Damn i rewatched it. Less people, more PCs and less returns. Probably he was the pushing force the whole time and the ceo was just supposed to be a mouthpiece
It’s FAR more common than you know. I’d wager a huge chunk of “successful” people basically got lucky. And everything after that is trying to maintain the illusion.
@@wilmagregg3131 dude it wasn't making million dollar profit - It wasn't making a single dollar profit as it was ran by a madman who didn't quite understand how numbers worked. Also probably how they were able to get growth and be competetive in price tho.
This dude is like if Dennis Reynolds grew up in Silicon Valley instead of Philly. Massive ego, pretends to be way smarter than he actually is, no concept of consequences to others because they don't effect him personally and rich parental figure benefactor bankrolling and enabling his buttmunch behavior.
It should be illegal to auction items that dont even belong to them. If their computer was there on warranty work or upgrades, and they arent shipping it back or giving you the option to get it back, that product should be considered a stolen and reported to the police.
Not sure how it works in the US but over here in the Netherlands a bankruptcy means some executor (think it's just the government or IRS) comes in and auctions off any assets to pay off debts the company has. (And the IRS comes first)The owners of the company don't really get any say in this and I'm pretty sure trying to withhold assets from this auction is illegal. Not sure if it's at all possible to get your property back if you can prove ownership but I'm guessing it's gonna be pretty hard and would probably require expensive lawsuits and shit...
The image shown at 10:18 in the video, pretty much sums up his role, ambitions, and potential with the company. A cool jacket, confused look, watching someone else do the work, while he just rests his hands on the panel. Essentially just getting in the way while trying to make it look like he's helping. People like this are some of the worst, especially when they move up the hierarchy.
This is why other CEOs spend money on a PR team. He behaves like I expect every other out-of-touch-with-reality CEO to behave, except he was too much of a cheapskate to hire a person to act as his filter.
Noah tried to be expert builder and PR rep at the same time. Fun fact: Noah was no expert. He learned his PC building from watching Linus and was one of the worst builders in terms of quality at AB. Also fun fact: Noah routinely did the thing that companies aren't supposed to do... talk about religion and politics. He told Twitcher viewers they were stupid, and constantly grandstanded about how awesome he was.
He has a PR team, the official company apology statement was crafted by one. BUT, he decided NOT to consult them and went ahead to make that shitty quality apology video.
@@davidb3352 Also funny you mentioned Linus, because Noah was so desperate to get in contact with him and creeping Kristofer Yee out in the process. Yet the first time Linus heard about him is him destroying his own company. "How have I not heard of this company before, yet they have the same amount of employees as us?"
I literally think Noah has empathy deficit disorder. In his apology video he looked like someone that knew how a guilty or sympathetic person should look like, but has never actually felt those emotions so he couldn't even fake it correctly.
Something funny I read in another video back when the debacle started: An artisan is a worker in a skilled trade, especially making things by hand. An artesian is a well.
The fact that they can auction off items that don't even belong to the company is one of the most horrifying things I have ever heard. It didn't belong to the company, its not an asset of the company, so the fact that the court can steal them from their owners and sell them to complete strangers, with all the personal information therein, is also terrifying.
That’s the legal system for you. What’s worse is that even in the few instances of some Good Samaritan buying some of those PCs to return them to the owner, it ends up being AB double dipping. They got paid to fix the PC. Now this new money will be used to clean up some of their mess. Oh, and let’s not forget the court getting a taste what with the all import fees and what not.
@@KhorneBrzrkr Exactly. And its weird too, because if you think of the other situations that are kind of similar, you know it wouldn't happen. Like, this is (as far as I can tell) the same thing as hiring a construction company to come to your house and do some repairs/remodeling, while you're...I dunno, Fiji or something. Not on location. That construction company gets into deep, deep shit, and go bankrupt. So they get to auction of your house to pay off their legal fees because they had 'possession' of your house in order to do repairs on it. It's manifestly absurd.
@@HQbaracuda you forget that people are not only buying new PCs. They also send the PC they're currently using, in for repair or upgrade. With all their personal files like family photos but also sensitive information. And to make matters worse, anyone could probably just boot them up and login into all of their accounts if they haven't got 2 factor authentication on all of their accounts. And some of them would probably still just login without asking for 2 factor, since the PC itself is already authenticated. And no, the windows user password is not an obstacle. Anyone can look up a UA-cam video on how to get into Windows. This is truly horrible.
@@KhorneBrzrkr Anybody know if this is a problem with the legal system everywhere or just America? European countries often seem to have much better consumer protection, so I wonder if there laws would protect those PC's that were in for RMA.
@@pagatryx5451 I think it's just the US, fortunately or unfortunately. We have a saying, that the process IS the punishment. Lawyer, and litigious people in general, tend to be like that annoying younger sibling in the back seat. They aren't TECHNICALLY touching you... so they aren't actually breaking the rules. So they do what they want by liberally interpreting the law and government overreaches to compensate.
I almost bought a PC from Artesian but I watched one of their live streams and it made me physically ill. Nobody with that much ego on screen is healthy and I'm a nobody and I didn't want my name associated with that. I've ended up building my own PCs for the last decade, and I have zero regrets.
You must know very little about CEOs if you think "mentality healthy" correlates with low quality. It honestly makes no sense. This dude wrecked his company for changing the raffle rules.
What's even better is JayzTwoCents built Kiapiaa a better built and spec'd out PC than anything Artesian Builds would have given her. Also there are hundreds of people's PCs that were sent in for RMAs that are locked up in the warehouses with people's personal info still on them, and no one really knows what is going to happen to them. Apparently one of the buyers of the lots is going to try and triage the RMAs in order to send them back to the people who owned them.
@@purplefood1 It's true. Kia did an opening video of the PC she got from Jay. Also, as I recall, EVGA hooked Jay up with a tone of the components for it. He drove out to their warehouse to pick up the components - did a video on that as well.
@@NomisSanguine Ah my bad I wasn't specific and I realise now there's a lot that could pertain to, I was mostly thinking of people who potentially were not able to get their PC back from AB though i've heard there was an attempt to return them I somehow feel they may not have tried that hard.
If you watch the stream with destiny and the artesian employees from like 2 days ago.. They state there was less than 5 repairs that didnt get to their owner. One of them stayed the day after the bankruptcy to send out as many as they could.. so no theres not tons sitting there, many just werent fixed and got sent back thanks to that employee
@@nwerd7584 is that true for both sites? Seems to me the east coast site might do that, but not the west coast. Also, you can see a lot of WIP builds in Gamers Nexus’ video.
I loved the ending, this is definitely a perfect example of "be careful what you wish for". All he wanted was to be famous... and he got what he wanted. People will be talking about him and his company for a long, long, long time.
@@Mediados "There is nothing wrong with wanting to become famous" It could easily be argued there is. Any kind of vanity or approval-seeking is easily picked apart. I can think of 10,000,000 better things one could dedicate their life to rather than the vapid pursuit of fame and vanity.
yeah he was like who fucking cares about this bitch... intel: uhmmm jayztwocents: u fucked up. noah: what no she was a loser... she had no views. i love how intel saw this and immediatly cut ties with them...
@@thatHARVguy The wrath of butthurt twitchers is way more powerful a tool than minor state laws would ever be. Even if found guilty he'd get a small fine and be ordered to send the streamer one of his shitty PCs, and I think we all know how good quality that thing would be.
They lured me in as a creator by offering a "partnership" that would give steady compensation and give me tons of exposure from social media. All I got was an affiliate code, a shoutout on Twitter and thrown into a group-chat with random streamers in Twitter.
Yeah I don't think you understood. The 'partnership' is only relevant if YOU help THEM sell hardware, and lure more followers/subscribers to their social media channels... They're not going to waste any time effort helping to 'grow' your channel, they're just hoping you're channel will get popular and will eventually bring them business!
I wish this was the worst kind of partnership deal out there. But at least Artesian tried to make a profit by using shady business methods to sell actual products... there are "partners" that are 100% scams from the get go. For example the "not financial advice" - crowd. Artesian got the shitstorm he deserved, sadly there are many many more "partners" out there that don't.
