Video game industry will collapse in on itself when Gabe Newell dies, and enshittification creeps into Steam.
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I shall seize one of his yachts (probably metaphorically) and sail under the Jolly Roger when enshittification comes for Steam. Until then, it’s a pretty solid solution for buying PC games.
Steam Deck is also amazing, in that it’s as simple as a Switch to get playing but open enough through desktop mode to do so much more. As your customer, thanks for not treating me like a paste eating delinquent.
Something I've been worried about for some time. I mean, I hope his death isn't soon, but we all know whoever steps in is most likely to royally fuck it up.
He just needs to make it an employee owned company. I believe it would make it a stable institution.
Think the CEO of Costco did a similar move with the hot dogs
Close. The founder told the CEO if he raised the price on the hotdog "I will fucking kill you".
So, who really gets the credit here is up to you.
The person who threatened to kill the CEO if the CEO fucked his customers, or the CEO who didn't fuck his customers out of self-preservation?
They also bought 2 hotdog factories to minimize the loss.
Costco does pay decent as well.
Could they do better? Yes, but they are pretty decent for employees and consumers.
What if the killer was the Costco founder? He told the United Healthcare CEO the same thing and then followed through.
Also. I believe, he also said , if the workers think they need a union, we’ve failed as managers.
So. Yeah
I mean, it’s an understandable viewpoint.
It’s when union busting tactics are being brought in that things are problematic.
“I came to [Sinegal] once and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends,’” Jelinek recalled in a 2018 interview with 425 Business. “And he said, ‘If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.’”
CEO of Ben &Jerry's. They are not just posting the black square on their insta and then moving on, like half their posts are about fighting inequity, encouraging people to vote for actual human rights, openly pro abortion, pro immigrant rights, pro black rights, pro women's right, about fighting climate change etc. they are walking the walk, conservative dollars be damned
GabeN has been pretty cool.
Gabe has 6 yachts worth about $1 billion dollars. Not very cool at all, imho.
He didn't kill anyone by denying them insurance or anything like that tho. Just took a commission on every game sold on Steam, a platform nobody's forced to use.
And by running a casino that rakes in millions of dollars off kids. I can appreciate the positives he's done with Steam, but I'm not about to ignore the negatives.
Being a bit greedy =/= Killing millions of people through death panels
Huge difference
Nobody becomes a billionaire by being "a bit greedy"
One billion dollars is an insane amount of money.
This CEO, Gabe Newell, and (if he was still alive) the founder of Little Caesars, who, if I recall correctly, secretly paid for Rosa Parks apartment until her death.
The founder of Little Caesars was a typical magnate developer who bought up much of downtown Detroit and let it rot until he received tax incentives to build, and kicked out many low income residents from apartments he let sit until they got city money. His family continues this tradition. The Rosa Parks thing is the only good thing I've ever heard of that man and his family do.
Add Steve Wozniak to the list of the ones to be protected. The Woz has done more to pull people up and we should all aspire to that level if we ever have the means.
Woz isn't a CEO and was stabbed in the back so many times he makes the Ten of Swords look like a sign for future friendships
Couple of British examples of what should be the standard for modern business:
Julian Richer, founder of Richer Sounds (hifi store in the UK), seems like one of the better capitalists around. He signed over majority control of the company to an employee trust when he turned 60, donates 15% of their profit to charity, runs a nonprofit dedicated to exposing corporate tax avoidance, campaigns against zero hours contracts, and devotes company resources to promoting unsigned bands: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Richer
James Timpson recently stepped down as CEO of Timpson, another UK retailer that specialises in things like key cutting, shoe repairs, passport photos etc. He made it company policy to hire people who had been to prison and help them get back on their feet, and his campaign for prison reform saw him step down from the company to become Minister for Prisons in the current government. The company has a "Director of Happiness" who is paid to keep the front line staff happy, resulting in policies like getting the day off work on your kid's first day of school, compassionate leave for the death of a pet, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timpson_(retailer)
Newman's Own salad dressing. Privately owned and all profits go to charity.
Craig Jelinek the (CEO of costco until recently) was always considered a good guy for putting his employees first and concentrating on keeping a high bar for product quality.