company would not have a voice. the bullshit of "paid properly" in their minds is paying execs and PR to try cover shit up.
I work in financial services for Mid-Cap Companies (one of the biggest banks in the world) and this story of lower middle market/middle market Companies going bananas during COVID, decision makers treating the Company like their personal piggy bank, and a sharp return to reality is just so common.
This situation clearly involved an extra level of management with selfish goals that held little regard for the long term viability of their Company and the people who work for them. Props to the production quality and investigation done by you and the GN team!
Covid broke a lot of the brains in middle-upper management, then the interest hikes in Silicon Valley broke the Csuite. Now companies who have people leading without pattern recognition are just bleeding money.
Excellent summation. I wonder how much of this wild spending from the 'personal piggy banks' was funded from stimulus based purchases verses folks working from home having lessened expenses and social spending.
I didn't understand the arguments against those at the time, but from that perspective, I think I understand. It allowed companies to see people were 'willing' and 'able' to pay absurdly high prices for certain products (everything?)
I could be way off, but if nothing else, this video is thought provoking. (Your comment as well)
Yeah, the Serbian management, jeezus... That's so painfully obviously financial crimes and embezzlement, the Serbian state should be pressing charges (as should EK, honestly...)🤦
@@Grandwigg A Lot. It's crazy how when an unbalanced company gets stimulus their immediate response is to give owners bonuses and do special projects rather than actually shoring up the business itself. Almost like running a business doesn't say anything about how responsible you are.
"Oh, just put it on the company card, we can write it off on the taxes as a business expense."
"Wait, what do you mean we don't have any more cash on hand?"
I’m not a regular viewer of Gamers Nexus, but this video showed up in my Home feed. I literally had never heard a single bad thing about EK, or had any idea there was any controversy whatsoever! I watched the whole thing and it was fascinating. I have never water-cooled any of my builds and frankly I never plan to, but it still feels kind of sad to hear about the state of a company that I always saw as highly premium and a go-to for some of the best builds.
Thanks for giving the video a try and leaving a comment!
People like you are exactly who need to see this content most! Those of us deep in the weeds of water cooling already knew not to trust EK products anymore, but they still carried a reputation of a premium brand. I'm glad GN's coverage is reaching new people and potentially helping consumers not get ripped off
Yes, this is exactly right. I am designing a build at the moment and was at the point where I wanted to work out cooling, I had no idea and after seeing this don’t think I can trust EK and will design accordingly.
I relate to your comment completely - no idea and thought high premium. This video sure is admired for effort, knowing the importance for public knowledge + doing it in a consumable way :)
As someone that works in I.T. and is also an avid gamer...never heard of EK until this video.
41:00 Can we all appreciate what a good guy Steve is that he disregarded the opportunity to go to the booth just to potentially save a lower level employee’s job who he may never even meet again? Class act Steve, this is why we love you
amen brother to that comment ! [:-)
This will be the final nail in the coffin for EK. This is tech journalism at its finest.
It's knell
That is absolutely insane to be honest. I hope the people find better place to work at.
Interesting, it probably will not be. Banks will continue to give them loans. They saving grace is they have basically no assets, so if they declare bankruptcy, banks will not have any chance to get it money back. Here (by here, I mean in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia...) banks have reasoning because the company was secsesfull in past thay will give them more and more loans in hope that in one time they will be able to return it, if they stop it now they will go bankrupt and banks will get nothing (bacouse they have no assets). I saw that behaviour from banks too many times.
@@measlesplease1266 Knell is the word for the sound of the bell rung at funerals.
Coffins were closed with nails, with the insertion of the final nail being a sign that the person was truly dead, there's no chance they can get better now.
@@omegonchris look it up.
Thank you GN for putting together this report and also for ending it on the positive note of some former EK employees getting hired from reputable places!
EK not having their own machining facility considering König started out machining his own custom parts, informs the insanity of everything else, omg!
For a company like EK I think it makes sense. They were always quick to execute on (or outright set ) the latest trend. But ultimately they sold "fad-ware". At the slightest economic downturn these are the things people forgo without even blinking. The first casualty of financial hardship is always luxury. But they forgot that this principle also applies to the company structure itself.... You can chose to not place manufacturing orders at the drop of a hat. But you can't downsize a complex company structure at the drop of a hat.
@@bomas_ulz considering the prices of their stuff, I'd say they can prob afford to do it
I guess i was unclear, Steve mentioned they dont even have their own lathe, that's insane for a product company that deals with tubing. Having a machining facility does not necessitate it to be some massive factory capable of pushing out 30,000 pieces a day. You can have a small facility for internal R&D.
