From the notoriously flat structure of Valve to the support of free software to the extremely laissez faire way of running steam to the main Dota tournament being named “The International”… Is Gabe Newell a card carrying Anarchist?
That’s not anarchy, that’s libertarianism. And to answer your question, at least going on People Make Games’s investigation of Valve’s culture, he does seem to be very libertarian.
I just wanted to echo the plug for People Make Games. Their coverage on Steam was really interesting, but basically all their videos are bangers.
The games industry getting some actual, quality investigative journalism was a surprise, but definitely a welcome one.
At the very least, it may be a sincere libertarianism, as opposed to the usual authoritarianism in liberal clothing. Take a sincere libertarian, add Georgist land theory to their economic mix, and they’ll veer left over time as it works its way through their worldview. Or at least, that’s what happened to me.
He’s a billionaire who owns a company that has pulled some shady (and illegal) anti-consumer bullshit in the past, I’d say it’s pretty unlikely that he’s a anarchist - more likely, the flat management structure and use of FOSS software is simply profitable.
He may be a libertarian but he’s definitely a capitalist. Anarchism is inherently anti-capitalist.
Fair point, but we also live in a capitalist system. If Gabe really wanted the money he’d go public. Considering how much they’re giving Epic, Valve would instantly become gigantic. He’d become billionaire-er. He could have locked down the Steam Deck. He could have done a lot of things. I’m saying he’s had a lot of choices he made during his lifetime, and he seemed to pick oddly open ones.
If Gabe really wanted the money he’d go public
Not necessarily. Going public means he would then have shareholders to answer to. Or maybe he’s betting on steam going up in value, maybe taking steam public is his retirement plan. Who knows.
He could have locked down the Steam Deck.
Ehh, sure maybe, but there’s probably no financial benefit in doing so. He saved a lot of time and money going with Linux instead of building their own OS from scratch. And because Valve went the open source route, they’re free to re-use a ton of open source work, including code licensed under GPL.
And look at Google’s Android, much of Android is open source, surely you don’t think Larry Page and Sergey Brin are anarchists too?
And you’re ignoring the predatory nature of a lot of valve’s business. One of the most obvious examples is the CSGO skin cases. Valve is making massive amounts of money off of getting children hooked on gambling.
Andy Rubin, but I take your point. The only thing I’d disagree with is that you can make any corporate decision ipso facto to reduce costs and make profit. Yes, but companies pick these because they want to. Like there has to be a profit motive for everything because that’s how capitalism works. He didn’t need to use Linux (or could have Tivoed it like many companies do), or stick on top of BSD (like Sony), or a dozen other options. In the end you can only conclude: He supports Linux because he just likes it.
Also, I’m not going to pretend like the dude is fighting for anarchism, or is an anarchist thinker, or even really an organiser in that context. He seems to believe things personally and sticks an idea in every now and then. Or maybe he’s ancap idk.
Yes, but companies pick these because they want to.
No, corporations are machines/bureaucracies/organizations that generate profits, by design. If they don’t, they fail. They do the thing they think will generate the most profit.
He supports Linux because he just likes it.
Or maybe he never even made the decision. Or his employees presented the decision as the best decision. Or because Valve is a PC game company and PC shop front and they wanted to build and sell a portable PC that plays PC games. If they wanted to build a locked down console they wouldn’t be able to leverage all of their IP and overall strong position in the PC market nearly as well/easily. Linux was the right business decision for Valve.
Also, I’m not going to pretend like the dude is fighting for anarchism, or is an anarchist thinker, or even really an organiser in that context
Ok so then we agree? The dude is very clearly not an anarchist. At best he’s an ancap which isn’t anarchism anyways.
Lol if that’s the bar then even I’m not an Anarchist, because I also don’t live my life according to anarchist values. You’d practically need to live in a commune to be one. I was speaking from a personal belief perspective, not a “trying to actively make it happen” perspective.
I said nothing about a commune.
Anarchism is an anti-capitalist ideology. However, yes, capitalism is unavoidable, even if you lived on a commune you would have to engage in capitalism to some extent. But working a job so that you can survive is pretty different from owning a 10 billion dollar company. And his estimated personal net worth is 3.9 billion.
I don’t know if you’re an anarchist, I generally avoid in gatekeeping comrades and potential comrades. I don’t even know that engaging in activism or mutual aid is necessary to be an anarchist. And while working a job and making money certainly doesn’t disqualify one from being an anarchist, at the very least, being ideologically opposed to capitalism is a pre-requisuite for being an anarchist as it is a socialist ideology. And I think it would be hard to make a reasonable argument that any billionaire is an anarchist without some amount of agitation for change.
