

Meet Gabe Newell, Microsoft’s next CEO - rodolfor
http://whilstinarrakis.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/gabe-microsoft-ceo/

======
skore
> Gabe Newell (Valve’s CEO, founder and, if I’m not wrong, its only
> shareholder) keeps giving interviews where he states that “he doesn’t want
> to sell“. Many take him at face value. Well. Firstly, in M&A, when you don’t
> want to sell you just don’t. There’s no need to blab to the press about it.

Except, I dunno, when they ask you?

> Secondly, if your statements appear in the press, it usually means that what
> you are saying is: “I am not for sale. Unless you offer more than X. Then
> we’d totally sell out.” I believe this is the message Mr. Newell is trying
> to convey.

Yes, we clearly live in that kind of world. The kind of world where the
unwavering position that a highly achieved person demonstrates in almost
everything they do _has_ to be suspicious. You know what you should also do?
Pepper your article with lots of pointless statistics and expletives. Because
that totally helps make it seem more credible. Numbers! Charts! Fuck! Am I
cool yet!?

> Did anyone ever question why, suddenly, all these articles about company
> culture are appearing?

Because you've only been paying attention the past couple months.

> Valve is reportedly working on a Steam Linux box. This can only be intended
> to remove the Windows license and its concomitant restrictions from the
> market.

Yes, clearly that's the only intent possible.

 _Phew_. Ok guys, I enjoy picking apart nonsense blog crap just as much as the
next HN user, but this one makes it so easy that it's already getting boring a
couple minutes in.

~~~
dasil003
Agreed on all points; however, he's making a bold and verifiable prediction
here. If it comes true he's going to look like a fucking genius and if it
doesn't it's just more forgotten sound and fury of the blogosphere.

~~~
skore
The boldest blind chicken there ever was.

~~~
btown
Well, if you have $n \to \infty$ blind chickens running around, at least one
is bound to run in the right direction!

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devindotcom
Sorry, but this sounds like an extremely bizarre proposal to me. Everything
I've learned about Gabe indicates he has absolutely no interest in this course
of events. Why would he want to run Microsoft when he is head of a large,
incredibly successful, innovative, growing company like Valve? This makes zero
sense to me.

"Yes, Gabe likes making games and selling silly virtual hats and guns that
make big dimensional holes."

I think this is extremely belittling of Gabe and Valve, and games in general,
and completely mistaken to boot.

~~~
DigitalJack
Because Gabe is an engineer and engineers have an insatiable need to fix
things and microsoft needs fixing.

But I don't buy it either. I think it would scare the pants off of the
corporate customers of MS.

~~~
nness
Fixing Microsoft isn't an engineering problem; if it were, I'd wager their
thousands of engineers would've done it already.

~~~
tobylane
It may be an engineer on top kind of solution that is needed. Apple had a
designer at the top of their structure, so design got its way. This even made
up for mistakes made while Jobs wasn't there.

Having Gabe in sufficient control of non technical managers may well work, but
then you could switch Gabe out for any trustable non-manager.

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eumenides1
"Gabe Newell (Valve’s CEO, founder and, if I’m not wrong, its only
shareholder) keeps giving interviews where he states that “he doesn’t want to
sell“. Many take him at face value. Well. Firstly, in M&A, when you don’t want
to sell you just don’t. There’s no need to blab to the press about it."

Help me understand M&A, when you're asked by a reporter about selling your
company, what can you say that will result in communicating to people that you
don't want to sell your company?

I think the author is reading too much into things

~~~
rodolfor
If you don't want to sell the question never gets printed in the article and
instead there's more of you blabbing about TF2 hats.

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rocky1138
"In Q3 2012, Steam added, for no apparent reason, non-gaming software to its
library. "

I believe this was to compete directly with the Windows 8 app store, of which
Valve has been vocal in its distaste.

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johndconroy
I'm placing my bets on Marissa Mayer being Microsoft's next CEO

~~~
ChuckMcM
Of two implausible outcomes I find this one (Marissa) the slightly less
implausible. (certainly Yahoo has already been courted once before and they
work closely on search)

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stcredzero
_> Looking at the micro level, it seems that Microsoft is just full of nasty
backstabbing middle managers who violently defend the P&L of their unit, as
opposed as working as a group (non-backstabbers get fired thanks to
Microsoft’s bone-headed employee review method called ‘stack ranking’. it’s
terrible and everyone points at it as the reason why Microsoft lost ground
against its competitors.)_

Microsoft's adoption of this policy is termed by folks over at leswrong.org as
an example of, "Conjuring An Evolution To Serve You." Like conjuring a genii,
it's fraught with the strong likelihood of dire unintended consequences.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/l8/conjuring_an_evolution_to_serve_y...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/l8/conjuring_an_evolution_to_serve_you/)

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jstelly
That photo looks like someone took Gabe's head from this image:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gabe_newell_doug_lombardi....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gabe_newell_doug_lombardi.jpg)
(this is a real photo of Gabe)

and pasted it on a picture of someone else.

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rodolfor
My money is on the poor performance of Windows Store, which could undermine OS
sales. Since those are near-sacred at MSFT in my opinion will spur the Valve
acquisition. The 'Gabe as CEO' is just a long shot but not the Valve M&A.

------
touristtam
If anything Valve as a development studio has a notorious 'policy' of
delivering product 'when it's done' (aka Valve Time) as opposed to MSFT
product that are released periodically and that need numerous minor AND major
patches with each and every enumeration. Based on that: How would Steam be
integrated into MSFT corporate culture, without being killed? That might be
the same question Newell is asking himself, in this scenario.

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jamesaguilar
This is so far-fetched I barely know how to respond.

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rocky1138
OT, but am I the only one out there who thinks "Bumfuck Willy: The Fedora of
Time 2D" would actually be awesome to play?

~~~
coolsunglasses
I really want a 2d time-travelling tomb-raider game with that title now.

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woodchuck64
"[Gabe] running Microsoft? It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity."

But the necessary genetic engineering to save Microsoft from extinction is far
more than building a brand new successful company from scratch. What would be
the point?

~~~
brendanobrien
I humbly disagree. Building a company to be the size of Microsoft is not a
trivial matter, no matter how you stretch it. You'd need to catch a VERY big
wave of innovation.

I'm totally on side that the author is exercising a little "wishful thinking",
and changing microsoft would suck, But I'd rather have (very deep seeded)
management problem then have to come up with an idea as basic/brilliant as
selling software for a profit.

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yamalight
Why would Valve do this? Don't see any reason at all. Judging from interviews,
Gabe loves games. Why the hell would he want to leave them for software &
enterprise? Doesn't makes any sense to me.

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Arzh
A bit strange that he brings Gabes ego into it. I would think that if hes
trying to fill his ego (nothing about him seems to indicate that) he would try
to stomp out microsoft, not run it.

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rinon
Wow, wild guessing aside, I certainly hope not! _shivers_

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bittercynic
Do you have any reference to support Jobs shorting Apple?

~~~
rodolfor
Correction, he sold not shorted. But it was not declared publicly that he was
the seller to put pressure on Gil Amelio.
[http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Steve-Jobs-
Confirms-A...](http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Steve-Jobs-Confirms-
Apple-Stock-Sale-2812791.php)