@@bomas_ulz their cpu blocks are around $200 or more, considering someone like thermal grizzly, which does their manufacturing in Germany can hit 110 with a low volume direct die block, I don't think it's unfair to assume that ek should be able to manufacture it in Europe
@@andersjjensen No, it does not make sense, It's called having valuable assets, CNC machines make a ton of money and hold value for a very long time, so if your company is struggling and you want to downsize you can sell machines that aren't being used and they keep you afloat for a bit longer.
And for machining simple water blocks you can just buy older used machines, you don't need million dollar bleeding edge machines.
Thank you for your great work !
Wage theft is a crime that actually totals more than all other types of theft combined, and usually goes unpunished
A salary itself is theft mate, employers wouldn't hire people if said people weren't put into a gig where they produce more value than they get paid. Also not surprising that the overseers at a business are generally paid more than the labourers while they generally do the least work. It's a very elaborate value siphoning scheeme that's essentially become the backbone of society
As a teen, I worked at Taco Bell in the USA. You'd think that would be the last place you'd find wage theft. But one pay period, they asked me to work over 70 hours in a week and when my paycheck came around, 10 hours of overtime was missing. The manager said I never worked that long and to produce a time slip to prove it. If I hadn't found one, I would have been out that money. Looking back at it now, that was an intentional attempt at wage theft, most likely fueled by the manager missing a bonus check because of those 10 hours. Also, I find it hard to believe that a store manager has the ability to manipulate logged computer hours. Higher up helped him.
Not in Brazil, or at least if it does happen its cus shit has already blown up to unsalvageable heights.
Employee pay and work laws are like priority 1 in any process, the system will come for basically everything the employer has, so you know that if a company stops paying employees its because its already fucked beyond saving.
I did contract work for a small shovelware game studio for about a year and a half. Investor money dried up due to a prolonged development cycle caused by poor project management, and as a result the company failed to pay me 4 months in a row. My decision to quit was pretty clear after that.
Still haven't seen that money, and I really never will.
An employee steals from the business and it is a felony. An employer steals from an employee, it is just a fine. Not hard to guess which group had a hand in writing the laws.
This is AMAZING.
This is journalism.
It is almost to a T exactly what happened in Japan in 2007 when an out-of-control owner and his lieutenants ran the biggest English conversation school in the country into the ground. I was one of the employees who worked for months with no pay. It was harrowing and sent thousands of teachers and employees into unemployment lines. Truly the hardest time in my life; I feel for these victims.
Just striking that what's happening with EKWB right now also happened to NOVA 17 years ago.
I think I heard about this from some weeb UA-camrs. Do you have anything I could look up that provides a good overview of what happened?
This used to be the sort of journalism you could get from CBC (Canada Broadcasting Corporation) before conservative/right wing politicians threatened and did gut their government financing.
i had a tenant that fell for that trap. he was having trouble finding employment here and took the risk of going out there hoping it would open some doors for him since he was fluent in Japanese. turned out he showed up right before the entire thing collapsed and he got stuck there with no money to his name and couldn't leave the country. ultimately had to go to the US embassy and beg them to help him get back to the US.
@@Keirnoth There's a story in the Guardian if you Google "Nova bankruptcy." But unfortunately it was mostly covered by Japanese media at the time and there aren't a lot of English resources on it. Says 1000 British teacher and there were many times that number from the U.S., Canada, Aus, and all over the world.
@@sirmonkey1985 It was really bad. People were just stranded here. Some didn't have enough money to buy plane tickets home. I myself spent several months eating rice with ketchup on it once per day on most days of the week.
Journalism at it's finest. please never stop.
If I owned a company where I got a letter from a business partner that said, "We'd be doing great if Gamers Nexus weren't investigating us", I'd immediately call our top people in the room and start planning how we can cut our ties with that partner and have my comms people there to handle what we'll tell everyone.
Great job. Thank you for doing this. I'll keep buying merch whenever I can get away with it to support you. :)
This is the content nobody else can even come close to producing. I will be purchasing some more T-shirts, a new mod mat and some coasters. I've ordered some of your shirts before and they're legit some of the best quality clothing I've received from a normal shop. So I will not hesitate to support your efforts in cleaning up our space from these crooked companies.
Thank you so much for all the kind words. We will keep trying to live up to them. And also, love hearing that you like the shirt quality. We're very picky about our printers!