That sounded like a scam, so why would you believe them? If it is too good to be true, it is. I'm surprised you even got a shout-out to be honest with you.
@@tilasole3252 How did it sound like a scam? It’s literally the bare minimum that they offered and even then they couldn’t deliver. No where near sounding like a scam.
@@mochabearry [lured by offering a "partnership" that would give steady compensation and tons of exposure from social media.] For basically free? You just do a few promos or something and magically everything works out alright? You do not get something for nothing. That sounds like a scam. A promise that was never intended to be kept.
The fact that I've watched and rewatched the gamers nexus videos is probably why the algorithm recommended this video. DAMN I'm glad it did. Loving your videos bud, instant sub.
The most disgusting thing is that all of the personal computer repair jobs will be stolen from people and that they actually stole thousands of pounds from an employee in a fraudulent charge back putting them in debt. It is all just vile and evil that they would be allowed to do either of those things.
Also anyone who had a personal computer sent in for repair or service but did not receive it back those have personal data on them. I would highly suggest anyone in this situation should contact local law enforcement where the warehouse is located and see if they cant get the items back. Afaik ownership does not transfer to the company during repair or service so it is theft at that point I would love to watch the police march into that warehouse and seize peoples machines to return to them. Its not like they dont know the location
@@Rainmotorsports I mean in general you’re right but there is no reason not to press a criminal fraud case, there’s a lot of smoke here that could easily be fire if forensic investigators are able to find documentation that they were intentionally deceitful on a criminal level
Just remember stories like this next time some you read about some petty crime being committed by a random poor person and people are calling for them to be executed.
Hard to believe Katz and Zuckerberg would have anything in common. What do you think it is, I wonder? Do they share those traits with people like Jared Kushner? Hmm. A lot to think about.
Love your videos. The young man will be just fine because he was playing with his parents money from the start. He has legally changed his name and ArtisanFutures (new name of company) is through bankruptcy process into auctioning assets. Don't kid yourself. He is chilling on a beach somewhere with a new legal identity.
It's insane how cocky some people get when they think nothing bad can happen to them, as if it being a decent person is only an obligation when it benefits them.
as someone who bought a PC from them early in 2020, I'm at a loss since I was supposed to get 3 year parts warranty and customer service for at least 5 years. The only saving grace is that they shipped all of the boxes for individual parts so I guess I could RMA them if something were to happen
No way customers will get any real money or hardware. All that remains will be sold and all of the money will go to the ones who lend Artesian Builds the most money. That will probably be banks, vendors and investors (like his own family). So in the end that guy might even be able to get money out of his bankrupt company. But normal customers won't see a dime.
Not a chance in hell of that happening. The customers are always the last in line and by then their is nothing left. Did you notice the part where there was 1.5 million in personal loans? Let that sink in, his fucking family will probably get whatever they can auction off the remaining stock for.
The PR disaster hastened the demise. If anything it stopped more people ordering from them and at least saved some people's money. But the situation they were in could only end one way and that was bankruptcy.
How about if you're doing something shady, DO bring attention to yourself and DO be needlessly cruel. We need these kinds of fuckers to out themselves, you know? The less smart shady people, the better.
Great video. I was in the custom PC industry myself. The business really relied on cheap bulk orders to stay afloat. With the chip shortage as it is, I can't imagine a profitable model. This company was really banking on growth and struck out. I'm certain there's a lot of builders going under that didn't have a fraction of artesian builds' popularity.
It really sucks that our economy is so slanted against small businesses like this. God forbid you find a niche and fill it. Nope. It’s gotta be massive scale by well established monoliths to make a thin margin or nothing.
@@KhorneBrzrkr doesn’t help that when they go bankrupt they start auctioning off peoples PCs. At least a larger company I can be mostly sure this won’t happen, so why would I take the risk
@@pete5516 Yeah. People in general, and the legal system specifically, are very lazy. It would make more sense to do the right thing and return people's property. But time is money after all. So just do the quickest thing and get on to the next case.
@@KhorneBrzrkr The east coast office was widely successful finishing 90% of the orders and turning a decent profit throughout the company's history. It was run like a straight-up business with no nepotism and with a focus on churning out orders. The west coast office couldn't handle their orders and shipped them to the east coast branch to finish orders. The east coast branch had half the employees. The west coast branch was so mismanaged by the CEO that it was hemorrhaging money and brought down the massively successful east coast branch. The problem was 100% the CEO because his parents just gave him enough money to start a business. He never had to work hard or worry about going under. He never had to process orders or effectively organize the company. Hopefully, this is a wake-up call for him and he learns from his mistakes.
@@waymondboyd3755 You're right. It was entirely his fault. And that's usually how it goes. But him learning from his mistakes? Ha! The only thing he MIGHT learn is how to properly attribute every last failure to someone other than himself and leverage that to get more money for another company.
A similar business model as Nigel O’Hara ‘department store’ in Portadown, Northern Ireland, who spent years having a glamorous website listing 91,000 items - and didn’t supply anything to people who bought items from him. I was a victim of his, but through luck I paid for my purchases with PayPal, so I got my money back a few months before he declared bankruptcy. The reality was his ‘department store’ was a tiny jewellery shop on Portadown’s High Street. A video on this scammer would be interesting!
Ive heard alot of ppl say that one stream killed the company. But it was just the last thing, there was so many things killing the company and it was almost gone already
I think their downfall was inevitable regardless since as you said they were losing money. The livestream exposing how much of a jackass the CEO is just sped up the process
This happens a lot when the people running the business are either incompetent or don't care about standards. Boeing had the same thing with their new plants in the Carolinas. They were handing out bonuses for incompetent and incomplete work, and then shipping the planes to Everett for repair and completion. Mind you, this was years before their engineering incompetence led to planes literally crashing. Expansion is hard, and more so when the new area is so far away from where you currently are located. The new location should have had a much smaller number of orders with much more oversight while the builders were learning how to perform and QA processes were improved. There will likely always be some degree of differences in terms of profitability and quality of work between different centers, but this is extreme.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade I think you kinda misread that. The branch in _North Carolina_ was the newer, "smaller" branch, yet it was by far the more competent of the two. The one that needed the oversight was the older, "larger" one in California, which was directly under Katz himself.
Even if I had been watching them at their peak, I would have found it pretty boring that they're building PCs for successful people. That to me is like gifting a car to Jake Paul.
To put that draw into perspective, it is analogous to having a lottery, stating that each ticket is an opportunity to win, putting all tickets into the raffle, then disqualifying the winning draw because they only bought one ticket.
"#funny" Lmao. I am so glad for your channel growth Kira, deserved. Kinda bummed in the beginning as it was about crypto and such, but now it covers a wide variety of topics and it's just great. Hoping for more. Maybe at one point you can bring out your inner gimp and collab one day with Internet Historian.
Dude was briefly listed as the co-founder of some hipster lifestyle food company for a while after Artesian Builds, but now he's basically gone into online hiding changing his last name to Novik. (And may have changed it again after that, seems weirdly difficult to find anything considering a bankruptcy and tax evasion occurred). If I had to guess he's eventually going to start another company in Canada or something, seems really into branding himself as a successful CEO.
Thank you Kira for adding your voice and visibility to this. Gamer’s Nexus has done a lot to investigate what happened and hopes to help get people their systems back, if the group managing the bankruptcy will cooperate. Making sure that predatory businesses like this are called out and shut down is how we fight this. Let’s make sure that when Noah inevitably tries again to be famous, we all remind him, and anyone he’s trying to scam, why he’s famous.
It has truly been astonishing to see how many gaming companies and fellow-traveling PC makers have such shitty CEOs, with boards of directors and frequently the largest institutional shareholders being complicit in retaining these garbage people. No large institutional shareholders were involved with retaining Noah Katz at Artesian Builds, but in any case he should have been jettisoned from AB and then should have gone into a different career such as venom extraction, demolition preparation or unbridled con-artistry.
