The Early Days of Valve from a Woman Inside
medium.com
medium.com
> I had another conversation with Microsoft execs about my role and the conflict with Valve, and again I was essentially told, “it’s fine, we’re OK, we like where you’re at, don’t worry.”
WOW!
https://www.techradar.com/news/almost-37-years-after-its-lau...
Out of all tech companies I’ve seen, their moonlighting policy is by far the most permissible one. You fill out a short form, they review it fairly quickly, and then you get an official “you are good to go, this is your project, we aren’t going to have any claims against in the future”email.
I am yet to see anyone who got a rejection on that form (but I also don’t know anyone who would attempt to send the form for their personal project that would be a blatantly direct and significant competitor of a big moneymaker MSFT product).
In this case they were wrong, but could anyone have known?
Basically, at this point MS already had an understanding what games are a great driver for selling both the OS and apps, but the game market itself was too small to bother with more than being a publisher:
>> In the United States, Age of Empires debuted at #7 on PC Data's computer game sales rankings for October 1997.[36] It secured places eighth and 13th the following two months, respectively.[37][38] By the end of 1997, Age of Empires totaled sales in the country above 178,000 units, for revenues in excess of $8 million. This performance made it the United States' most successful real-time strategy game during late 1997: a writer for PC Gamer US noted that its sales surpassed the combined totals of rivals Total Annihilation and Dark Reign over the same period, and were over four times greater than those of Myth: The Fallen Lords.[39]
Sure, AoE was a great success eventually ($120M revenue, by 2000) but it was a hit which surpassed many, many other games and but it took a lot of time; while this was still a summer of '97.
I think it sounds like they were remarkably accommodating. I doubt you'd find many companies these days that would grant the same sort of deal.
I think many people believe this, but how do they know? There are ~7 billion people on the planet. You mean to tell me that only a "handful" are capable of doing a particular job? And not even "CEO of billion dollar company" but "Director of a 200 person org who attends meetings and makes decisions." Really? Only a "handful" of the 7 billion people on earth can do this?
There's only so much room at the top, and you need to spend time near the top to get everything else. Truth is, the everything else is a big part of the package.
I truly believe I could do the job of my grand-boss 4 levels above me on the totem pole, and so could most of my peers. The reason I'm (or someone else is) not there comes down to things like timing, luck, who got where first, and just the reality that one person already being in that SVP position simply blocks everyone else from being there. I really think that a large number of leaf-node employees are massively under-employed compared to what they are capable of. I guess it's kind of a reverse-impostor syndrome.
> I’d worked for Microsoft for nine years by then. My career was in high gear. A year earlier I’d been honored with the Market Maker award as the marketer who “added the most to the (1600+-person) Consumer Division’s bottom line.”
Her contributions were major to be sure, and I don't mean to downplay her efforts towards Valve's success. But by necessity, the machinery of marketing needs to be mostly invisible, because the manipulation doesn't work when people are conscious that they're being manipulated.
Related it's also interesting that in German the directory of photography is only called a "Kameramann" (camera guy) while the English term emphasizes their "directing". And it's true. They are typically not the ones operating the camera but have operators for that like "focus pullers".
Sorry, I got carried a away with the topic a little bit :)
Nope the second and last sentence are pretty clear.
If there was more evidence to support her point then sure, but otherwise it's the protected class effect kicking in; she can be called out and her claims can be called out, just as we would call out any man. To give someone concessions for race, gender, sexuality, etc is actually playing into biases, not helping dissolve them.
As a gay dev, I'd hate it if I was treated different. Diversity hires...I'd be horrified if I was ever hired over someone better than me because "eh good enough, plus he hits our x quota". Granted, I haven't ever seen a company with an lgbt quota, only race and sex.
In fact the article was a fascinating look at the inside of how Valve started, but the conclusion did not fit with her own story of what happened.