@@GamersNexus Just finished it, and I'm sad to see EK is this far gone. As to the comment about people mentioning these videos are made for "clicks" obviously have zero business acumen to understand the "Opportunity Cost" that is associated with this level of detail. You've missed out on revenue from other videos, sponsors you could've been doing, the amount can add up very quickly. Which is why I respect GN on another level, they're not in this for the money, he truly enjoys it.
This must be one of the absolutely more awesome, genuine and warm hearted credit that I've ever read or heard. Without a doubt, definitely earned! Just felt like I had to comment cause that comment just this mans heart very warm of warmness! 😊
Best journalism in gaming tech, yet again.
Thank you for the kind words! TotalBiscuit is still the GOAT to me.
@@GamersNexus I still miss hearing his voice in videos. RIP king.
@@GamersNexusWTF is... EK?
@@GamersNexus how you guys havent got a Pulitzer for your reporting yet i do not know i know its only tech news but you guys have broke some HUGE stories in the tech world
@@Elios0000Have you still not figured out how the world works? Real journalism is inconvenient to those who control legacy media. Awards are for those who can eloquently regurgitate a certain narrative.
Real journalism doesn’t win you prizes… it “wins” you lawsuits for slander.
Bless your naive heart though, I genuinely mean no offense. I used to trust legacy media too. Once you see it… Ignorance truly is bliss.
Thank you to the entire GN team. You are making a positive impact on people who cannot afford to be ripped off.
Crikey I read that as 815 Dollars till I put my glasses on!
@@wino99999 ha! I don't have it THAT nice.
To all GN staff (especially Steve): I've been watching your videos for a number of years now and can say without question that this is (bar none) the best video you guys have ever done and the first hour+ long UA-cam video in years that I have sat through from beginning to end (not counting a bio break 🙂). I am a subscriber and will be purchasing anything I need that you sell, from GN store. GN appears to be a channel/company which possesses that rare combination of integrity, knowledge, experience and quality. Thank you for everything you guys put out.
That's a huge compliment! Thank you for watching!
It took me like 3 sittings to finish the video. That is a compliment, I don't always look forward to long format videos (even when I know I will enjoy the content in the end), but this one "told a story" as mentioned. It was easy to come back to it and pick it up knowing things were well researched and would give an accurate representation. Hopefully the employees and former employees can find stability going forward, which is the one thing many of us are looking for.
Thank you for this. Thanks for the reporting, for the work it took, for telling us consumers whats on. But most importantly, THANK YOU for looking out for EKWBs employees in a time when EKWB is seemingly unwilling to do so. Love you guys!
Journalism like this is super important. Keep up the good work.
Props to the shop re-plating the blocks, that's major commitment. I hope they're still around.
Thanks for the great journalism!
Paying Jay, specifically after he said he didn't want to be paid until employees were, really speaks to the boneheadedness of EKWB.
"So what you'r saying is if we pay you you'll stop talking about this."
"No you fool, I'm saying pay the f'in employees or there won't even be a company to pay me."
"Understood, here's the money. We keep this business secret."
"Wtf??"
I can only imagine how speechless Jay would have been... What can you even do in that situation..? If you send the money back, you can't guarantee that the company will even pay their staff... I do not envy being the receiver in that situation, especially when he had publicly made such a statement... If EK DID make that payment deliberately, I can only imagine it being to set a slander trap... Yuck.
They were trying to buy Jay's silence...
Yeah, that's just wild. I'm sure Jay will respond at some point, this is just so much more insane than I thought when the story first broke.
@@wallywest2360I suspect Jay knew this piece was coming and roughly what it was going to say and I'm sure he is being careful to let this story be the story- no doubt once the full story has done the rounds and then settled back down a bit, he will say any remaining words he feels are necessary. He is the type of person to have gotten any major clarifications fixed and put in place via a statement to Steve ahead of publication if he felt it was needed. That to me would suggest a scale for how significant he feels any further words he has, could be.
My God. 5 mins in and this is already a masterpiece. The work and care that must have gone into this is unfathomable. Thank you so much Steve and the rest of GN for the light you shine on the hardware industry, for the benefit of us and these poor employees screwed over by it
"So Gamers Nexus, they're a hardware review channel?"
"Oh, they are so much more than just that..."
They are what all media outlets should strive to be in their respective topics/fields
To most people it might even just be "so GN is just some gaming channel?",
"Do you know Coffeezilla? They are basically him but related to gaming parts"
He should really stick to Hardware Reviews... All of this "Corporate Drama" is so f*cking useless to me.
They're Tech Journalists.