Its kinda wild to me that one single fail stream was the one thing that started their fall... like yeah they would fall at some point but not as fast as that... and all because of a 1k-2k pc that would be tax deducted on a multi million dollar company, that's nuts to me
No one wants to be the first to shit talk something popular and well loved because fear of backlash. As soon as there’s a drop of blood in the water, one bad action that cannot be denied, it’s sharks to the slaughter. People could air their gripes without fear.
Tbf with this being a business I think it's more as described in the video, people were putting up with their streams because their favourite streamers were getting pcs from here as soon as they start shit talking streamers people don't have that leniency with them
I recently got defrauded by a “reputable” company who filed bankruptcy and is refusing to give refunds, yet they’re still taking orders. It’s sad there is no protection for us consumers while the wealthy business owners get to run away from their debt
@@powerdude_dk I love this. Greedy, self involved behavior is a product of a less developed mind. Its good for bare bones survival, but not much else. Thsts why it appears to do so well in business, because its all about survival- until you realize most of that was luck or family money and once they are at the top it all falls apart. Theres a lesson to learn from all these failed ceo's, unfortunately, not enough people are learning it.
I think only the company bankrupted, the guy and his family will be fine, since they auction other people's stuff, for semi-cover the debt (starting with the family-loan for themselfes), then call it a day. Usually people don't lose any personal wealth in these cases, esp. with a good accountant+lawyer combo.
New law needs to be put in place to protect consumers of their purchased goods in cases like these. Like require companies to reimburse for unfulfilled orders AND ID tag the orders in-progress so that IF the company goes bankrupt, customers can get their stuff (...at least as-is).
Yeah, there needs to be a law for that stuff in basically every jurisdiction just to be save. Contact your local MP today and convince them to work on that.
@@wilmagregg3131 they repaired the pcs that were under their warranty service. They didn’t repair anybody else’s pcs. No difference then buying a piece of shit pc from Dell and then sending it back to Dell to replace. They weren’t a pc repair shop.
With a 10% return rate you'd think customers would read reviews beforehand, Caveat emptor. There are consumer protection laws but they can do bugger all if the company has no money and that includes shipping items back to the customer. If the dude was in trouble for unpaid taxes, it goes taxman, then creditors, then customers and good luck ever changing that.
Hell, that clause about EVERYTHING being auctioned off should’ve BY DEFAULT had a clause stating that before selling, they are to check for PERSONAL, NON company Assets and promptly return them if possible. The fact that it doesn’t honestly makes me wish the person who created the clause would either Die, or be executed for their inhumane thinking.
There should be a law that regulates that in case of a bankruptcy customers should get paid first. That would also have the benefit of partners more closely monitoring the companys they loan money to.
Keep your eyes on Overkill Computers, they are showing some of the same poor management issues and poor legal advice as Artesian and might implode as well.
Last year I was looking for a custom PC, and looked up a couple independent builders, a couple local companies, and then heard about AB from Suris, subsequently deciding to check them out. I'm budget conscious first, so I never got past the initial quote. It was almost 1.5 times the price of the company I ended up going through, noped out of there so fast! When I found out about all of this I was so glad I never purchased from them
@@scragar From what it's been reported the West Coast shop was an absolute trash fire while the East Coast shop worked their butts off to get orders out before the final closure. Sadly I don't think records were as meticulously kept but I would be of course happy to be proven wrong
I'd expect that the credit card companies will be picking up a bunch of the bill on this and going after Noah and whomever else is a shareholder to the extent that they can. But, ultimately, a lot of people will be out serious cash, and the rest of it will likely come from the funds that credit cards set aside for such things. At least for the warranty work, often times credit card companies will provide warranty enhancements as part of their services to encourage people to spend.
From what I understood it's kinda reverse in the US law. To be a legal marketing giveaway and not illegal lottery there should be no "consideration" (substantial payment in money or in kind just for entering.) Katz admitting live it's about participants "earning him money" (and other stuff) make it sound very much like the second case...
It's honestly seems like Noah wanted to be Linus Sebastian without the years of hard work or charisma. People like Tech Influencers like Linus, Marques, and Dave 2D because they're all passionate about tech first and influencers second.
Lol changing his name. This reminds me of a wise quote I heard once upon a time. "You only ever get one name... use it wisely." - Or apparently, you'll end up needing to change it
All it takes, is one person with way to big visions or way too much self appreciation. I feel sad for the employees. Not only did they have to put up with Noah's ego and behavior, they were also the ones facing the customers on a daily basis and ate now the ones having to look for a new way to support themselves by finding a new job.
In the 90s in the UK. The CEO of a major high street jewelers was asked "how is your jewelry so cheap?". He responded "because its cheap crap". About 2 weeks later his company had lost £500 mil. Should be a leaderboard, im sure artesian would be top 3 of all time.
Artesian Builds had 2 HQ's, west and east. West HQ (where this CEO was) were capable of buiding 2-3 PC's per day, while East HQ was building 10-15 PC's per day with the same number of employees. And also guality of West HQ builds was horrifying... West HQ had return rate of 10% of all PC's shipped, while East HQ had return rate of less than 0.2%. And all those PC's that were built for big streamers live on Twich in West HQ where shipped to East HQ, where they rewired whole system, beacuse West HQ's cable management was so horrible that those PC's had to be shipped to East HQ for repairs before they could be shipped to big Twitch streamers. Without East HQ, this company would be already gonne long time ago...
High marks for your presentation and reporting. Really great stuff. My ONLY complaint is that the abrupt ending without a sign off that goes to commercial then is over is a bit disorienting. Would love for you have some kind of sign-off so my brain doesn’t feel like it glitched. Anyway, that one thing aside, great channel. Been subbed for a long time.
Similar but different to Chronicles of Elyria, with it's crowdfunding advertised to develop a game, but instead it was all just used for marketing, later on confessing that it was decided at the beginning of Kickstarters to use all funds to gain official investors and publishers, lying to the private investors aka the people who crowdfunded. At this point I'd welcome a gaming regulatory body that helps avoid these unwanted outcomes, especially when there was no intent to scam and simply stupid scheming to success.
I've been following the story on Gamers Nexus from the original announcement. It's been such a shitshow. The more eyeballs that get on this story, the better. Noah Katz destroyed the whole thing.
It's fine that he wanted to be at the forefront of his business, and he would have done fine if that were the only gripe. It's everything else he did that kinda... messed everything up.
0:54 I would also add that, as new models and technologies are coming out all the time, computer components spoil like food (which also has low margin), so you have little leverage to hold out for a good margin.
I just went to look up what the term "dumpster fire" meant. Just as I anticipated... there is a picture of Noah Katz... "See Artesian Builds for an example"
I have a few theories on the "threshold" way of rejecting winners and how badly it was handled. 1. Maybe someone did tell Noah or he was somehow aware that he could stipulate the qualifying social media metrics prior to the giveaways, but Noah wanted the ability to say it was open to all ambassadors, that way gullible streamers keep signing up to AB's shitty ambassador program and become free billboards. 2. Because AB was literally accepting anyone to maximize marketing, the ambassador program was too big to manage, and it would take too much time to check who didn't qualify and remove those from the list before the giveaways. Remember they did have previously stated qualifications some did not meet, i.e., not having AB panels/overlays on the streamers' channels, but add to this having to check social media metrics for possibly hundreds or thousands of people, and do it every month. There's no way Noah had enough people assigned to this, if he had anyone doing it at all. 3. I'm giving Noah too much credit, he wasn't even thinking, and was just winging it. He ignored any complaints in chat, while noticing the people who enjoyed the spectacle, feeling the power of a king slighting his peasants. See the victorious fist pump when saying "there's the reroll". He was just a clueless dick.
That was the spark that triggered the sudden collapse. But, as noted, they were effectively operating while insolvent, which is a pretty big deal. This could just as easily have happened when one of their creditors called a loan. I'm guessing that they were so poorly run that they couldn't secure a bridge loan to cover the costs of finishing the work that they promised and moving forward. That is, assuming they were even thinking that far forward.
I remember watching their last building stream they did with Ramee. They got over 5k gifted subs throughout that stream to "upgrade" his pc. Then like 2 days laters shit hit the fan and it was all over. Like a week or so later there was a pic of Ramee's pc in the listed bankruptcy liqiudation auctions.
