Gabe Newell says he founded Valve after Doom showed him Microsoft ‘was missing the opportunity’ offered by the internet: ‘I was willing to sort of put my money where my mouth was’
Gabe Newell says he founded Valve after Doom showed him Microsoft ‘was missing the opportunity’ offered by the internet: ‘I was willing to sort of put my money where my mouth was’
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New interview with YouTuber Zalkar Saliev Newell chatted about the circumstances that led to Valve’s birth in much more mundane terms.
Newell—then working at Microsoft—was trying to convince people that maybe not every app needed its own bespoke interface and approach to graphics acceleration tech, and how he convinced them using Doom.
“Everybody would create their own interface to the hardware, and they were all over the place, right?” said Newell. “Some of them were just unbelievably slow.
“Then we’d look at it,” says Newell, “and it would be obvious that they were completely underutilizing the capabilities of the devices. That they had one person working on it, and they weren’t necessarily very good.”
“Id was out-distributing Microsoft with Doom,”
“They had a completely alternate model of how to reach customers and engage with customers that I thought was super interesting, to the point that there were more people using Doom than were using Windows.”
“It was like, the way that Microsoft thinks about these things in terms of distribution and Salesforce and resellers and all of that was missing the opportunity represented by the advent of networking.”
“I was willing to sort of put my money where my mouth was on the design of the game and on the design of the company, and that’s when we started Valve.”
See video for full interview or read from the link.
Edited to add timestamps, to help.
Chapters:
– 00:00 Intro
– 00:58 Gabe’s Early Days
– 06:13 Gabe Reflects on Microsoft and Windows
– 11:29 Gabe on AI and the Future of Technology
– 15:05 How Gabe Thinks About Success
– 18:19 Gabe on the CIS Region
– 20:06 The Value of Location for a Strong Team
– 23:32 Becoming Effective with AI Tools
– 26:54 Gabe’s Business Advice
– 29:45 Thoughts on Being a Billionaire
– 31:26 Gabe’s Daily Routine
– 34:41 Gabe on Social Media
[YouTube interview](https://youtu.be/oFHXIW37NBM?si=gYi_FMq5W2f4CVa1)
I wish Gabe do a Biography or some kind of serious episodic thing about his life before he passes. This man single-handedly kept the pc gaming industry afloat.
Does he address why he is letting Visa decide what games he can sell now?
He is the reason PC gaming is as big it is he is up there with Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison
Steam owned by Microsoft is a scary thought.
Would be nice if he also created an alternative to Visa or Mastercard, given the current situation.
And he nearly went bankrupt doing so. Twice.
Gabe is the gold standard for rich people, just spend your days chilling on a yacht and don’t fuck up the one thing people like from your company.
If only that were more often the case…
I hated Steam when it began, but I guess I grew with it.
But Gabe was correct, he found a gap and capitalised on it.
If I am to be honest, i really couldn’t see an online store working. I feel such a fucking idiot now days.
My steam account turned 21 back in February. What a crazy ride it’s been