Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChrisNorstrom | Hacker News Reader

You don't know much about Steam or Gabe Newell then. They would NEVER sell the company. Gabe's mentioned before he's gotten big offers and rejected every single one. Valve has the highest employee retention rate and satisfaction rate in the industry. There's no managers, no titles, everyone's happy. Only a fool would sell a company like that. And Gabe's not a fool.

Don't let the silicon valley mindset warp your perception of what a company is. There isn't always an IPO or exit at the end of every company's rainbow. Sometimes, just sometimes, profitable private companies stay profitable private companies.

View on HN

Its not just gabe's thoughts that matter- Many startup founders forget that as you have people who work for you. He has a responsibility to the people working for him- If he gets a offer for some ludicrous amount, does he not owe it to his staff to do whats best for them? Im sure most of the staff would be happier with a few million bucks than not.

And what if MS says "We want to buy you, we promise we wont touch you and will sign these docs to ensure you can keep doing things your way" - At that point, its not about morals, its about the fact that not doing something like that isnt fair to those people in the companies who are not yet millionaires, like Newell already is.

In short, if Newell could guarantee that the company would have no changes moving forward and could also get significant wind falls for all his staff, then yes- I expect him to sell. Anything less would be not prudent.

* Nobody knows if MS would be willing to pay as much as would be required to have a outcome like above. I just think that Valve is in the #1 or #2 spot for "Companies we want to buy" at redmond.

pretty sure that what's best for his staff is to not poison the well

They can just look a Bungie and see being bought out is a mixed blessing.

But the whole point of buying Valve would be to dictate what they can do with Steam. If they're still a distribution platform for Mac and Linux then what's the point?

Everyone knows Gabe worked for MS, right? He had a stellar career there before he quit one day to start valve. No way he sells to microsoft. There is no positive aspects for the company, the owners, or the employees.

money ≠ happiness

To add a reference to your comment (good explanation btw), see the recently posted "Why Valve?" post from Valve's economist which contains more information on their corporate structure and philosophy, as well as links to the employee handbook and such.

http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=4333578

Reply on news.ycombinator.com