We have recently reported that Leo Laporte and TWiT CEO Lisa Kentzell in a fit of rage have ordered immediate removal of all content made by Tom Merritt, Brian Brushwood and Justin Robert Young from the internet. During yesterday’s The Tech Guy show Leo showed his GMail account. The main story from that screenshot was apparent planning of firing Shannon Morse, but there was also another conversation visible. There Patrick Delahanty reports back to Lisa Kentzell saying “Hi Lisa, Knowing that you wanted the files inaccessible ASAP, I renamed the directories because…” She responds with “Thanks Patrick, I figured this out after talking to Bear. With all the chaos going on I wanted to be…”
Today, there we have two new developments. First, Leo showed us his GMail again:
Here we can see another email from Lisa Kentzell reporting that “cachefly deletes are now complete.” This was so urgent, they made people work over the weekend to remove all traces of the hosts they have banned from the network.
The other development is that the dissent seems to be harder to contain, even in heavily controlled #twitlive chatroom. After several question about the removal of NSFW from the twit.tv website, Leo Laporte went there to try to explain
12:10 <~Leo> yeah cache fly has complained about the amount of storage we're using 12:10 <~Leo> we''Leo Laporte be deleting other old show
I guess ll got autoreplaced with Leo Laporte in the second line there so it likely should have read: “we’ll be deleting other old show.”
It’s probably the embarrassment of having acted so petty, that is forcing Mr Laporte to be caught in another lie. Surely, the removal of NSFW, Frame Rate, Tech History Today and others from YouTube wasn’t caused by Google emailing their concerns about disk space. And lets not forget that Cachefly, long time TWiT sponsor, would not be to happy with Leo claiming their product can’t handle large quantity of data. Caching huge amount of data is their core business.
The lesson that a content creator associated with TWiT should learn here is: backup your content now! Your work might be deleted at any moment. Even if you are on best terms with TWiT they might delete your show, just to justify their vindictive purge as “removing old shows” due to “disk space shortage”.
Leo’s Mind: “Who gives a shit about Dr. Kiki or that Maxewll guy or even my own daughter. They can all go to hell because we’re deleting their shows!”
CacheFly should pull their support for Leo but as long as they get money, who are they to complain.
K.C.» Quote comment
He deleted the shows from YouTube too. I guess Y/T has room for 84 billion cat videos but not Framerate. Y/T must have picked TWiT as the only content they do not have room for on the exact same day that Cachefly ran out of room. Amazing.
This is just getting sad and painful to watch. I don’t know how the people in TWiT live accept this. Is there a pill you can take that makes you believe him?
Richard Yes» Quote comment
I think nostalgia for TechTV helps the medicine go down.
K.C.» Quote comment
As a reformed drinker of the Kool-aid I would like to give you some insight to what changed. I was a avid viewer of TWiT up until January when the schedule changed. I had even spent hours driving to visit the Brickhouse on my vacation last year. JammerB was an great host, Alex was cool about answering questions and everyone else was nice. My first impression of Leo in person was mixed at best. He showed up at the last minute for The Tech Guy show and was pissed off, ranting about something in the studio. It wasn’t until the break when he chatted with us that he seemed “normal”. I had even planned to return there this year.
December: Tom leaves, Iyaz leaves, new schedule coming at the start of the year.
Schedule: Fine, you want two days off in a row. Good. The shows on the other hand…not so much. Frame Rate was gone, Ipad today and Gizwiz co-hosted by Chad. Umm no. I would rather chew on aluminum foil. He might be a nice person but as a host, I can’t stand him. Then NSFW left. The last show I watched (and the only one I didn’t watch live). My viewing of twit went down to almost nothing at that point. I saw what they did to the social hour, that was just sad, “Oh yeah, last show, laters”
Last week: The Night Attack Situation. Twit can ban who ever they want. It’s their “station”. Whatever. But then going down the road they did and deleting everything. What a load of festering horseshit. Cachefly, maybe. Youtube: no excuse. No defense for that other than you want to hurt someone how every you can. Leo is bitter, Lisa is spiteful. My only hope is that karma will visit them sooner than later.
Reformed_Koolaid_Drinker» Quote comment
We are Karma, and we will visit them very soon. 😉
K.C.» Quote comment
Actually Cachefly did complain about the amount of storage. They said that since January 1st they have been forced to store so much biased drivel with Tech News Today and that the content is utter crap, is never downloaded and just sits there taking up space.
Unfortunately, #FatBoyFat #Soup has completely misunderstood their concern and chosen to delete the most accessed files and just to have parity they have deleted them from YouTube as well.