Here's what I saw:
As the months went on and Valve's costs continued to escalate, it became clear that Mike and I were maxing out on our financial commitment. Rather than renegotiate the contract with Sierra, Gabe, who had started at Microsoft much earlier than Mike and me, began funding the ongoing development costs, set up as a loan against future company profits.
..
By the summer of 1999, Mike was researching trawler yachts, I was immersed in figuring out Valve's potential business opportunities, and Gabe was doing deep thinking, leading the team and communicating with customers. In the meantime, because of the way Gabe and Mike had structured the ownership, where employees could earn equity over time, Mike's and my ownership stake was effectively shrinking.
..
In a nine-page document, I proposed that Valve and Amazon team up to create a new online entertainment platform. I scaled the business opportunity within four years at $500 million dollars. The gist of the idea was to create a made-for-the-medium platform that would bring users together in a sticky, compelling entertainment experience, with digital and offline content sales. I wanted Amazon's financial backing as a way to gain first mover advantage against Microsoft and Electronic Arts, then the major PC games players. I didn't see a role for Sierra. If pushed, we wouldn't create any new games ourselves, and instead would team with outside developers so that they could distribute content not subject to an 85% publishing fee. At the time, I considered it an act of rebellion against the traditional publishing dynamic where independent developers took on huge risk, and the big publishing houses reaped the rewards.
..
We had a great discussion, and a couple of weeks later, a champagne bottle appeared at Valve’s door.
It was exhilarating and scary at the same time. We had an offer from Amazon for a minority stake, but the dynamics within the company were tricky. Amazon could help propel Valve to the next level, but the partnership would not be without costs. Valve’s culture was still evolving. A partnership with a major outside player could help but it could also hurt what we’d all built.
It was after the Amazon offer that Mike revealed to Gabe that he wanted to leave. With an offer in-hand, it didn’t take long for us to figure out the outline of a deal.
..
As I look back on the huge success Valve has become, I'm proud of what the team accomplished. I'm also proud of the work I did while recognizing that my biggest contributions to Valve's business went largely unnoticed and unrecognized within the industry. Part of that was due to the bro culture of the software business, part of it was that I receded to support my husband in a partnership where he was effectively the lesser partner, and part of it was that women, especially in tech, often seem to disappear when the story gets told.
..
I know that Valve wouldn't have been successful without Mike. It wouldn't have been successful without Gabe. And it wouldn't have been successful without me. A friend of mine who knows the full story once said to me, "you were a founding partner" and in hindsight, I agree. From the beginning, I invested time, treasure and industry expertise to make the company a huge success.
Mike Harrington (the other cofounder) and his wife Monica (the author) didn't leave, they were squeezed out, due to their contract shrinking the equity they owned, "because of the way Gabe and Mike had structured the ownership".
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Even though she contributed considerable capital and was the one who sealed the deal with Amazon to create Steam, that wasn't enough to overcome the rampant sexism in tech (demonstrated by the actions of the men around her), so her contribution was erased from history.
All that matters in (American) capitalism is who has the most money. Labor falls second to that. I've experienced this several times in my own career. Also losing out through agism, not selling my strengths well enough and not protecting myself from financial losses. It would have been doubly hard without the random privilege of being a white middle class male.
This is why your take sounds right, but is only part of the whole story, conveniently sweeping injustice under the rug to preserve your own ideology, rather than raising awareness to help others avoid becoming victims in the future.
And your take is amplified on the national stage, at the center of the current political debate, creating an even more insufferable climate of denial for those who are already suffering under the aftermath of US colonial patriarchy.
Why is sexism being conflated with cutthroat business decisions?
She and her husband didn't make the cut - doesn't mean that she was specifically excluded because of her gender. Look, the fact that she then mentioned "... privilege of being a white middle class male" made it very clear that she wanted sexism as a key ragebaiting element.
As the article author relied on sexism as the concluding answer, there's nothing wrong to call her out on it.
There's a lot of room for misinterpretation in long articles and comments, and risk of ragebaiting, as you pointed out.