I think it would be hard to make a reasonable argument that any billionaire is an anarchist without some amount of agitation for change.
So originally I came to agree to this… but imagine you’re an Anarchist, and your goal is to (without violence and I guess coersion) allow people to live without force / violence (including advertising / propaganda / etc). In that case isn’t the best option to try and make the systems you own (necessarily, due to capitalism) somewhat compatible with anarchist principles? Like if you suddenly found yourself with 10 billion odd, and maybe you wanted to spend 7-8 billion on “cool anarchist ideas” what would you do?
Yeah but he already has enough money to buy pretty much anything he wants. I think he owns motorsports teams and brain computer interface companies and stuff.
If you gave Gabe Newell a truly unlimited amount of money to buy anything he wanted (an attempt to approach this being the only real reason to sell Valve) he’d probably ultimately want to invest a large amount of it into creating a videogames business with a bunch of brilliant people who he likes working with organised around a flat structure where they make his favourite videogame and he spends most of his time just hanging out playing his favourite videogame and steering the direction of the videogame industry the way he wants it to be.
That’s Valve.
You’re talking about a man who if he had unlimited resources would use them to make and own a company like Valve because it’s what he wants to occupy his time with and reading wider significance about him into the fact that he doesn’t sell Valve to get more resources.
It’s like saying someone can’t be a capitalist because they wont sell the ham sandwich they just made for their lunch to raise the money to buy a ham sandwich for their lunch.
It’s just an incoherent action to take irrespective of your social-political ideology.
No.
He’s a capitalist and a billionaire.
You cannot be a capitalist and an anarchist.
I mean, if he’s not ancap he’s definitely a libertarian capitalist at the very least.
He’s full of it is what he is. There’s no ‘flat’ org at Valve, it only exists on paper. In practice it’s just as hierarchical as any other company.
Yeah, from what I’ve heard about working at Valve there’s still a hierarchy and it’s somehow even more based on seniority and networking than usual lol
Ancap is an oxymoron anyway. Anarchy, based on egalitarian principles, is antithetical to capitalism, which is inherently hierarchical.
I’m gonna say probably not, if he were Valve would be full-on employee owned. I will say he seems a little less uh… warped than most prominent billionaires, but that’s not exactly a high bar to clear. Overall he seems like an okay guy but I don’t know him and have no way of telling whether he’s secretly a dick or something.
No.
I do think Valve not being publicly traded allows them to be different in some ways such as the flat structure (“enshittification” as defined by Doctrow doesn’t apply to Valve because there are no shareholders to please) but there’s nothing “left” politically about Valve. Some of it I think is just not having to look good to shareholders allowing Valve to make actual good business decisions.
Valve’s support of free software is because during the Windows 8 era Newell gained the fear that Microsoft would phase out Win32 in favor of UWP, cutting into Steam’s business big-time. Microsoft definitely isn’t going to pull that now that Windows Phone and the Start Screen concept both died and they’ve stated they no longer see UWP alone as the future, but I do think Valve administration still thinks it’s best for their business to not rely on Microsoft’s whims.
UWP and the Windows Store really scared Gabe as Microsoft was looking to make their own Apple-like walled garden with Windows 8. People forget there were tablet-like Windows 8 machines that could only run Windows Store apps. Thankfully those failed horribly.
not the good kind
he literally bought one of those new zealand prepper bunkers
Why does that make him bad?
Typically the tech bro billionaires buying those tend to fall into the realm of people who expect to be unquestioned dictators of their own little fiefdoms in a post-apocalyose scenario. To the point of shock collars to keep other people in line, etc.
Like /u/spez.
Look, I think billionaires existing is ridiculous, look at my username, but that seems like a leap to me.
To be fair, it’s an understandable move when you have more money than you know what to do with, given the state of the world.
But you’re right, nothing about him says “anarchist”.
I’m not sure what in your description indicates anarchy in anyway
What do you define anarchy as?
FOSS keeps costs down. If I wanna save costs on my business we use open source EVERYTHING.
FOSS means he’s not tied to another capitalist’s platform, but it increases costs — a literal strategy tax.
If this were true, every corporation would be major FOSS users and contributors. The reality is that Microsoft threatened Steam’s continued existence and Valve needed another outlet to ensure their survival.