That's exactly why I went with a giant mainstream pc building company in my country. Yeah you only get standard stuff but hell if I'm gonna spend that amount of money on something I prefer standard but reliable giant company and with a good returns/support system over the risk of "Hey we can do something cool and fancy, but we're also pretty small and if anything happens we're gone and you're money is gone."
When I got my new rig two years ago, I opted in for the building service the seller offered. I could do it myself, but if I can pay the dudes 80 euros for the convenience, I'll gladly fork over the cash. Especially when its only a fraction of the cost.
@@oz_jones especially because if they fuck it up, so what, they have to fix it. If you find something not working when you get it, so what, they have to fix it. If you build it and you do accidentally damage something, well, fuck your wallet
I wanted to start a PC building company, way back in 2005. I called it Demon Built. I had some badass builds but the margins were very small. It makes me feel good that even a big company with millions of dollars failed too. haha.
@@jkotarsky I know how you feel. I tried selling books for a while. Margins on books are practically paper thin, too. Still, ove the name. Maybe one day I'll get to by a demon built PC 🙂
Before watching I had the idea that this guy inherited the company then immediately proceeded to burn it to the ground. The fact that he could achieve success is much more damning when he destroyed it just for his own sins.
There were some employees that stayed until it closed trying to finish builds and ship em out. If they would've had another owner it would've been a good company. He was getting employees to buy parts and after he paid him, he would get paypal to refund screwing over the guy buying the parts. These are parts that costed anywhere from 600-1500 dollars. He would also do that to customer trying to get a refund. Just a horrible greedy man.
I'm so glad Discount Star Lord lost his business. He had some great ideas of how to grow a business but should have stayed off-screen because It's getting pretty easy to spot a narcissist these days.
Asking, even requiring a streamer to host the live building of their own PC as part of the price thereof sounds reasonable, IMHO. It costs the streamer little, while providing invaluable targeted advertisement for the builder. A win/win if you ask me. The scummyness only comes in with the alleged guilt-tripping/blackmailing for subs. If they want to do something like a sub goal for upgrades or deduct the value of subs from the price the streamer must play, fine, but it really needs to be done above-board.
I don't know why everyone assumes that a person in charge of a company automatically has to be smart or capable. There's a reason most companies that get big end up having a board of directors and it's because all you need to start a business is enough capital to get it off the ground. Hire the right people to run it for you and you're set. It's the CEOs that insist on getting involved despite dubious knowledge that bring this fact to light the fastest.
Thats weird cause I have a friend who won one of those ambassador giveaways and he was under 1k followers. They still sent him the pc no issues. Seems like there was more then analytics contributing to it.
I just feel really bad for the COO, who clearly worked hard, ran his team and the whole east warehouse incredibly well.
Damn i rewatched it. Less people, more PCs and less returns.
Probably he was the pushing force the whole time and the ceo was just supposed to be a mouthpiece
the coo now works for star forge
@@sppie So proud of him
@@sppie hope some of the east team employees also have jobs at other great companies. Such a small team but producing 10x the products the west did
@@havenprice the COO was the talent. The CEO had the money.
Really shows that some people would rather bankrupt their fucking company rather than admit that they’re wrong
It’s FAR more common than you know. I’d wager a huge chunk of “successful” people basically got lucky. And everything after that is trying to maintain the illusion.
I think there is enough family-money to start a new/different one, so no surprise he didn't care.
@@wilmagregg3131 dude it wasn't making million dollar profit - It wasn't making a single dollar profit as it was ran by a madman who didn't quite understand how numbers worked. Also probably how they were able to get growth and be competetive in price tho.
This dude is like if Dennis Reynolds grew up in Silicon Valley instead of Philly. Massive ego, pretends to be way smarter than he actually is, no concept of consequences to others because they don't effect him personally and rich parental figure benefactor bankrolling and enabling his buttmunch behavior.
It shows how little he cared about his employees and the customers who were already waiting for their purchased PCs
It should be illegal to auction items that dont even belong to them. If their computer was there on warranty work or upgrades, and they arent shipping it back or giving you the option to get it back, that product should be considered a stolen and reported to the police.
posession is 9/10ths of the law, unless filed as stolen.
@@nwerd7584 - The ability to control violent thugs with deadly weapons is 10/10th's of the law. Don't believe me? Try not paying taxes.
@@ahmataevo It isn't a maths question. Both those things can be true at once.
Not sure how it works in the US but over here in the Netherlands a bankruptcy means some executor (think it's just the government or IRS) comes in and auctions off any assets to pay off debts the company has. (And the IRS comes first)The owners of the company don't really get any say in this and I'm pretty sure trying to withhold assets from this auction is illegal.
Not sure if it's at all possible to get your property back if you can prove ownership but I'm guessing it's gonna be pretty hard and would probably require expensive lawsuits and shit...
@@ahmataevo not paying taxes makes you a violent thug???
The image shown at 10:18 in the video, pretty much sums up his role, ambitions, and potential with the company. A cool jacket, confused look, watching someone else do the work, while he just rests his hands on the panel. Essentially just getting in the way while trying to make it look like he's helping. People like this are some of the worst, especially when they move up the hierarchy.
Those are always the people that move up.
The dude literally ran around wearing a Starlord jacket. To me, that says everything about his ego.
Screams 'nerd' to me
Even hearing that name reminds me of Chris Pratt and that scene where he does that "dance off" and I get pissed. What a nerd.
@@bradenharris8718 Just Pratt. That's a bad sign.
@@falconeshield Does the nice Christian actor with a happy family life fill you with seething rage?
@@falconeshield People still seething about Chris Pratt for whatever reason? Lol
This is why other CEOs spend money on a PR team. He behaves like I expect every other out-of-touch-with-reality CEO to behave, except he was too much of a cheapskate to hire a person to act as his filter.
Noah tried to be expert builder and PR rep at the same time.
Fun fact: Noah was no expert. He learned his PC building from watching Linus and was one of the worst builders in terms of quality at AB.
Also fun fact: Noah routinely did the thing that companies aren't supposed to do... talk about religion and politics. He told Twitcher viewers they were stupid, and constantly grandstanded about how awesome he was.
He has a PR team, the official company apology statement was crafted by one. BUT, he decided NOT to consult them and went ahead to make that shitty quality apology video.
@@Tamaki742 As a megalomaniac, he's the only one that fix the *perceived* problem that he created.
@@davidb3352 Also funny you mentioned Linus, because Noah was so desperate to get in contact with him and creeping Kristofer Yee out in the process. Yet the first time Linus heard about him is him destroying his own company.
"How have I not heard of this company before, yet they have the same amount of employees as us?"
I literally think Noah has empathy deficit disorder. In his apology video he looked like someone that knew how a guilty or sympathetic person should look like, but has never actually felt those emotions so he couldn't even fake it correctly.
Something funny I read in another video back when the debacle started: An artisan is a worker in a skilled trade, especially making things by hand. An artesian is a well.
Yep. Gotta love when people misuse words to sound cool.
@@KhorneBrzrkr I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't realize it and later just stuck with the name.
@@LordZordid Yeah, that's also a very good possibility. Shouldn't assume I guess.
Well, that sucks.
The PCs are well-built
The fact that they can auction off items that don't even belong to the company is one of the most horrifying things I have ever heard. It didn't belong to the company, its not an asset of the company, so the fact that the court can steal them from their owners and sell them to complete strangers, with all the personal information therein, is also terrifying.
That’s the legal system for you. What’s worse is that even in the few instances of some Good Samaritan buying some of those PCs to return them to the owner, it ends up being AB double dipping. They got paid to fix the PC. Now this new money will be used to clean up some of their mess. Oh, and let’s not forget the court getting a taste what with the all import fees and what not.
@@KhorneBrzrkr Exactly. And its weird too, because if you think of the other situations that are kind of similar, you know it wouldn't happen. Like, this is (as far as I can tell) the same thing as hiring a construction company to come to your house and do some repairs/remodeling, while you're...I dunno, Fiji or something. Not on location. That construction company gets into deep, deep shit, and go bankrupt. So they get to auction of your house to pay off their legal fees because they had 'possession' of your house in order to do repairs on it.
