Valve Corporation is one of the most unusual and influential companies in gaming. Founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington in Kirkland, Washington, the company operates without traditional management hierarchy — there are no bosses, and employees choose which projects to work on.
Valve’s cultural impact on gaming is hard to overstate. Half-Life (1998) and Half-Life 2 (2004) redefined first-person shooters. Portal introduced one of gaming’s most beloved puzzle mechanics. Counter-Strike and Dota 2 are pillars of the esports world, with The International Dota 2 tournament regularly offering prize pools exceeding $30 million.
But Valve’s biggest achievement might be Steam, launched in 2003 as a game distribution platform. Today, Steam has over 130 million monthly active users and dominates PC game distribution. The platform takes a 30% cut of sales (dropping to 25% and then 20% at higher revenue tiers), which has been a point of contention that led Epic Games to launch a competing store.
In 2022, Valve released the Steam Deck, a handheld gaming PC running SteamOS (based on Linux). It’s been a hit, proving there’s strong demand for portable PC gaming and pushing Linux gaming forward through Proton, Valve’s compatibility layer that lets thousands of Windows games run on Linux.
Valve is privately held, and estimates put its valuation anywhere from $10 billion to $15 billion. The company rarely gives interviews or makes public statements, preferring to let its products speak. With fewer than 400 employees generating billions in revenue, Valve is one of the most profitable companies per employee in the tech industry.