As always, thank you so much for all the work you guys are putting into these reports. As someone who just last year bought a whole new setup from EK, I'm incredibly disappointed to see this company be run into the ground like this. Now I gotta start looking around for alternative sources for coolants and other parts. Not fun.
As someone with a friend that worked for their Texas office remotely, it's about time this came out. The shit I heard and had been shown was more than enough to keep me away from EK, and yet any time I brought it up online on forums or PC groups, the EK fan boys would go crazy and vehemently deny the sheer possibility of what they were doing.
Hopefully this'll be a nice large swing for people like that.
It's strange how hostile fans of companies can be.
Especially when the loyalty is almost exclusively one way .
I've loved their products, and I'm mixed between being scared that they're gone, and excited at what will take their place. Maybe we'll soon get affordable quality waterblocks from a variety of manufacturers
@@GrandwiggIt’s strange that people tie themselves to a company. I don’t get the tribal mentality. Being a fanboy for a corporation is just childish.
First time sending up a Thanks. So, Edit-> I cant watch this all the way through and not pay for the Educational, Informative and sheer amount of Investigative Journalism this provides. Thanks GN Team for being leaders in this space and being so relentless with these reports for the benefit of the community/ consumers.
Wow, huge donation. Thank you so much for that and we hope to continue delivering!
Not familiar with legal letters in US, but it's so funny (and horrifying if you're the recipient) to see "GREETINGS: YOU HAVE BEEN SUED" first thing on the letter lmao
Try being late with Dutch taxes. It says "Compelling order, in the name of the King"
Does some yadda yadda. Then "You may be criminally prosecuted and/or imprisoned if you fail to comply"
And then went on "You owe us € 6,14" (typo by the bookkeeper)
Plus like €190 costs for recovering that €6,14, of course.
@@nvelsen1975 i mean that's way easier than whatever the IRS does, plus it's in the name of the King
A wild Takodachi!
woah wild takodachi
Isn't "greetings" the welcome LGR uses? 😀
Just wanted to say thank you for in-depth content like this GN. It was a bit long but these videos are where we actually learn something meaningful. This is why I'll always be a subscriber of GN.
The first 90 seconds already show an exciting jump in documentary production standards for GN. I'm strapped in for the ride! 🍿
That's why we're here:) gn is never satisfied
I legit thought I'd watch the intro and get the overview. 74 minutes later, I'm writing this comment lmao
Steve and the team at GN are literally showing what journalism as a profession SHOULD be. Digging deep, following the breadcrumbs until you figure out all the right questions, and not stopping until you get the answers. I wish to hell journalism like this was common.
the problem is the people that do this kind of stuff exist but the cost to allow them to do deep dives like this have no ROI. news media agencies would rather stick with low cost high profit garbage. it's why private profit driven media is horse crap.
These journalists do still exist. They run the student newspaper at their school, go ahead to study journalism, take on a job as a real journalist … and are immediately gagged and kneecapped because that's not wanted. It doesn't sell as well as cheap scandal, it's too much work for too little profit, it might even spell trouble to anger the wrong people by exposing them. So they get their ideals and ambition ground to bits, slowly but inevitably, until cheap scandal it is, or not even that. Horoscope, weather report, a photo suggesting some skin, and always the same boring headlines.
Real journalism has become a luxury you have to be able to afford, not a job you can feed your family with.
@@Olfan that’s exactly my point. I loathe the system that kills these ideals.
Unfortunately it's expensive and risky
If you want more investigative journalism, support your local newspapers and journalists. They used to do this kind of work all the time, but many have since gone out of business. That kind of journalism takes a huge amount of time and resources with no payoff until the story actually gets published. The huge mainstream media companies won't do this kind of work because money matters too much.
"we might face insolvency" while unable to pay:
- employees
- contractors
- suppliers
- debt
- taxes
is wild. these people are gaslighting themselves.
A former Employer is in with about 250k Euro of backpay to a couple employees, he has a repo order onto the company, and is currently trying to use insolvency to get out of it and to hand the 'inventory' of the company (as opposed to the company in total) to his chosen 'crown prince'. Obviously, he would retain 'Procura', aka the right to sign and do every decision as if he was actually the legal boss. Most in the company have 140 hours of unpaid overtime banked. Me? I saw the writing on the wall when he had payment issued 3 months in a row around the change of the year, and I had already been seeking for a ripcord to get out, which I pulled in time. They didn't want to pay me out, but I took all overtime hours, for a full month of paid leave, I took all my banked vacation days....basically, I left with nothing owed to me.
And 4 months later, he filed for insolvency, when the final payment chance before his company being repoed out under his ass passed.
