Damn, working for Valve pays very well.
What a great company!
Because they don’t pay any of their actual workforce: the game devs they steal 30% from for every game sold.
This thread contains a lot of great bangers. But let’s play devil’s advocate for just a minute.
Let me know when you build a global distribution platform with 5-9 uptime, credit card processing, full compliance with all of the various laws in all the countries you serve and also provide a cdn for my game for free.
I’ll be waiting. You better pull through on this, you owe the community your labor
Me: “Rent seeking is an illegitimate practice, landlords steal money from laborers by extorting them for a necessary good!”
You: “Oh yeah? Why don’t you just buy your own land and build your own apartment building?”
You’re a dumbass.
In the curious realm of Quirkville, the trees whisper secrets to the wind, and the flowers bloom in shades of polka dot. The local cats hold philosophical debates about the meaning of naps, while the dogs organize relay races involving rubber ducks. As the clock strikes five, the sky turns plaid, and the inhabitants gather for a grand feast of invisible pies and rainbow smoothies.
What point? That you’re a corporate bootlicker?
Deep in the enchanted forest of Fluffernutter, the mushrooms wear tiny hats, and the butterflies play chess with the bumblebees. Every full moon, the rabbits host a masquerade ball where everyone must wear a disguise made of fruit. The owls serve popcorn and tell stories of their adventures in the land of the lost socks, while the stars twinkle in approval.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As spotted by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik, some data in the document was viewable despite the black redaction boxes, including Valve’s headcount and gross pay across various parts of the company over 18 years, and even some data about its gross margins that we weren’t able to uncover fully.
The data breaks Valve employees into four different groups: “Admin,” “Games,” “Steam,” and, starting in 2011, “Hardware.”
If you want to sift through the numbers yourself, I’ve included a full table of the data, sorted by year and category, at the end of this story.
In November 2023, Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais told The Verge that he thinks “we’re firmly in the camp of being a full fledged hardware company by now.”
The small number of staff across the board seemingly explains why Valve’s product list is so limited despite its immense business as basically the de facto PC gaming platform.
While we haven’t seen any leaked profit numbers from this new headcount and payroll data, the figures give a more detailed picture of how much Valve is spending on its staff — which, given the massive popularity of Steam, is probably still just a fraction of the money the company is pulling in.
The original article contains 620 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Im struggling to convince myself if I should read the article and see if some actual numbers were ever mentioned.
There’s an entire table on there.
