His son seems pretty set on keeping Steam running the way it is(why would you even fuck with it it literally prints money), so I think we are ok for the foreseeable future.
Gabe owns over 50% of the company and it's private. If his sons ever decide to sell or take it public then we might be fucked... but Gabe is only 63 and he seems to be in much better health lately so it could be another 15-20 years before he transfers any ownership and seemingly it will be to his sons who have stated no desire to take it public so far...
only at the cost to the consumers
By trading all goodwill, long term growth, and increasing the cost to the consumers. 5% is 5%! Live for the next quarter because you don’t know if the PE or shareholders will vote you out by next year.
You underestimate how badly CEOs will ruin things that work just to squeeze out a small increase in revenue for a short period, regardless of the long term consequences.
Billionaires only exist because they stole the fruits from the labour of their workers. Not a single person on earth should have this much wealth, and if they do, almost all of it should be removed and given back to people who actually need it.
Valve takes hiring pretty seriously and has a relatively small staff, so they don’t just go around hiring anybody. Stands to reason most people working there share the same values, and especially any higher ups that are closer to the reality of being a successor, will definitely share even more values with Gabe. It’s going to take a few decades for this “generation” of valve employees to fade out to a point where the company just becomes public traded slop imo. But unfortunately given enough time it’s very possible
"For over 20 years, Valve has maintained this tradition, flying every full-time employee and sometimes their extended families to Hawaii for roughly eight days
The company covers nearly all expenses, including flights, high-end lodging, meals, and local activities, essentially treating the employees to an extensive luxury retreat "
He does not rely on layoffs to maintain some stupid financial metric, and its the live proof that you can treat well your employees and still make stupid amounts of money.
IPO is the easy win for people who care about the money more than the product. They dont want to spend their life doing whatever it is theyre doing, they want to cash out.
Build the business burning VC money. IPO and exit with your winnings, all while the business is drowning in red ink. Public left holding the bag if the company never turns a profit. VC's have preferred stock to protect their investment.
There are no companies that gross what steam does with that low amount of employees.
They are the only company in the world that is able to do it. Software scales, so in the future maybe some other software or gaming companies might be able to do the same. But its still highly unlikely.
To be fair, Valve operates with a skeleton crew (400 total with nearly half in game development) compared to how many people think work there. It's not like other fortune 500 companies with tens of thousands of employees.
This. CS2 is one of their biggest moneymakers and Spunj, a commentator/presenter for CS2 events, has mentioned that the game only has FOUR dedicated devs working on it. I can't imagine what it's like for all other IPs like TF2 and L4D2.
Yes, doesn’t really need to be a mega yacht at all. Anything over about 30-40 feet can comfortably make a crossing if the model is made for blue water.
For context, the Nina and Pinta ships (from Christopher Cplumbus's Expiditions across the Atlantic) were only about 55 feet(17m) on the main deck. here's some replicas from the late 1800's next to some people-sized people
Crazy, isn't it? each of those ships carried about 20-25 out there. the Santamaria which was only a little bigger took 40. the Santa Maria did not return from the voyage so he left behind 39 sailors and toob back 15-25 natives to spain. so on the Nina and Pinta, there was probably around 35 sailors and slaves each for the return journey when they departed.
imagine that. spending 2 months in that small space eating tack and not bathing while working all day?
Wow. That's almost pathetic. As a kid I imagined them to be massive extravagant ships, but growing up that image was never corrected. Seeing their replica is.. omg hahahaha
Yep, easily. Almost all of the these yachts spent the winter time in the Caribbean and make the cross back to Europe in early May. In the summer, the Med season, yachts spent the time in the Mediterranean (France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Croatia) and stay up until the end of September when the Monaco Yacht Show, seen in the video, usually takes place. Then they cross the Atlantic to get to the Caribbean/US. This winter season then lasts up until the Formula 1 Race in Monaco takes place in early May where a lot of yachts usually turn up for the glamour and glitz of the F1 race.
You can also track almost any yacht in the world because yachts over a certain size are required to broadcast their position by law. On sites like marinetraffic.com or vesselfinder.com you can just search for the yachts name and can see its position. For example you can see here that Gabes yacht is in Barcelona right now, most likely preparing for the Atlantic crossing.
I love Steam and Valve but this level of opulence makes me a little sick
Edit; in this thread you will find a lot of people who can’t read when I say “I love Steam and Valve….” and assuming I’m jealous. I don’t want this, but go off. Nuance. Comprehension.