Like, the repo only aims to get the 250k. And they don't give a damn over what the stuff is actually worth, they would simply pick stuff up and firesale it until having the money.
welcome to the Balkans. seriously.
Is EK on some embargo list and their products banned from sale?
@@GholaTleilaxu not officially, but nobody is getting paid and they do 0 of their own stock moving. so you can say they are.
Still capable of paying management though.
You are HUGE.
The GN team really is beneficial to the industry in so many ways. You call out the bad people dont dare talk about, highlight the goods people dont consider worth mentionning and help people in need. Outstanding work as always on this piece, congratulations to all of you.
Thanks for all what you do in tech industry. The journalism is top notch. Keep up the great work!
This is so sad 😔I loved EKWB but now I'm broken inside. Good to know that Atilla, Joe and Dave found new jobs. I hope the rest of the crew like Erik and others will do well too.
There is a saying in Croatia "Ne dao bog da ti Andrija Jarak ispred kuće izvještavao", meaning "God forbid that Andrija Jarak reports live at front of your house". Andrija Jarak is a notable reporter in Croatia mostly known for reporting on heavy crime and investigations... I think there soon might be a similar saying in Slovenian, something like "God forbid that Steve from Gamers Nexus reports live at front of your house" ... 😀😀 Great work and video GN, thanks for the work, I will be visiting GN Store shortly...
Interesting! A modern take on "Odin is watching" I wasn't expecting (but should have). I'm going to use this, thanks!
Aww this is the original comment...found a bot with more likes that copied your comment
op op, ima nas ima! :D
Tech Jesus is now officially known as Tech Grim Reaper and this video is missing a prop - a scythe in the background.
It took me a few sit downs to make in through the entire piece (well worth it!) and kudos to you Steve and the entire @GamersNexus team for the AMAZING journalism and compassion in assisting former EK workers secure new, meaningful employment 👌🏼 I tip my hat to you.
Days when GN publishes long form investigative journalism videos should be considered national holidays, and nobody can convince me otherwise
amen (literally just posting for the algorithm)
🍿
Shit we should have about 10 more holidays at this point
Since the very beginning of posting Nvidia office visits to 4chan, Steve's always represented true journalism
@@zampy9 +1 to that
Thank you Steve for all the work you've been doing for the PC building community!
I'll eat bread and water for a few weeks.
Don't do that just for us! Look out for yourself first, and anyone else reading. All the same, thank you so much for the support and gesture.
@@GamersNexus What is best way to donate where to get the biggest cut?
@@NullifidianYTWhatever is easiest for you is good for us. We're happy with any of it. Largest cut would be the button at the bottom of the GN store.
@@GamersNexus
@@GamersNexus Sorry, can't type when drunk. "where GN get the biggest cut".
EKWB: Great interview, you're hired!
Candidate: Sooo... what is the salary?
EKWB: What do you mean salary?
I think I saw their ads lately in the local job listings.. this is unreal lmao
I've observed that there appears to be a _lot_ of companies who view their workforce as an adversary, or a cost to minimize. One of the leaders told an employee, "Are you doing union stuff here? Why are you getting political?" Paying your employees is not communism, oddly enough. Failing to pay employees and demanding they continue working is bait-and-switch slavery, breach of contract, etc. Every single member of EK's leadership team belongs in prison.
As soon as I'm not paid, I stop working until I am. Try suing me LOL. They'd have to admit their crimes to do so.
I've worked with a lot of multinationals.
And sadly, you are right. Employees are seen as a cost to do business.
For now, I've given up swimming against the flow; for 15 years I worked as a consultant, always promoting "combined brain power brings you to the top".
1 too many times I got tackled by mediocre money creeps, wanting to keep the credits and way too good at whining.
The capitalist work ethic in a nutshell
@@nemtudom5074 tell that to the people help in concentration camps.
In capitalism, at least a person who is not paid is free to go anywhere else. Now, in communism, not so much.
@@Luiz__Silva If your idea of communism is that its the same as tyranny, then so be it, but you're still going to be wrong.
Also, just cuz i hate capitalism doesnt mean i support communism. Your binary world view shows how narrow minded you are
Thanks Steve! We desperately need more people like you!
Incredible coverage over the year on this story and such high quality production. Thanks from all your viewers
I'm so grateful channels like yours have brought this information to light. I almost invested in an all EK loop for one of my latest high end builds and boy am I glad I listened to you. Whew, this was a rollercoaster of a video. Awesome work. Especially loved the wall with the red strings!
