The Valve Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

The Valve Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

valvesoftware.com

54 pointsmseo14 comments

After some time working in "start-ups" this is one thing I agree with more than anything.

"Hours While people occasionally choose to push themselves to work some extra hours at times when something big is going out the door, for the most part working overtime for extended periods indicates a fundamental failure in planning or communication. If this happens at Valve, it’s a sign that something needs to be reevaluated and corrected. If you’re looking around wondering why people aren’t in “crunch mode,” the answer’s pretty simple. The thing we work hardest at is hiring good people, so we want them to stick around and have a good balance between work and family and the rest of the important stuff in life."

It's sad how many companies miss the mark on this. Saw a company that had "great work life balance" but expected you to work 9.5 hour days as the norm.

I think work life balance has become worse everywhere, but it seems like in the US in particular it has become much much worse since the 1950s (i.e. no more 9-5, 5 days a week).

I actually do work a 9-5 job in tech' in government, but I am more the exception than the rule. Many people seem to be working an hour more, and up to three to four hours more (e.g. 8 to 7, or 7 to 7) in other local places (and certainly in SV).

If my start up ever gets off the ground and I bring people in, I am going to strongly encourage a 9-5 by 5 day working environment with vacations, because I feel like if you ask for more you're exchanging short term productivity for long term productivity (i.e. people burn out, both with a longer work day, but also with no actual seven plus day holidays).

Some people will claim that "startups simply cannot afford that!" but to me that is just the cost of doing business. Stress doesn't make for an efficient employee, and higher turn-over certainly doesn't improve efficiency (for anyone). But I feel like my attitude is very "European" and most Americans see hours worked as a mark of honour and a competitive bargaining chip.

I'd really prefer a 40h work week over 9-5.

Well, I do one hour commute in the morning, eight hours of work plus one to eat, then another hour commute back home, sometimes one and a half if there's traffic. That's eleven hours daily for a job I really like. I would be glad to work those 9.5 if I could get to the office walking. 1.5 extra hours doesn't necessarily mean horrible work life balance, as long as it doesn't turn into 12 every other day.

You know what's funny though. I know some folks at Valve, they all say that the work-life balance isn't great (not terrible, but not great). Valve does peer stack ranking in order to set compensation. From what I hear this means that, yes, you can technically 9-to-5 it, but good luck getting anywhere in the company if you do.

I've also heard that the everything-is-flat model isn't all that great either. Yes you get to work on what you want, but, going back to the stack-ranking, it can be quite the political place if you want to get on the right projects, etc.

I'm not trying to say that Valve isn't a great place to work, but I think people romanticize it a little too much when this handbook gets trotted out on HN every other month.

>Valve does peer stack ranking in order to set compensation.

That is going to be their downfall.

I know some folks at Valve, they all say that the work-life balance isn't great (not terrible, but not great).

context matters: the work-life norm for video games is horrendously awful.

I'm not saying this is how Valve thinks, but if you were recruiting for a video game company, you could totally tell people "work-life balance matters here, so you'll often be able to go home on weekends," or "work-life balance matters here, so we rarely work more than ten hours a day."

That's a fair point.

All right, since everybody seems to have read the handbook, here's something fresh: Gabe Newell's email [0], taken from today's r/Steam, where he shares his thoughts behind the flat company structure which Valve is so famous for.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/2zxcyy/gabe_newell_re...

This has been discussed here before in 2012 and the linked version is not different from the one before.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3871463

It was discussed before, it will be discussed again. We've presumably got new users and new insights in the last 3 years.

Title should be updated to include (2012) when this was originally released to the public, following a pervious leak.

adding my voice to the chorus: please put 2012 in the title.

edit: looked on github for hacker news source, to see if I could automate this. is it not open-sourced? all I found was docs for the API.

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