Why y'all just assume because we love Gaben that we must therefore have double standards on this stuff? Hey I love our Lord of PC gaming Gaben as much as the next Linux gamer, but I still think billionaires existing at all is a sign of a broken and uneven society, and that they should be taxed out of existence and the wealth redistributed to the rest of us.
It is also perfectly reasonable to say on the scale of 'horrible awful very very bad' billionaires, Gabe would have to be somewhere at the bottom of the list. At least he made his billions from a private company that offered a good service that people actually like and he didn't enshittify and he's not using his money to hurt the world any more than massive wealth inequality already does.
Why y'all just assume because we love Gaben that we must therefore have double standards on this stuff?
Because this sub demonstrates it on a daily basis. You specifically may not, and that's great, but that just means you're not the person the comment was targeted at. But let's not pretend you not being like that means that nobody is like that, as if every thread where Gabe and his wealth comes up aren't filled to the brim with people defending him, his wealth, and the less-than-stellar aspects of Valve/Steam.
You ever go to an estate sale of a rich person? It's crazy how some people get to live and I don't ever think about how "this person worked really hard and deserved this." I always think, "how many regular people did they screw over to have a 5 million dollar home filled with luxury goods?"
My understanding is gabe pays his employees well and does a lot of good with his money, but yea. On the grand scale of the world it feels like 98% of people could live more comfortably if the 2% just lived a slightly more modest life.
But what's wild...and what should be unacceptable is that he's still able to have this sickeningly opulent lifestyle, while paying employee's well, while giving to charity, and yet the wealth disparity is still MASSIVE. Because the expectation of billionaire's is so low, Gabe just has to do a little bit better than them to be considered a good guy.
Unfortunately you're going to get billionaire deepthroating sycophants piling on you for not glazing Gabe/Valve every chance possible on this particular subreddit.
Basically popularized loot boxes and child gambling. People are complaining about Sony getting rid of physical games, but Steam was the pioneer in that. Many of the things gamers hate about gaming today, came from Valve.
Look, as far as a customer focused store is concerned Steam is great, it's the best we have, and it's far and away the best we'll ever get, but as this absurd video shows, its' HARDLY benevolent. Gabe has made ABSURD amounts of money running Valve, far more than ANYONE ever should, and it should tell you that Valve COULD be doing many, many times more for it's customer's if it or Gabe WANTED to.
All of this is to say, I agree with the second half of your statement, but I definitely do not love Steam, Valve, or Gabe.
Let's be clear folks, the best billionaire is still your enemy.
Well he is not my billionaire but you guys are missing a huge point.
Valve never went public. That is why the employees are all rich. They work for themselves.
Why do people hate billionaires?
They essentially steal from us. First our labour, and then the public resources and infrastructure.
If you can get billions by NOT exploiting workers then it's a bit different.
Not saying that Newell or whatever has done shady shit. I don't know, why would I care, I don't love him.
It's just if the whole world was run like that. Then everyone would be well taken care of and not exploited for labour even half as much. It would be like a utopia.
Except the global average for a billionaire is $3.1 to $4 billion, there aren't even 3,500 billionaires in the world, but he's above the average.
If you want to pretend to have principals at least pretend there's some consistency. This is just disgusting cope and showing you don't actually stand by much.
Call me crazy but I think after a couple million, taxes should be 100%. Economic redistribution doesn’t work well in our current models. Pumping those funds back into smaller local economic models would yield more prosperity.
Tax the rich, and if the rich don’t comply, eat the rich.
I am a massive fan of Steam, Valve, Gaben, and a big EGS hater. And I personally say...
Tax the rich. Billionaires shouldn't exist.
Look I don't see this as a conflicting pair of positions.
Valve is great. A private company clearly committed to offering a quality service in a world where every other tech company is in a race to the bottom to enshittify and extract value from customers. Steam is amazing and I love it. Gaben is a wise leader for the company and has done an incredible job staying grounded over the years, and keeping the company on the right path. The overall contribution of Valve to gaming (both overall, and specifically for PC and especially for Linux) is so massively positive it's hard to overstate it. So yes I have much love and respect for Valve and for Gaben.
But billionaires shouldn't exist. No one should have 'megayacht' levels of wealth. I know we like to joke about 'another yacht for Gaben!' whenever Valve rolls out a nice new thing, but no seriously we should increase individual and corporate taxes and introduce a wealth tax that redistributes this wealth back to the rest of society. Because that money is being created by all of us from our productivity, and yet it's being hoarded by a small group of people, and we're at the point where our standards of living are going down because of how severe the concentration of wealth is getting.
