Gabe Newell: Reflections of a Video Game Maker

What Hacker News said

Recommends MakingOfGames · 2014-05 · on “Valve’s Design Process For Creating Half-Life (1999)”

If you like this type of content, check out the Reddit subforum [LINK] , which covers behind the scenes footage and 'making of' material for video games. There's an alphabetical listing of all submissions that you can use to search for a particular title. [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: [this video] A good article during the final hours of Half-Life 2 development is this one written by Ge

Recommends teamonkey · 2015-03 · on “Ending the open office epidemic”

One of my favourite anecdotes about open offices is 22m in to this video[1], 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] [this video]

Cites paragraft · 2013-02 · 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 [this video] Rather he was talking generically about employees getting paid something that reflects the value they bring.

Cites acgourley · 2013-07 · 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] [this video]

Cites mbesto · 2014-04 · 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

Cites mbesto · 2014-12 · on “How to Be an Expert in a Changing World”

There's a subtle theme in this essay which describes the thought process of how YC (well pg specifically) selects teams for YC. Perhaps in a way, bringing clarity to what is generally seen as a non-scientific and highly complex line of reasoning for hiring and selecting talent with very little limited context. However, I still don't feel like I've still fully grokked it. > Within Y Combinator, when an idea is described as crazy, it's a compliment—in fact, on average probably a higher compliment than when an idea is described as good. Yet, outside 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,

Cites demonshreder · 2016-07 · 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. [this video]

Cites zamalek · 2017-01 · on “Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?”

According to Newell[1], 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]: [this video]