It's manifestly absurd.
@@HQbaracuda you forget that people are not only buying new PCs. They also send the PC they're currently using, in for repair or upgrade. With all their personal files like family photos but also sensitive information. And to make matters worse, anyone could probably just boot them up and login into all of their accounts if they haven't got 2 factor authentication on all of their accounts. And some of them would probably still just login without asking for 2 factor, since the PC itself is already authenticated.
And no, the windows user password is not an obstacle. Anyone can look up a UA-cam video on how to get into Windows.
This is truly horrible.
@@KhorneBrzrkr Anybody know if this is a problem with the legal system everywhere or just America? European countries often seem to have much better consumer protection, so I wonder if there laws would protect those PC's that were in for RMA.
@@pagatryx5451 I think it's just the US, fortunately or unfortunately. We have a saying, that the process IS the punishment. Lawyer, and litigious people in general, tend to be like that annoying younger sibling in the back seat. They aren't TECHNICALLY touching you... so they aren't actually breaking the rules. So they do what they want by liberally interpreting the law and government overreaches to compensate.
I almost bought a PC from Artesian but I watched one of their live streams and it made me physically ill. Nobody with that much ego on screen is healthy and I'm a nobody and I didn't want my name associated with that. I've ended up building my own PCs for the last decade, and I have zero regrets.
almost fell for it. when you want a fresh start with a new company you find out they are all junk in order of first to last lol
You must know very little about CEOs if you think "mentality healthy" correlates with low quality. It honestly makes no sense.
This dude wrecked his company for changing the raffle rules.
it does acturally@@korosuke1788
@@korosuke1788 I see the entirety of your understanding of CEOs comes from Reddit.
@@korosuke1788 no one thing assures quality, though a lack of one or more will wheigh on the product.
Didn't recognize the guy in the thumbnail, but as soon as I saw *that* clip in the intro, I knew exactly what this was about
What's even better is JayzTwoCents built Kiapiaa a better built and spec'd out PC than anything Artesian Builds would have given her. Also there are hundreds of people's PCs that were sent in for RMAs that are locked up in the warehouses with people's personal info still on them, and no one really knows what is going to happen to them. Apparently one of the buyers of the lots is going to try and triage the RMAs in order to send them back to the people who owned them.
That's a really nice thing to do and I hope it's true
@@purplefood1 It's true. Kia did an opening video of the PC she got from Jay. Also, as I recall, EVGA hooked Jay up with a tone of the components for it. He drove out to their warehouse to pick up the components - did a video on that as well.
@@NomisSanguine Ah my bad I wasn't specific and I realise now there's a lot that could pertain to, I was mostly thinking of people who potentially were not able to get their PC back from AB though i've heard there was an attempt to return them I somehow feel they may not have tried that hard.
If you watch the stream with destiny and the artesian employees from like 2 days ago.. They state there was less than 5 repairs that didnt get to their owner. One of them stayed the day after the bankruptcy to send out as many as they could.. so no theres not tons sitting there, many just werent fixed and got sent back thanks to that employee
@@nwerd7584 is that true for both sites? Seems to me the east coast site might do that, but not the west coast. Also, you can see a lot of WIP builds in Gamers Nexus’ video.
I loved the ending, this is definitely a perfect example of "be careful what you wish for".
All he wanted was to be famous... and he got what he wanted. People will be talking about him and his company for a long, long, long time.
Infamous*
how long is a "long, long, long time." cos....
I bet its about a few months in reality. THis guy and his shitty story will vanish within months.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to become famous. Now, there is something wrong with selling your soul to achieve it.
Meh, I'll forget about him next week.
@@Mediados "There is nothing wrong with wanting to become famous"
It could easily be argued there is. Any kind of vanity or approval-seeking is easily picked apart. I can think of 10,000,000 better things one could dedicate their life to rather than the vapid pursuit of fame and vanity.
He thought he was being such a 'badass' when rejecting the winner😒😂
And by doing so, he violated many state laws regarding raffles and lotteries.
yeah he was like who fucking cares about this bitch...
intel: uhmmm
jayztwocents: u fucked up.
noah: what no she was a loser... she had no views.
i love how intel saw this and immediatly cut ties with them...
Lol he already thought he was being a ‘badass' wearing that dumbass jacket
@@thatHARVguy The wrath of butthurt twitchers is way more powerful a tool than minor state laws would ever be. Even if found guilty he'd get a small fine and be ordered to send the streamer one of his shitty PCs, and I think we all know how good quality that thing would be.
@@helvete983 yeah, specially those simps.
They lured me in as a creator by offering a "partnership" that would give steady compensation and give me tons of exposure from social media.
All I got was an affiliate code, a shoutout on Twitter and thrown into a group-chat with random streamers in Twitter.
Yeah I don't think you understood.
The 'partnership' is only relevant if YOU help THEM sell hardware, and lure more followers/subscribers to their social media channels...
They're not going to waste any time effort helping to 'grow' your channel, they're just hoping you're channel will get popular and will eventually bring them business!
I wish this was the worst kind of partnership deal out there.
But at least Artesian tried to make a profit by using shady business methods to sell actual products... there are "partners" that are 100% scams from the get go. For example the "not financial advice" - crowd.
Artesian got the shitstorm he deserved, sadly there are many many more "partners" out there that don't.
That sounded like a scam, so why would you believe them? If it is too good to be true, it is. I'm surprised you even got a shout-out to be honest with you.
@@tilasole3252 How did it sound like a scam? It’s literally the bare minimum that they offered and even then they couldn’t deliver. No where near sounding like a scam.
@@mochabearry [lured by offering a "partnership" that would give steady compensation and tons of exposure from social media.]
For basically free? You just do a few promos or something and magically everything works out alright? You do not get something for nothing. That sounds like a scam. A promise that was never intended to be kept.
The fact that I've watched and rewatched the gamers nexus videos is probably why the algorithm recommended this video. DAMN I'm glad it did. Loving your videos bud, instant sub.
Ego is a hell of a drug and the comedown can be so incredibly harsh.
Just too bad he didn’t OD
Ego and hubris go hand in hand.
The most disgusting thing is that all of the personal computer repair jobs will be stolen from people and that they actually stole thousands of pounds from an employee in a fraudulent charge back putting them in debt. It is all just vile and evil that they would be allowed to do either of those things.
Also anyone who had a personal computer sent in for repair or service but did not receive it back those have personal data on them. I would highly suggest anyone in this situation should contact local law enforcement where the warehouse is located and see if they cant get the items back. Afaik ownership does not transfer to the company during repair or service so it is theft at that point I would love to watch the police march into that warehouse and seize peoples machines to return to them. Its not like they dont know the location
@@mikeloeven Theft by conversion is a civil matter. Police won't be happy about people trying to waste their time.
@@Rainmotorsports I mean in general you’re right but there is no reason not to press a criminal fraud case, there’s a lot of smoke here that could easily be fire if forensic investigators are able to find documentation that they were intentionally deceitful on a criminal level
Just remember stories like this next time some you read about some petty crime being committed by a random poor person and people are calling for them to be executed.
It's always hilarious when people like Noah attempt to sound human. It's so creepily awkward, that it's almost "Zuckerberg-esque".
When Noah Katz started a sentence with "us hu'mans" you knew something was off.
Hello fellow humans, I'd like to be good friends with important people. I will make sushi, at my house, for the strangers who will be my friends.
Hard to believe Katz and Zuckerberg would have anything in common. What do you think it is, I wonder? Do they share those traits with people like Jared Kushner? Hmm. A lot to think about.
zuckerberg esque 🤓
@@Sara-bk3yi?
Love your videos. The young man will be just fine because he was playing with his parents money from the start. He has legally changed his name and ArtisanFutures (new name of company) is through bankruptcy process into auctioning assets. Don't kid yourself. He is chilling on a beach somewhere with a new legal identity.
It's insane how cocky some people get when they think nothing bad can happen to them, as if it being a decent person is only an obligation when it benefits them.
