this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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AFAIK, most of valve's stock is held by employees, not private investors. It's usually a pretty hard sell of "make the company you work at shittier to make more money", especially since most of the employees probably know gabe personally (valve has less than 400 employees) and likely approve of his leadership.
And most of the ones with the high percent have been there since the beginning, probably close to Gabe's age, looking towards retirement. They make good money, but retirement is expensive.
I mean. That link from this year said Microsoft was thinking 16 billion. 1% of that is 160 million.
Or they may die and their kids see dollar signs when a vote comes up
Steam is great now, it's not debatable. But its naive to expect it indefinitely. 10 years, 20 years from now? It wouldn't be surprising if Valve was a lot shittier than it is today
It won't last forever
yeah, its hard to predict what will happen to it, especially after gabe steps down or dies, but depending on how much of the company is broadly owned by employees vs individuals, it can help to shield it from bad decisions. Unfortunately, we don't know the exact numbers. If gabe + mike own 51+% then it could potentially lead to overriding employee will in a bad decision for money (either through their actions or through inheritance like you say). Or the employees could just collectively make a bad decision too.
It really feels like we're peasants, gathered by the fire, gossiping fearfully about the prospect of a succession war
It really is like a feudal system. There's a reason why the HBO series Succession is framed like the politics between a lord, his heirs, and his vassals.
As far as Gabe succession plans go, that's a great good way to do it. You would need the majority of the employees's shares to change something radically... That might actually work