Wirecutter CEO Sells Top Reviews for Kickbacks (2014)
It&#x27;s worth clarifying that this is from 2014&#x2F;15. The New York Times bought Wirecutter in 2016, and Lam isn&#x27;t CEO any more.<p>The site doesn&#x27;t hide that it makes money from affiliate links:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thewirecutter.com&#x2F;about&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thewirecutter.com&#x2F;about&#x2F;</a><p>FWIW, the XDesk post mentions The Wirecutter&#x27;s response to their initial post, but doesn&#x27;t link to it. That response is here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thewirecutter.com&#x2F;our-response-to-nextdesk&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thewirecutter.com&#x2F;our-response-to-nextdesk&#x2F;</a><p>They suggest the Wirecutter refused to review their desk (though the e-mails don&#x27;t seem to actually say that?):<p>&gt; We offered a review desk to your CEO and the response was basically “pay us a kickback”. So, the only NextDesk you’ve ever reviewed was our original model that is now 4 years old (2-3 versions ago)<p>When the current standing desk review page (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thewirecutter.com&#x2F;reviews&#x2F;best-standing-desk&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thewirecutter.com&#x2F;reviews&#x2F;best-standing-desk&#x2F;</a>) features the &quot;Terra 2&quot;, which appears to be the exact same desk XDesk&#x27;s own site is promoting. And the page states:<p>&gt; Xdesk did not return multiple requests for comment on our impressions.