It’s scary like once u reach a certain level accountability goes away
Artesian really went the "how to ruin your company speedrun" route
Any% Bankruptcy Speedrun World Record
Bankruptcy%, glitchless
When you've dreamed about fame your whole life... you might make some awful discussions. In his case, that's an understatement.
Glitchless, No RNG manipulation, Single segment run
he wanted to be famous , he is even in Europe - typical us investor type character ,rely on other to to the job and take credit
I have heard this story a few times, but I'll gladly listen again. Really hope the customers involved get their PCs or money
as someone who bought a PC from them early in 2020, I'm at a loss since I was supposed to get 3 year parts warranty and customer service for at least 5 years. The only saving grace is that they shipped all of the boxes for individual parts so I guess I could RMA them if something were to happen
No way customers will get any real money or hardware. All that remains will be sold and all of the money will go to the ones who lend Artesian Builds the most money. That will probably be banks, vendors and investors (like his own family). So in the end that guy might even be able to get money out of his bankrupt company. But normal customers won't see a dime.
They need a go fund me, because all that PC money is going to the creditors. Karz owes a lot to ASUS and other creditors for the parts.
Not a chance in hell of that happening. The customers are always the last in line and by then their is nothing left.
Did you notice the part where there was 1.5 million in personal loans? Let that sink in, his fucking family will probably get whatever they can auction off the remaining stock for.
@@helvete983 yeah he used the company as a piggy bank and a play thing. He's criminally irresponsible at best.
It only he had a bit of humility and honored the raffle, they might still be in business. Helping the small guy is great PR.
They wouldn't though, they were losing money per sales because they were ran like crap and the pricing didn't reflect that.
Nope they were in the process of being closed down already.
If you actually watched the video you'll come to understand the raffle debacle is more like the final straw than the starting cracks
@@farhanatashiga3721 I did watch the video, back when this all blew up. Saying if he had more humility goes back before the raffle.
The PR disaster hastened the demise. If anything it stopped more people ordering from them and at least saved some people's money. But the situation they were in could only end one way and that was bankruptcy.
"... just tipped 360.00 Dollars"
i will never understand why some people give people with tons of money even more money, for free
Wow Kira, this was really good! I know little about gaming PCs/Twitch/Builds, but enjoyed this nonetheless. It's the mark if a good content creator.
In general, if you're doing something shady, don't bring attention to yourself, or more specifically, don't be needlessly cruel.
How about if you're doing something shady, DO bring attention to yourself and DO be needlessly cruel.
We need these kinds of fuckers to out themselves, you know? The less smart shady people, the better.
He clearly didn't think he was shady, he simply didn't know better. The guy was quite frankly an idiot, nothing more.
Don't give your enemy a gun and act surprised when they shoot you.
True thats how you make evil things
Otherwise known as, "How to kill your business with a single twitch stream"
-Video- Streaming killed the -radio- company star
Great video.
I was in the custom PC industry myself. The business really relied on cheap bulk orders to stay afloat. With the chip shortage as it is, I can't imagine a profitable model. This company was really banking on growth and struck out. I'm certain there's a lot of builders going under that didn't have a fraction of artesian builds' popularity.
It really sucks that our economy is so slanted against small businesses like this. God forbid you find a niche and fill it. Nope. It’s gotta be massive scale by well established monoliths to make a thin margin or nothing.
@@KhorneBrzrkr doesn’t help that when they go bankrupt they start auctioning off peoples PCs. At least a larger company I can be mostly sure this won’t happen, so why would I take the risk
@@pete5516 Yeah. People in general, and the legal system specifically, are very lazy. It would make more sense to do the right thing and return people's property. But time is money after all. So just do the quickest thing and get on to the next case.
@@KhorneBrzrkr The east coast office was widely successful finishing 90% of the orders and turning a decent profit throughout the company's history. It was run like a straight-up business with no nepotism and with a focus on churning out orders. The west coast office couldn't handle their orders and shipped them to the east coast branch to finish orders. The east coast branch had half the employees. The west coast branch was so mismanaged by the CEO that it was hemorrhaging money and brought down the massively successful east coast branch. The problem was 100% the CEO because his parents just gave him enough money to start a business. He never had to work hard or worry about going under. He never had to process orders or effectively organize the company. Hopefully, this is a wake-up call for him and he learns from his mistakes.
@@waymondboyd3755 You're right. It was entirely his fault. And that's usually how it goes. But him learning from his mistakes? Ha! The only thing he MIGHT learn is how to properly attribute every last failure to someone other than himself and leverage that to get more money for another company.
A similar business model as Nigel O’Hara ‘department store’ in Portadown, Northern Ireland, who spent years having a glamorous website listing 91,000 items - and didn’t supply anything to people who bought items from him. I was a victim of his, but through luck I paid for my purchases with PayPal, so I got my money back a few months before he declared bankruptcy. The reality was his ‘department store’ was a tiny jewellery shop on Portadown’s High Street.
A video on this scammer would be interesting!
Never trust anyone from Portadown. 😊
@@eamonwright7488
Sound advice. Portadown is a dump
Ive heard alot of ppl say that one stream killed the company. But it was just the last thing, there was so many things killing the company and it was almost gone already
I think their downfall was inevitable regardless since as you said they were losing money. The livestream exposing how much of a jackass the CEO is just sped up the process
@@ahmataevo reported for antisemetism. Just being a jew doesn't make you a jackass or vice versa. You justifying Hitler's actions?
@@ahmataevo Yeah that doesn't even make sense, the stereotype is us being business-savvy
@@XmarkedSpot ok pRedditor
@@XmarkedSpot The stereotype is that they are so greedy that they would let the world burn for a nickle
@@ahmataevo what does that even mean
I just loved they had a east and west coast branch, and they shipped the builds from the west to the east to "Fix them".
This happens a lot when the people running the business are either incompetent or don't care about standards. Boeing had the same thing with their new plants in the Carolinas. They were handing out bonuses for incompetent and incomplete work, and then shipping the planes to Everett for repair and completion. Mind you, this was years before their engineering incompetence led to planes literally crashing.
Expansion is hard, and more so when the new area is so far away from where you currently are located. The new location should have had a much smaller number of orders with much more oversight while the builders were learning how to perform and QA processes were improved. There will likely always be some degree of differences in terms of profitability and quality of work between different centers, but this is extreme.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade I think you kinda misread that. The branch in _North Carolina_ was the newer, "smaller" branch, yet it was by far the more competent of the two. The one that needed the oversight was the older, "larger" one in California, which was directly under Katz himself.
Even if I had been watching them at their peak, I would have found it pretty boring that they're building PCs for successful people. That to me is like gifting a car to Jake Paul.
To put that draw into perspective, it is analogous to having a lottery, stating that each ticket is an opportunity to win, putting all tickets into the raffle, then disqualifying the winning draw because they only bought one ticket.
"#funny" Lmao.
I am so glad for your channel growth Kira, deserved. Kinda bummed in the beginning as it was about crypto and such, but now it covers a wide variety of topics and it's just great. Hoping for more. Maybe at one point you can bring out your inner gimp and collab one day with Internet Historian.
Dude was briefly listed as the co-founder of some hipster lifestyle food company for a while after Artesian Builds, but now he's basically gone into online hiding changing his last name to Novik. (And may have changed it again after that, seems weirdly difficult to find anything considering a bankruptcy and tax evasion occurred).
If I had to guess he's eventually going to start another company in Canada or something, seems really into branding himself as a successful CEO.
Changing names? Damn.
We will be ready lol
What a trash weasel of a man.
Thank you Kira for adding your voice and visibility to this. Gamer’s Nexus has done a lot to investigate what happened and hopes to help get people their systems back, if the group managing the bankruptcy will cooperate. Making sure that predatory businesses like this are called out and shut down is how we fight this.
Let’s make sure that when Noah inevitably tries again to be famous, we all remind him, and anyone he’s trying to scam, why he’s famous.
Noah sounds like a PR team nightmare. I can only imagine what his actual PR team os going through when all of this happened.
Good job on the transitions in this video. The flow felt nice for my brain :)
I remember watching all this fall apart pretty much live, it was amazing to see.
