Valve: Handbook For New Employees

This thing always comes up every few months and it's interesting to see how it evolves, because it does change. I live in Seattle and know people that work there and it really is an amazing place to work, but you must, must, must be entrepreneurial to work there and you must really know your shit as well, otherwise it will suck.

They're not kidding that the employees run the company. The benefits that I've heard you get are immense amounts of freedom and opportunity, but the drawbacks are huge too. The company stack ranks in a very open way. Your actual creative output is tied to your salary (which is substantial if you're good). If you have an off year or have to spend a significant chunk of the year learning something new then your stack rank will suffer unless you put in the time to make it up. There are people who are able to make good money there without putting in more than 40 hours, but apparently this is the exception. rather than the rule If you're young, single, talented (and I mean really, really, you built your first compiler at the age of 12 talented) and entrepreneurial it's a dream come true.