But the reason I came down hard on the parent commenter is that after reading the whole article, they basically said that her being a woman had nothing to do with her treatment.
I've heard that veiled sexism my whole life, and racism, and agism, today it's classism.
What the parent may not realize is that by writing off her story so dismissively, they made her point. It's clear for the rest of us to see.
But if the rest of us let that stand, then it perpetuates a culture of ignorance.
There's been a lot of perpetuating these last few decades.
Which is why in 2024, despite all of our technology and progress, we are facing a presidential election between a woman and a man who openly expresses every ism and still gets 50% of the vote.
Someone might say something happened in their life because of sexism but that doesn’t mean it’s “veiled sexism” to disagree. We should be able to disagree or be critical with someone’s assertions on anything.
The stuff about politics you bring up like the election is not relevant to this. It’s essentially rage bait that would essentially derail the thread when you bring up stuff like that.
You also never actually addressed the specific things that people in the thread said. The fact that her husband’s contributions were also mostly ignored and that we mainly know him just as a cofounder. Or the fact that the work she did was in marketing and people generally don’t know the names of marketers.
“ What the parent may not realize is that by writing off her story so dismissively, they made her point. It's clear for the rest of us to see.”
When you say things like this you imply that disagreeing with someone when they say something happened to them because of an “ism” then you are automatically being “ist”. That’s silly. Sometimes people are right. Sometimes people are wrong. You should be able to disagree with people when you think they’re wrong. About this or anything else. Without automatically being labeled as an “ist” or promoting a veiled “ism.”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110759/
Back then, sexism was blatant and rampant. The ratio of men to women in my engineering classes was roughly 30:1. It was almost unheard of for women to reach prominent positions in tech or any other male-dominated field for that matter. Yet we all had a sense that sexism and racism were finally on the verge of becoming a thing of the past.
Fast forward 30 years and I can't believe what's tolerated today, especially in politics:
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/stat...
On a personal level, bigotry may be lower today than in the 90s. But on the national stage it remains as polarizing as ever.
The saddest part about that for me is that it's creating division that was almost healed. Many women feel threatened after the Roe v. Wade rollback and countless other affronts, so masculinity is often portrayed as toxic. Then men, many of whom are struggling and unheard under patriarchy as well, feel like they are being lumped in with chauvinists and turn towards the Andrew Tates and Jordan Petersons and Joe Rogans of the world for validation. Which feeds their egos in ways that many women find insulting, creating a vicious cycle.
So when I see comments that being a woman has nothing to do with it, I think that sentiment feeds into the division. Whether it's true or not is beside the point, what matters is the intentional avoidance of empathy.
Unfortunately objective takes are given more credibility in these times than the subjective ones that I believe hold the insights. So even though this is a hill I'm dying on, there's no way for me to really win the debate. Which to me is the very essence of what the Harris/Trump presidential race is getting at.
I love people like this. I’ve seen in documentaries. James Carville running the Clinton campaign. An absolute political animal. Always doing more, thinking faster, multiple moves ahead of the competition, doing movies the competition doesn’t even know exist, and relentlessly focused and often workaholic.
> The structure of the deal meant that we would be vested in Valve’s success over the next five years
Great foresight.
The article mentions that John Cook and Robin Walker made a mod that attracted Valve's attention, and then they shipped TFC. That would surely mean the mod would've been Team Fortress for QuakeWorld, and not for Doom?
As soon as they hired Robin and John i knew they (valve) were going to be a giant hit. As a former windows PM, it seems that Gabe knew how valuable mod authors as first time game designers were. Valve may not have been the first to make their game engine a platform, but they were the most dedicated to it in that era.
I didn't know their contract with Sierra was so much like a music industry contract and that they didn't own their Half life IP. It makes so much more sense why they recruited the founder of counterstrike, which is an even bigger hit than TF2.
If they had been public i would have bought into valve before 2005. I missed the boat on apple, amazon, and so many others, but that one had a competitive advantage of understanding the industry that I understood.