Friday, February 1, 2013

The Cause - Gabe Newell

Saw this and it sort of reminded me of the stuff we're doing with The Cause. Gabe Newell started Valve in 1996. Since then they've created some of the most talked about video games in the industry and created Steam, which is an online services platform that has around 55 million users and generates more bandwidth than most countries. Valve has been growing 50% each year and if I were to sum up Gabe's "purpose" in this talk, I would say it's to create the most production and value from users and employees possible. He even goes on to say their production per employee is much higher than that of both Apple and Google. His stance on a flat business model (no managers) and the way he's allowing users to help generate content on Steam are some of the more interesting points I took from this talk. I think if we're talking about bad asses like Steve Jobs we can at least find some different examples people may not know of.

2 comments:

  1. This was very good.

    I especially like the bit where Gabe talks about how he had this tremendous disdain for cubicals so made sure everyone had their own office. But ultimately people shacked up in one office or another and became more productive that way. Live and learn.

    The flat hierarchy concept is also interesting; especially on the heels of all the other visionaries that we're highlighting during the meeting on the 19th.

    In fact, I just read the synopsis of a book about Steve Jobs and Apple and how they would purposely silo their employees because secrecy was highly valued. On the flip side, there's a more open source approach where nothing is hidden.

    I could talk about this all day. Good find.

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