Thanks Steve! And the rest of GN. For the investigative journalism. So awesome to see this level of down to sources research. (And the production value of your videos is amazing)
Thank you for the huge contribution!
International shipping please! I want to support GN but I can't afford import taxes and shipping costs.
Good on your whole team for this. I subscribed in the past for quality tech product reviews, but I stayed for the exemplary tech journalism.
Thank you! Product reviews coming up after this, too!
Disgusting fetish pfp. but hey, if youtube allows p()rn bots then might as well.
I don't spend time watching content in the tech space all that often but every time I see GN covering companies like this I always end up binging the entire series of videos. The level of research and passion for both consumers and the employees impacted by situations like this is unparalleled. Incredible work GN.
Huge thanks for having myself and Joe on Steve. One thing I will say is that some staff aren't as lucky as us and are still stuck at EK and they're fantastic people.
Glad you landed on your feet. It's such a sad situation for the employees.
Power to you guys.
Dave and Joe you are legends for going on record about all of this! There are so many more stories about EK that many don't know about. I think there are lots of media and creators who have had really strange and odd agreements with EK that they never followed through on, including us.
You would think that nerds of the era that saw the death of home micro companies, like Commodore and Atari, would know that not paying your suppliers is a death spiral.
Is that what happened to them?
I think with those the main issue was they bridged the gap between home console and PC before home consoles like Playstation were really a thing, not as good as a PC for what a PC is for and not as good as a home console for what a home console is for (gaming), didn't matter before PlayStations etc because there wasn't really any competition on the gaming end so they could exist, after PlayStations etc they're was nothing they were best at and they died, if they weren't paying suppliers my guess would be that was a symptom of them not making sales rather than the cause of their collapse.
To be clear, I'm saying I think you may be misattributing that as the true cause there to try and sound clever 🤗
But I only have my teenage impressions from back in the day to go by rather than any particular knowledge of what those corporations were doing so I could always be wrong there 😉
"FUCK YOU, PAY ME!"
Such good reporting here. I've put a few orders into your store over the years and hope you do continue this kind of content when the opportunity is present. Also for anyone on the fence about a product, I reached out about an issue in the past and they dealt with it in such a way that I was completely shocked. The issue was user error and they had such amazing customer service. They went over and above what would have been expected. Could not recommend them more.
This is why a good CEO is absolutely essential. If you find a good one, then hold onto them at all costs. It was insane to force him out.
Yep, that was their downfall decision.
If you are making tens of millions, hire a ivy league guy for your team to run the numbers. Someone who is actually good with the numbers
As a company gets bigger, the CEO typically has more capacity to do harm than to create success.
@@DuBstep115 This is how your company loses it's soul and becomes evil.
@@lorenztor1990exactly! What's important is one who has both integrity and understanding/skill in business management.
(Frankly, the integrity and competency should be primary in any role, amount with willingness to learn).
Ivy League isn't necessary for any of those characteristics. It can come from community colleges just as well. What Ivy League schools get is connections, which can be useful as a shortcut to quick success, often comes with pitfalls. Pitfalls such as 'I helped you, not you have to pay it back by taking this deal or hiring this employee.'
Not necessarily nefarious, but potential sources of inefficiency at the least.
C-Suite Executives being greedy, shortsighted, and unable to take criticism, thus leading to the decline in favor of their company in the eyes of consumers?
Im SHOCKED I tell you. Shocked.
I cant remember where i heard this story before....
(😂)
Same story for most politicians
They fail to seethe future. They see the nest quarter.
Capitalist swine.
@@DJRaffa1000 *_Intel scans the room with shifty eyes_*
52:32 The solar-powered battery packs were probably to run PCs if the power utility cut the building off... for non payment
Awesome piece again. I will always support your channel because of the determination and perserverance you put into spreading the truth, rather than clickbait crap. Keep up the awesome work!
The message from the employee not able to buy school supplies for his/her kid is heartbreaking... :(
Heartless execs, they forget about the very real struggles of their employees
Jesus. This could EASILY be prosecuted under RICO and organized fraud. That connections segment ALONE is...brutal. A lawyer would have a field day with that.
Oh, no,this is the norm in Slovenia, there is even a term for it called "grozdenje" which roughly translates to "bunching up like grapes" where you bunch up small entities that pay each other money for non-existent services to extract money from a larger private or government entity. They are very difficult to prosecute and stop in Slovenia and they all depend on an insider like Mitrović who is the key player here.
@@MarkoCloud Yeah, this is unfortunately the norm and part of the legacy of USSR occupation. None of these people will be prosecuted because all of the government officials responsible are all doing the exact same thing themselves. The moment I saw Serbia in there I knew we were in for a wild ride. My thoughts to the employees and unpaid suppliers.
