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Gabe Newell: Reflections of a Video Game Maker

The LBJ School

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  • Recommended by 2 people: 2 on Hacker News.
  • Presented by Gabe Newell, founder of Valve
  • May be out of date. Uploaded 13 years ago, in an area where tools change fast.

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918K views13 years ago2 recommendations

Careers and interviewsGame developmentEngineering managementGame programmingCode review and teamwork

Gabe Newell discusses Valve's flat organizational structure, compensation models, hiring practices, and the economics of the video game industry.

Gabe Newell, founder of Valve Corp. On Productivity, Economics, Political Institutions & The Future of Corporations: Reflections of a Video Game Maker. Special thanks to LBJ School Professor James Galbraith, LBJ School Visiting Scholar Yanis Varoufakis, the Center for Politics and Governance (CPG) and CPG Director Sherri Greenberg for making this event possible. Additional Thanks to Brian Boyko for the Video Feed.

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2 people recommend this

What people say. Highly recommended for its insights into Valve's unique flat organizational structure, hiring philosophy, and open-office dynamics.

MakingOfGameson Hacker News • Recommends

On “Valve’s Design Process For Creating Half-Life (1999)”

…le. link Press CTRL-F on that page and try searching for your favorite game. Searching for 'Valve' will lead you to the numerous developer commentaries that Valve has included in their games, similar to cast commentaries on DVDs. Valve founder Gabe Newell gave a talk about productivity, economics and corporations that you might find of interest: link to this video A good article during the final hours of Half-Life 2 development is this one written by Geoff Keighley: link…
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teamonkeyon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ending the open office epidemic”

One of my favourite anecdotes about open offices is 22m in to this video1, where Gabe Newell of Valve talks about his desire to have one office per person and how it didn't work out in practice. Bonus: he mentions Peopleware. 1 link to this video
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paragrafton Hacker News • Mentions

On “How Valve hires, how it fires, and how much it pays ”

There was a talk recently Gabe gave a university, where he was sort of talk generically about how Valve compensates, and the figure of half a million was mentioned for a hypothetical hire from Weta. That's the closest to a number from Valve I've heard. Edit: found the talk and the moment, and it wasn't quite as I remember link to this video Rather he was talking generically about employees getting paid something that reflects the value they bring.
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acgourleyon Hacker News • Mentions

On “The Reddit sleuths who brought down a meme empire”

The point that I make to people of your generation is that you can't lie to reddit. It's remarkable how many people try, but they don't understand that reddit's ability to detect bullshit is insanely high. Gabe Newell Reflections of a Video Game Maker 1 1 link to this video
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mbestoon Hacker News • Mentions

On “The value of an engineering degree”

> This is corporate bullshit I spent 4 years at the largest business software company in the world and have spent 3 years on and off in very small (3 employee) startups. I would presume my bullshit meter is fairly well tuned. > you've fallen for it. I haven't. I tried finding a technical co-founder that didn't cost me an arm and leg, and it's taken me 6 years to do so. (YMMV) > This is an architect. And this position should be paid significantly more than an engineer. This is laughable. I've seen more architects in my day than most people have seen sales people. Just type in "SAP Architect" on any job search and compare it to the number you get for "Rails Architect". Architects are the bulls…
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mbestoon Hacker News • Mentions

On “How to Be an Expert in a Changing World”

…tside the walls of YC, sounding crazy means you don't get in. > But we could tell the founders were earnest, energetic, and independent-minded. (Indeed, almost pathologically so.) How is it possible to discern this in a YC application? This is all reminiscent of the talk Gabe Newell, CEO and founder of Valve, gave on the hiring practices at Valve. link to this video Here he mentions the following: (paraphrased) "One of the first programmers of the company was the manager of a waffle house. He was one of the most and still one of the most creative people in the industry" So what made them take the risk? What makes Valve turn away every waffle house manager that applies today? What made YC take the risk…
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demonshrederon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]”

> As another aside I do not think there is causal evidence that Valve became successful because of these ideals. On the contrary they seem like the result of success. In the following link, Gabe Newell explains some of ideas behind how Valve works. He argues that the way Valve works has been a conscious decision based on his experiences while working at Microsoft and interacting with other companies at that time. link to this video
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zamalekon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?”

According to Newell1, Valve aggressively fires as it hires. It's not based on stack-ranking bullshit - more of a cultural and disciplinary fit. If you have the right personality you could thrive there, but if you need a manager to help you shine it's best to look elsewhere. 1: link to this video
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