It's incredible how quickly someone can tank their reputation into the ground. Great video!
It has truly been astonishing to see how many gaming companies and fellow-traveling PC makers have such shitty CEOs, with boards of directors and frequently the largest institutional shareholders being complicit in retaining these garbage people. No large institutional shareholders were involved with retaining Noah Katz at Artesian Builds, but in any case he should have been jettisoned from AB and then should have gone into a different career such as venom extraction, demolition preparation or unbridled con-artistry.
It's not really a surprise tbh. Almost every company has a shitty CEO who only cares about money (and in Noah's case, attention).
@@danialyousaf6456 Not Noah Katz in particular, but generally the number of shitty CEOs in the industry overall.
@@pianomanhere yeah
It was his company man, was he going to jettison himself? Do you know how business works?!
They built the company they can burn it down. Doesn't mean they're a bad CEO.
Its kinda wild to me that one single fail stream was the one thing that started their fall... like yeah they would fall at some point but not as fast as that... and all because of a 1k-2k pc that would be tax deducted on a multi million dollar company, that's nuts to me
Karma was in a real savage mood that day.
No one wants to be the first to shit talk something popular and well loved because fear of backlash. As soon as there’s a drop of blood in the water, one bad action that cannot be denied, it’s sharks to the slaughter. People could air their gripes without fear.
Tbf with this being a business I think it's more as described in the video, people were putting up with their streams because their favourite streamers were getting pcs from here as soon as they start shit talking streamers people don't have that leniency with them
I almost bought a new computer from them to work on my games, I'm glad I didn't. Wow...
I recently got defrauded by a “reputable” company who filed bankruptcy and is refusing to give refunds, yet they’re still taking orders. It’s sad there is no protection for us consumers while the wealthy business owners get to run away from their debt
Imagine having a good business but your own ego is the only thing that ruins it
Unfortunately that’s like 99.9% of all businesses and empires throughout history.
Egoistic behavior maybe save your life in the jungle, but not in modern life.
@@powerdude_dk I love this. Greedy, self involved behavior is a product of a less developed mind. Its good for bare bones survival, but not much else. Thsts why it appears to do so well in business, because its all about survival- until you realize most of that was luck or family money and once they are at the top it all falls apart. Theres a lesson to learn from all these failed ceo's, unfortunately, not enough people are learning it.
@@moronicalmeister yeah, never expend a business faster then you can build the underlying infrastructure.
walter white moment
My mans tried to be famous, and while doing so held a PC giveaway where the winner wasn't famous enough. Now he's bankrupt. Get rekt, nerdlord.
I think only the company bankrupted, the guy and his family will be fine, since they auction other people's stuff, for semi-cover the debt (starting with the family-loan for themselfes), then call it a day. Usually people don't lose any personal wealth in these cases, esp. with a good accountant+lawyer combo.
He did get famous, though. So that's nice, I guess?
@@oz_jones infamous*
@@AquaCoalaNest yes, they do, any debt these people sign in smaller companies like these usually come with written personal guarantees
@@AquaCoalaNest if it wasn't an LLC, it's now way easier for his personal stuff to be taken into account. Who knows at this point though
New law needs to be put in place to protect consumers of their purchased goods in cases like these. Like require companies to reimburse for unfulfilled orders AND ID tag the orders in-progress so that IF the company goes bankrupt, customers can get their stuff (...at least as-is).
Yeah, there needs to be a law for that stuff in basically every jurisdiction just to be save. Contact your local MP today and convince them to work on that.
@@wilmagregg3131 Artesian isn’t a repair service.
@@wilmagregg3131 they repaired the pcs that were under their warranty service. They didn’t repair anybody else’s pcs. No difference then buying a piece of shit pc from Dell and then sending it back to Dell to replace. They weren’t a pc repair shop.
With a 10% return rate you'd think customers would read reviews beforehand, Caveat emptor.
There are consumer protection laws but they can do bugger all if the company has no money and that includes shipping items back to the customer.
If the dude was in trouble for unpaid taxes, it goes taxman, then creditors, then customers and good luck ever changing that.
Hell, that clause about EVERYTHING being auctioned off should’ve BY DEFAULT had a clause stating that before selling, they are to check for PERSONAL, NON company Assets and promptly return them if possible.
The fact that it doesn’t honestly makes me wish the person who created the clause would either Die, or be executed for their inhumane thinking.
Love your videos, Kira you really know how to describe things to fit the situation
@3:24 Well... Hello there, happy merchant!
Glad youre feeling well enough to pour content onto us my friend!
There should be a law that regulates that in case of a bankruptcy customers should get paid first.
That would also have the benefit of partners more closely monitoring the companys they loan money to.
Absolutely but I am pretty sure US law always benefits the company first and the individual second
They have to pay investors first
The worst thing is the personal family loans will be paid back way before any customer gets a cent.
I believe who gets paid first depends on what type of bankruptcy is filed
Keep your eyes on Overkill Computers, they are showing some of the same poor management issues and poor legal advice as Artesian and might implode as well.
“Greed, narcissism, and arrogance” the perfect description for many content creators on UA-cam, present company excluded.
Last year I was looking for a custom PC, and looked up a couple independent builders, a couple local companies, and then heard about AB from Suris, subsequently deciding to check them out. I'm budget conscious first, so I never got past the initial quote. It was almost 1.5 times the price of the company I ended up going through, noped out of there so fast! When I found out about all of this I was so glad I never purchased from them
Really hope the owners who bought their builds or sent them in for repair could prevent their property being auctioned off to clear Artesian's debts.
I would expect that stuff in for repair should be labeled with it's owner and thus wouldn't be counted amongst their assest.
@@scragar it is counted though. that is part of the lawsuits
@@scragar From what it's been reported the West Coast shop was an absolute trash fire while the East Coast shop worked their butts off to get orders out before the final closure. Sadly I don't think records were as meticulously kept but I would be of course happy to be proven wrong
I'd expect that the credit card companies will be picking up a bunch of the bill on this and going after Noah and whomever else is a shareholder to the extent that they can. But, ultimately, a lot of people will be out serious cash, and the rest of it will likely come from the funds that credit cards set aside for such things. At least for the warranty work, often times credit card companies will provide warranty enhancements as part of their services to encourage people to spend.
From what I understood it's kinda reverse in the US law. To be a legal marketing giveaway and not illegal lottery there should be no "consideration" (substantial payment in money or in kind just for entering.) Katz admitting live it's about participants "earning him money" (and other stuff) make it sound very much like the second case...
It's honestly seems like Noah wanted to be Linus Sebastian without the years of hard work or charisma. People like Tech Influencers like Linus, Marques, and Dave 2D because they're all passionate about tech first and influencers second.
Except if they promote paid scams, like Linus, don't know about the others.
12:10 Okay now that's just good ol' ponzi
Its always fun to check in on early life and family of people like Noah, interesting what you can find.
Lol changing his name. This reminds me of a wise quote I heard once upon a time. "You only ever get one name... use it wisely." - Or apparently, you'll end up needing to change it
"Change your name, they said. It would be easy, they said."
Koah Natz
Just one look at that guy's smug-ass face tells me all I need to know about his integrity.
All it takes, is one person with way to big visions or way too much self appreciation.
I feel sad for the employees.
Not only did they have to put up with Noah's ego and behavior, they were also the ones facing the customers on a daily basis and ate now the ones having to look for a new way to support themselves by finding a new job.
You got me with the SunnyV2 style thumbnail, I'll give you credit. You seem comparable though, so I'll sub.
In the 90s in the UK. The CEO of a major high street jewelers was asked "how is your jewelry so cheap?". He responded "because its cheap crap".
About 2 weeks later his company had lost £500 mil.
Should be a leaderboard, im sure artesian would be top 3 of all time.
H Samuel?
@@johnennis4586 are they still going?
The company was ratners. Bizzare quote that lost him his entire chain of high st shops.
That’s a famous story. Everyone should learn about that one.
@@stevens1041 dwarfed compared to bud light 🤣🤣🤣...