@@MarkoCloud That doesn't mean things are that easy. The US CEO is still someone that can be prosecuted, and extradition treaties exist. Even more importantly, big international news headlines are way different than small time operations.
Do any of these people have private jets, bank accts in Western countries, or yachts?
@@MarkoCloud Normal in Australia too. So many excellent initiatives rolled out by our national government, that end up routing tens/hundreds of millions of $$ to organised crime with similar fake invoices and other scams.
EK really payed a guy 30k$ to figure out how he can pay a debt of 30k$?!
Thanks Steve, for the reporting.
Honestly, its not as uncommon as you think for companies to do stupid things like that. A company I worked for once, paid a firm a few million over a year to rebrand and rename the company. After a year what did they come back with? Oh, just keep your current name. Yep, that was it. A few months later they laid off 20% of the staff to save some money.
Back to you, Steve.
"Heres 30k to figure out how we can pay 30k of debt"
C-suites are legitimately subhuman parasites.
*a month, in Serbia*, one of those corrupt 'isles' in Europe that do not qualify for the EU and have direct ties to ruZZia...
Cannot confirm any legitimacy of these claims, I'll leave it to the professionals (such as Steve, that's why we're here), but can confirm the effort the team went through translating all the Slovenian text and voice recordings as well as learning how to pronounce all the names properly, Kudos to you, guys. It's not the easiest language and pronunciation model to learn.
Now... where do I look for watercooling equipment if my own countrymen can't be trusted?
They just typed that shit into google translate...
Primochill isn't bad. Similar product categories. A wide range of colors and models for almost every part. Someone correct me if they have issues too.
The CEO that built their company in the earlier years (2013-2017, I believe it was) is now at Corsair. Though, they likely are overpriced a bit, but having gone through their RMA for a headset recently that was stupidly smooth and over a headband peeling and one of its mounts breaking, I can at least say they are reputable and easy to communicate with
Did 2 of the letters from EK to their staff around 30 minutes in really say that the author does not care, or is that a mistranslation?
As slovenaina they pretty much transalted everything spot on, except name pronunciation, but that is understandable lmao
AAAAALLLLL OF THIS... instead of just paying employees/contractors & rebuilding? The egos of rich business owners know no bounds. Absolutely fantastic reporting.
The painter tape pinning everything to the wall 😂
Someone get Steve an XL corkboard!
You have no idea how upset I was when I came in the morning after we set this up and half of it had fallen down because the string was too heavy, hahaha
It's clearly all related to Pepe Silvia
Magnetic whiteboard 😉
Oh, painters tape. That's why the string isn't tight and straight.
A "GN Investigation" branded corkboard would be amazing
If you work for a company where the owners and senior leadership use it as their personal piggy bank, start looking for a new job immediately.
**Cough**Disney**Cough**
Shareholders too.
Place where I work qualified for one of those pandemic loans. We stayed fully operational all during the outbreak. So the company owner applied for those loans to support the business. It is public record. He got the loan. What he DID was immediately go use most of the money to buy a gigantic and expensive luxury SUV. We employees cannot help but see this vehicle where the loan money went. None of it went to employees. But this was legal because we kept working, which we would have done anyway. But they were able to say, oh we protected these jobs so what we do with the money is our choice. The jobs were never under threat so it was all lies. He just wanted the new SUV.
Excellent work guys
Japanese execs have proven time and time again that higher ups taking pay cuts to help lower level employees actually helps the company, not just from a financial standpoint, but from a PR one too.
Keanu reeves is a good western example. There's very *very* few people who in full genuine meaning, dislike Keanu reeves. And off the top of my head there's only a hand full of people that come to mind with a similar reputation among actors..
@ThatWhichObserves I was reading how Marcus Chong (who played Tank in The Matrix) had sone nasty things to say about Keanu. But none of it sounded credible
Especially the idea that Keanu and Lawrence Fishburn did cochineal in their trailers.
Makes sense that Marcus was apparently a nightmare to work with.
sadly it doesn't even transfer over to their subsidiaries in other places...
Japanese have a lot of corporate scandals. They're definitely not the good guys of the corporate world.
I was unfortunate enough to experience these crisis managers. They took higher monthly payments than any other employee at our company at that time. And we are talking 5x higher payments compared to our best paid engineers. The result was that after 6-7 months the company closed doors and most employees have never received their payments. If you ever see a "crisis manager" in your company, leave... leave immediately and try to make a collective lawsuit with fellow unpaid employees against the company. Ideally do it before the company closes.