I am absolutely disgusted with not only the lying that has taken place but by the malicious manner that these acts have been carried out. I am glad now that I did get Game On, I am sure that it will be eradicated in the same way so that we can have the TWiT Morning Comedy show TNT, with the grimacing gremlin and his rotating selection of “Yes-Men” (That includes the Women I wasn’t being sexist).
It is strange that after the Don Resinger (sorry if I spelt it wrong) exuberance and outbursts just disappeared, I believe he contradicted Mike Elgan and was quickly sent off and has never been from since (Another Silent Ban). Then another that decided that the only way out was to go and find a non-tech job and use that as a reason to no longer be a guest host.
I wonder if the actual list of silent ban people will ever be available, I am sure that it is a long long list.
Burntheadbob» Quote comment
First, let me say that I’ve been reading many posts and have followed an interesting Twitter account for a long time now, but this is my first post.
Up front, I will say that I understand the sarcastic posts, but I want to add my voice to the circle of friends who prefer factual information forged from L&L’s own deeds versus some artsy interpretation.
That said, there is one great component TWiT has lost and will never recover – interesting content.
I remember the early days at the cottage when Leo was building something. He had drive. He had energy and he was (or seemed to be) fully invested. He built an early buzz and energy.
He built a network that needed a new home, so he built the house of bricks. I remember seeing his wife stop by and thought she was classy and wonderful to give Leo his space to pursue his dream.
Leo built an audience and I was happy to help out in the chat room and be part of his brain because I believed I was building something great, too. I didn’t do it, but I almost bought a brick thinking it would be very symbolic.
But something either went wrong or perhaps I was too caught up in being involved in the moment, but now the moment has passed.
Leo no longer builds.
The truth of it is that he became complacent, mismanaged and mean-spirited. He’s striking out at the wrong people. He’s not building, but destroying what’s been created and trying to hurt those who helped create it.
The IRC chat is an extension of that. Dan is the main offender. He’s a person who feels slighted by the world and not comfortable in his own skin and, thus, reacts blindly.
I used to check in with Leo during my free time just to see what the network was building and watch it unfold live. Now, I refresh this website instead.
It’s a whole new world. Leo could have been a mover and shaker and had the cohosts to help. Now he’s spending most of his time doing damage control and trying to lick his wounds.
It’s just unfortunate. Despite all of his talent, his personality can’t seem to let others help him build.
I will continue to watch it unfold, but not with any glee, but with a certain curiosity. What will have to happen before Leo makes the connection? He’s a builder at heart, but he’s walking a destructive path.
Mookie» Quote comment
I’ll just +1 that as you’re said pretty much my thoughts exactly. Such a shame.
SpringRubber» Quote comment
I think there’s a huge wad of “cognitive dissonance” clogging the heart of TWiT.
LL often states that he saw TWiT as a”clubhouse;” a place he created to interact with people he liked. This clubhouse ideal has morphed into a “network” — a money making bizniz where sponsors and show ratings matter most.
I think this is the source of tension & frustration at TWiT. You have a CEO who is acting like a CEO in that her main concern is having the company turn a profit — and LL still wanting to have his pals over to play, but being forced to wear a suit and get the money rolling in.
He also sees it as a retirement fund, but I highly doubt TWiT has any chance of continuing without him. Two people – IMHO – that could replace him, that have the talent & knowledge & personality are Marques Brownlee & Jolie O’Dell. Give them a a big piece of the pie & stay out of their way.
A Guy in Glendale» Quote comment
#soup needs to be very very careful. They’re employment practices seem to be atrocious and borderline criminal / discriminatory, in my opinion, based on my many hours of viewership. Some they can get away with because they hire people as “contractors”, however in the case of SL, I’ve seen clear evidence while watching live she could, in my opinion, have a very strong harassment case.
In the end I think they’re going to make a very big mistake. As a creative in the real world that works with other creatives I can tell you the most important part of success is to leave the creating in the hands of the creatives, not the CEO. Let the CEO run the business side and not the creative side. Once the business side begins making creative decisions is when everything turns into crap, quality drops, moral drops. When it gets to the point where the business side is making the creative decisions based on bottom lines, it’s over. It might take a while, but it’s over. The business side needs to simply say is how much of a budget they have for new content. Then have a system to test the new content. Give the creatives a budget and let them make the content ideas, don’t allow the budget maker make the creative ideas. I’ve seen it happen too many times with small creative businesses.
This is why in ad / marketing firms the account managers don’t do the graphic design work if they want to stay successful. One person for managing the accounts, one for the visual work.
Disappointed» Quote comment