Although bud light is still up n running. Ratners went RIP straight away ...
Artesian Builds had 2 HQ's, west and east. West HQ (where this CEO was) were capable of buiding 2-3 PC's per day, while East HQ was building 10-15 PC's per day with the same number of employees. And also guality of West HQ builds was horrifying... West HQ had return rate of 10% of all PC's shipped, while East HQ had return rate of less than 0.2%. And all those PC's that were built for big streamers live on Twich in West HQ where shipped to East HQ, where they rewired whole system, beacuse West HQ's cable management was so horrible that those PC's had to be shipped to East HQ for repairs before they could be shipped to big Twitch streamers. Without East HQ, this company would be already gonne long time ago...
Cant wait for the summoning salt video of this category
Great video Kira. Thanks for documenting this into the yt platform forever.
Yeah i saw a comment from him where he said the extra bit of work doing an outro doesnt translate to more money so its not worth him doing it
3:19 The clear look of a guy who's just begging for his company to be flushed down the toilet.
High marks for your presentation and reporting. Really great stuff.
My ONLY complaint is that the abrupt ending without a sign off that goes to commercial then is over is a bit disorienting. Would love for you have some kind of sign-off so my brain doesn’t feel like it glitched.
Anyway, that one thing aside, great channel. Been subbed for a long time.
Similar but different to Chronicles of Elyria, with it's crowdfunding advertised to develop a game, but instead it was all just used for marketing, later on confessing that it was decided at the beginning of Kickstarters to use all funds to gain official investors and publishers, lying to the private investors aka the people who crowdfunded.
At this point I'd welcome a gaming regulatory body that helps avoid these unwanted outcomes, especially when there was no intent to scam and simply stupid scheming to success.
I've been following the story on Gamers Nexus from the original announcement. It's been such a shitshow.
The more eyeballs that get on this story, the better. Noah Katz destroyed the whole thing.
It's fine that he wanted to be at the forefront of his business, and he would have done fine if that were the only gripe. It's everything else he did that kinda... messed everything up.
0:54 I would also add that, as new models and technologies are coming out all the time, computer components spoil like food (which also has low margin), so you have little leverage to hold out for a good margin.
I just went to look up what the term "dumpster fire" meant. Just as I anticipated... there is a picture of Noah Katz... "See Artesian Builds for an example"
Lmao
I heard about Artesian Builds during the whole debacle but not with this level of detail. Thank you for your video!
Watch GamersNexus' video. It's got some good stuff too.
@@hop-skip-ouch8798 Thanks, I will.
I have a few theories on the "threshold" way of rejecting winners and how badly it was handled.
1. Maybe someone did tell Noah or he was somehow aware that he could stipulate the qualifying social media metrics prior to the giveaways, but Noah wanted the ability to say it was open to all ambassadors, that way gullible streamers keep signing up to AB's shitty ambassador program and become free billboards.
2. Because AB was literally accepting anyone to maximize marketing, the ambassador program was too big to manage, and it would take too much time to check who didn't qualify and remove those from the list before the giveaways. Remember they did have previously stated qualifications some did not meet, i.e., not having AB panels/overlays on the streamers' channels, but add to this having to check social media metrics for possibly hundreds or thousands of people, and do it every month. There's no way Noah had enough people assigned to this, if he had anyone doing it at all.
3. I'm giving Noah too much credit, he wasn't even thinking, and was just winging it. He ignored any complaints in chat, while noticing the people who enjoyed the spectacle, feeling the power of a king slighting his peasants. See the victorious fist pump when saying "there's the reroll". He was just a clueless dick.
Wait is this the guy who wouldn't fulfill winners because they weren't big enough?
yes.
That was the spark that triggered the sudden collapse. But, as noted, they were effectively operating while insolvent, which is a pretty big deal. This could just as easily have happened when one of their creditors called a loan. I'm guessing that they were so poorly run that they couldn't secure a bridge loan to cover the costs of finishing the work that they promised and moving forward. That is, assuming they were even thinking that far forward.
I remember watching their last building stream they did with Ramee. They got over 5k gifted subs throughout that stream to "upgrade" his pc. Then like 2 days laters shit hit the fan and it was all over. Like a week or so later there was a pic of Ramee's pc in the listed bankruptcy liqiudation auctions.
So? Lease a car and it can be repossessed. Own your own equipment
I knew a lot of this train wreck, but I never heard about the push for Twitch subs. Goes beyond slimy and hits cringe level 6.
When are you making Kirtesian Builds? Heard if you market to the crypto bros you can make big bux! Good luck man!
That's exactly why I went with a giant mainstream pc building company in my country. Yeah you only get standard stuff but hell if I'm gonna spend that amount of money on something I prefer standard but reliable giant company and with a good returns/support system over the risk of "Hey we can do something cool and fancy, but we're also pretty small and if anything happens we're gone and you're money is gone."
When I got my new rig two years ago, I opted in for the building service the seller offered. I could do it myself, but if I can pay the dudes 80 euros for the convenience, I'll gladly fork over the cash. Especially when its only a fraction of the cost.
@@oz_jones especially because if they fuck it up, so what, they have to fix it. If you find something not working when you get it, so what, they have to fix it. If you build it and you do accidentally damage something, well, fuck your wallet
Custom PC building as a business seems like a relic of the 90s. Anybody can DIY. Especially in the UA-cam age
Well you've earned yourself a sub today.
Frikken great coverage.
I wanted to start a PC building company, way back in 2005. I called it Demon Built. I had some badass builds but the margins were very small. It makes me feel good that even a big company with millions of dollars failed too. haha.
That sounds like an awesome company name. What happened with your business?
It just faded away. Thanks for liking the name. @@folkloreofbeing
@@jkotarsky I know how you feel. I tried selling books for a while. Margins on books are practically paper thin, too.
Still, ove the name. Maybe one day I'll get to by a demon built PC 🙂
Thought this was a Sunnyv2 video from the thumbnail
You and jackfrags, live in the same county.
"Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall"
Before watching I had the idea that this guy inherited the company then immediately proceeded to burn it to the ground. The fact that he could achieve success is much more damning when he destroyed it just for his own sins.
There were some employees that stayed until it closed trying to finish builds and ship em out. If they would've had another owner it would've been a good company. He was getting employees to buy parts and after he paid him, he would get paypal to refund screwing over the guy buying the parts. These are parts that costed anywhere from 600-1500 dollars. He would also do that to customer trying to get a refund. Just a horrible greedy man.
I'm so glad Discount Star Lord lost his business. He had some great ideas of how to grow a business but should have stayed off-screen because It's getting pretty easy to spot a narcissist these days.
not hating, love you kira i often rewatch your crytoland reaction vids, but this thumbnail is incredibly similair to sunnyv2's
Great vid bro. Glad I never made the order from then I was considering
It's kinda funny. I had never heard of this company until this fiasco. Now I've seen at least 10 youtube videos talking about their fall.
Fame is truly an infection to the human soul and Noah Katz is a case study of this.
Asking, even requiring a streamer to host the live building of their own PC as part of the price thereof sounds reasonable, IMHO. It costs the streamer little, while providing invaluable targeted advertisement for the builder. A win/win if you ask me.
The scummyness only comes in with the alleged guilt-tripping/blackmailing for subs. If they want to do something like a sub goal for upgrades or deduct the value of subs from the price the streamer must play, fine, but it really needs to be done above-board.
How could someone at the top of a company, be so incapable of running it
Daddy's money.
I don't know why everyone assumes that a person in charge of a company automatically has to be smart or capable. There's a reason most companies that get big end up having a board of directors and it's because all you need to start a business is enough capital to get it off the ground. Hire the right people to run it for you and you're set. It's the CEOs that insist on getting involved despite dubious knowledge that bring this fact to light the fastest.
Thats weird cause I have a friend who won one of those ambassador giveaways and he was under 1k followers. They still sent him the pc no issues. Seems like there was more then analytics contributing to it.
I thought the guy on the thumbnail was Adam Kovic from Funhaus/Roosterteeth lol
Anyone else thought this was a SunnyV2 video because of the thumbnail?
Yeah, must be deliberate