I believe crisis managers should get paid only if they save the company cause if they don't they just help sink it faster
@@meneldal If you tell them that they only get paid if they save the company, there's nobody who will take on the job.
@@theodentherenewed4785 So what would the difference be? Company fails anyway, but at least there's some cash on hand for employee payments?
Really surprising to hear, i know someone who works as one and he has saved a lot of companies from being in debt to being profitable again
@@theodentherenewed4785 Good. It's a stupid waste of money. Every penny of their useless careers is a resource that could have been spent on something that actually lets people lead better lives.
This is a situation that seems almost BEYOND tragic... Actual people's lives are ruined//being ruined so dumpster fire seems like an undersell. It's really heartening to see even just a little good news from it though. And shout-out to Jay as well. It's amazing to see that some people on YT still have good morals and values, honestly. Thanks guys.
I'm eternally thankful you guys restocked the mule mugs. Bought myself one and now feel compelled to drink mules on a regular basis to maximize my purchase. Also glad to support my favorite tech UA-cam channel with incredible merch.
I’ve worked for 7 startups and almost all of them were ruined by one person, the founder.
They act like tyrants and blame everyone else for failure besides themselves due to micromanagement, inability to delegate, and pure megalomania.
Sounds like my present boss. with only 20 employees and a few million dollars in revenue dude wants to hoard money and cut every corner possible and the company has become a sinking ship.
One of the rough things about the evolution of VC funding as an economic force is it enables people to play pretend that they are successful business tycoons without really understanding the kind of product research and practical business acumen necessary to become one. And it's trendy, so every rich family's second son and charlaitan with delusions of grandeur wants to get in on it, it's a fashion thing.
Take the hint and stop working for startups?
@@xavdeman It’s their nature. 19 out of 20 startups fail. 2 of them IPO’d so I did get a decent payout including enough to buy a house in SF.
Not everyone is cut out do work at them.
@@DeinonychusCowboy More accurately, startups and IPOs are organized gambling and/or money laundering.
I love the idea of a company saying "go ahead and leave" and then so many people leave that they try to walk back the statement
Shout out Thermal Grizzly, Hyte, Starforge.
Oh the Starforge has Tectone who spreads hate and misinformation. I don't think they are doing this out of love for these employees.
Amazing video! Thanks for taking the time to put this out. GN you truly do some much needed reporting.
I subbed for the gaming chair reviews, stayed because you are one of the only tech reviewers that goes into such depth to expose big businesses like EK for the improperly run shit companies they are and wont back down when threatened. Your dedication to being impartial, getting the truth and ensuring not only customers are taken care of, but employees as well, of these companies is commendable.
"No longer Tech Jesus, now the Tech Reaper" - Love it!
Tech Reaper sounds like a job position straight from Warhammer 40k.
PRAISE THE OMNISSIAH
To sum it up, it's almost always upper management that dictates whether things fail or succeed. The 2 owners thought they knew better even tho they specifically brought in the original CEO to do the things they couldn't and the company flourished them they decided they knew better and this eventually tanked the company.
I've never understood why at that point you just don't retire and use the dividends to do random fun stuff.
@@FelipeBudinich Some people are motivated by holding a position of prestige and power, and will never be satisfied unless that position is steadily rising. Just look at Kat Silberstein. She was publicly living the high life on EK's money, bragging about all the top-ranking tech firms she "worked" for, and posting pictures of her rubbing shoulders with industry giants in exotic locations on social media, yet we have no clue what function she actually performed for EK - other than making them look like they were bigger and more influential than they ever actually were. Because she had no function. She'd found a way to feel big and important and show that to the world, and she was going to ride it as long as possible.
Y'all are doing good work.
God damn, they are creative in laundering money. I hope the Government keeps up and put them in Jail.
Thanks Steve and your Team!
nah, not much creativity to see there... most of it seems textbook tax evasion/money laundering...
Me: GN has been a little quiet... too quiet
GN: Yeah * drops amazing 1 hour+ video *
Gamer Nexus helped me guide me to move to air cooling from AIOs. I did briefly consider water cooling, but GN's data and coverage of cases, expected temperatures on CPUs, along with repeated advice for what you should be looking for based on budget, preference etc helped push me in the right direction.
This video proves once AGAIN to me that Gamer Nexus's is invaluable to me as the consumer and the NEED that corporations NEED TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. THANK YOU GN. I don't even need them but I am buying the copper mules and other items. I truly can't express how grateful I am for your coverage, data and everything in between.