[nozzlegear]

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.

[AngryData]

And what about when Gabe is gone? Because he is certainly the exception and not the standard for ultra wealthy capitalists.

[SlightlyLeftPad]

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.

[nozzlegear]

I'd propose we make more people like Gabe Newell then, which doesn't happen by removing capitalism from the equation.

[SlightlyLeftPad]

I think I’m sorta a cool guy, can you make me a billionaire?

[Folcon]

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