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by idiotsecant 59 days ago
I feel like every large public corporation inevitably turns into a rent seeking parasite. How do we build a system that has more calves and fewer blizzards? How do we incentivize that?
5 comments

You gotta give capitalist first principles and ideals and policies the boot. When you can use money to buy anything and earn money without practical limits, gaining access to more and more capital at any and all costs, even at the cost of everybody else's life and freedom and rights, is the natural result.
Valve is very much a capitalist company though. Gabe Newell is a billionaire, he owns six yachts, and Valve practically invented the concept of the loot box. So if the question is "how do we get more Valves and fewer Blizzards," it doesn't seem clear to me how giving capitalism the boot helps.
And what about when Gabe is gone? Because he is certainly the exception and not the standard for ultra wealthy capitalists.
It can be done if the culture is deeply deeply rooted in long tenured employees. I think of Apple, while an imperfect example, I feel like Steve jobs would be happy with where they are right now culturally. Obviously, he doesn’t deserve all the credit having had a large team of people but he largely drove a strong intentional culture as a leader and he carefully selected and fostered other leaders who would carry it forward.
I'd propose we make more people like Gabe Newell then, which doesn't happen by removing capitalism from the equation.
I think I’m sorta a cool guy, can you make me a billionaire?
Honestly I'm not sure, but I suspect it's because for Gabe, Valve is his iterated prisoners dilemma

He's got to take care of it or no more yachts

Though part of it just might be helpful knows and respects hit market, at least well enough to understand them, I vaguely recall he left Microsoft to start a game company after seeing how much people fell head over heels with games and thinking there was value there

That's why you'd never see a company like Valve in a capitalist system... wait...
Valve is literally the capitalist utopia, they have pretty much unlimited money for their size and can spend it on anything they want.
Stop buying/playing AAA games.

Support indie devs, and indie publishers, with your money.

And don't forget open source games. Before going for the indies, I'd suggest downloading and winning all the available major open source roguelikes. And after that, start creating mods/patches for those. Once you're done with that - and not too old of age - maybe think about spending some money on games again.
If this is rent-seeking, it presumably makes them less money than being thoughtful and well-liked would.
More calves less cylcles!
Don't skip leg day!
No more billionaires.
I am ok with billionaires that provide some multiple of billions of dollars worth of value to society. I use steam all the time, it's pretty consumer friendly, and it gives me a lot of relaxation. I'm good with him having a lot of money.
Gabe Newell is literally a billionaire.
And Buzz Aldrin was an alcoholic, doesn't mean preventing alcoholism is bad for society.

This whole thread is pointing out Valve is the _exception_.