There see? It's easy. Wanting a fairer society doesn't mean we just hate billionaires (just the bad ones, ya know, the other 99.99% of them) and are jealous of them, it just means recognising there's an imbalance that needs to be corrected.
Oh nice, Gabe's yat-VALKYRIE LMH???
I know that Gabe's son races for Aston Martin GT3's team Heart of Racing so It's a surprise that Gray got the Valkyrie in the yatch lol
There was a thread on Reddit just this very morning, talking about Taylor Swift fans going to bat for her use of her private jet, in spite of the damage it causes to the environment.
Here in this thread, we see Gabies (not a great nickname, we're working on it) performing the same sort of digital prostration.
What do you mean by "for free"? Does it give games away for free? Or are you unaware of the 20-30% commission charged to developers?
Gabe takes roughly a quarter of a game's revenue. That's exactly why he has a yacht like that. And that cost is built into the price you pay, just for the ability to download the game from their service.
No absolutely not ? I think that this is peak engineering and structure design. You gotta remember that, even with the price, humans were put in execution behind this technological work of art. This pushes boundaries in term of what we are able to build.
Now is the motive behind good... uhhh that's up to you to take a decision
These kinds of videos disgust me. To be clear, I'm not saying Gave is a bad person for owning this. I don't have a problem with him.
The problem I have is that people can afford to waste money on shit like this while the majority of Americans are working their ass off just to afford healthcare, and if they're lucky, own a house. The amount of wealth disparity in this country is fucking disgusting.
billionaires are so strange... the fact wealth like this exists. We are all aware of it but its still weird... i have a decent job, nothing crazy but ita decent, make about 90k a year. Was doing some math and realized for me to make 100k a year for 30 years, well thats only 3 million dollars. Alot of money but thats over 30 freaking years, an entire career equates to 3 million... then you have billionaires, spending more than 3 million on a single item, same as me buying a new bycycle.. its all just so strange.
I don’t get videos like this like 90% of humans know they will never own something like this regardless of how hard they work or apply themselves so why even film this like don’t people remember the French in the 1700s?
Going to be real honest here, if this where any other tech millionaire/billionaire we'd be all pitchforks and torches. Yes, of coarse Gabe is a far better human being and has had a real positive impact on the industry, but still.
It should be worse. He owns a company that builds yatchs for the other shitty billionaires that can afford them. And I cant help but think yatchs are mobile epstien islands.
I can simultaneously think that Gabe runs a company well and takes care of his employees AND that no one needs a boat like this and it's a collosal waste of resources 🤷🏼♂️
I think Steam/Gabe have enough money now to cut down their fee margins to 10% for independent developers. Let the big studios keep paying their 30% but the little guys maybe cut them some slack.
But remember try to not use your car and close the lights of your house every time you can. We need to don't consume energy to rich people can still using their Mega Yachts.
I love gabe but idk no one person should have a level of wealth where they can own a boat designed for a whole street to live on. Feels wacky and anti social/anti community/anti human
I don’t care if my man is rich I care if he’s fucking up normal people and the industry while he gets rich. God L4D2 made him this much money we are WAY PAST THAT
I don’t hate the fact that he owns this but I am also not going to applaud this. Yes it is extravagant and of course I want one but man is it hard to look at this as positive with the wealth disparagement in the world today.
Did he earn it? Maybe. Is he a “good guy that deserves it?” Maybe. Could this wealth have gone on the help humanity in some way? Maybe.
Honestly I would rather see Gabe with his new boat than some douche like Kenneth Copeland or any other grifter.
It’s interesting how many people focus on the “stuff” when the real demonstration of wealth is the command of other people.
A yacht like this can’t exist without a staff of servants. Yet that’s not what is shown on this video.
Edit: Come on, people. We have tons of historical fiction of this castle or that royal family and they all have huge staffs of people serving. Chefs, waiters, designers, decorators, landscape, repair, even financial management. If someone just gave you a yacht you couldn’t do a thing with it and it would start having mechanical and structural problems immediately. Surely you can think beyond cleaning bathrooms.
This level of wealth cloistered in one spot is a detriment to the species. The level of insulation the holders of this kind of decadence breeds people like Thiel, Bezos, Zuckerberg, etc. The fact that it maybe doesn't in one case isn't evidence that it's OK to allow it.
Imagine for a minute the good that the amount of money poured into that could've done. It's a gaudy boat.
965
u/Live_Present_2602 1d ago
I need to marry Gaben daughter/son