An old clip of Gabe Newell has gone viral online as today's viewers, suffering through an era of enshittification and widespread tech layoffs, nod along with the Valve chief's sermon on private ownership and prioritizing employees. Meanwhile, Valve itself enjoys per-employee profits that embarrass the likes of Microsoft and Meta, companies responsible for heaps of the layoffs in recent years.
This clip comes from YouTube channel WebKnower, which, for months, has existed primarily to post short videos of Linux godfather Linus Torvalds but has seemingly pivoted to Newell content with a push from the YouTube algorithm. The channel's latest Newell chat, "Gabe Newell Explains Why Valve Never Went Public," is already its most-viewed video with 1.3 million views after four days.
Newell's comments were pulled from a January 2013 lecture at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas. That talk, a full 62 minutes long, saw Newell discuss "Productivity, Economics, Political Institutions & The Future of Corporations," as the video description put it at the time.
As is often the case with these new-again Newell snippets – like the story of him telling Portal writer Erik Wolpaw to "get better" instead of resigning amidst a health crisis – the full story lies outside the viral segment.
This discussion focuses on Valve's priorities as a company and how these made it a natural fit for private ownership rather than public trading. Much of this flies in the face of some conventional cost-cutting wisdom which is still followed today, especially at large tech and game companies.
For example, Newell mentions "there was a big thing a couple of years ago where everybody was trying to hire low-cost content producers in India and China." He says Valve was "trying to do the opposite."
"If somebody working on a feature film production in New Zealand is making $200,000 a year, if they come to Valve they should be making $500,000 or $5 million, creating that much value," Newell continues.
هەفتانە هەرسکردنەکان، چیرۆکەکانی ئەو کۆمەڵگایانەی کە خۆشت دەوێن و زۆر شتی تر
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/the-internets-new-obsession-gabe-newell-explaining-why-valve-defied-big-tech-by-staying-a-private-company-and-hiring-the-most-expensive-talent
