
Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf] - taigeair
http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf
======
Det_Jacobian
So Valve is definitely idealized by people outside (and inside) the game
industry, but definitely much less so by people who have worked there. The
flat structure is sort of a pipe dream that leaves nobody actually in charge
of important decisions, while hiding a de facto power structure that certainly
exists despite being non-explicit.

The company has transitioned to being the company that owns Steam as a
platform (including and subsuming Vive), and not much else. People that have
joined Valve expecting to develop games there end up fired in less than a
year, which surely is destructive but also serves a real purpose of
perpetuating the Valve culture. A major shakeup is unlikely to happen; Gabe
seems to be unable to decide whether he wants to be a super-public figure that
is the face and decision body behind the whole company, or if he wants to
shrink into a hole and rub shoulders with tech legends hoping to determine the
future of everything. The company will make money for a while, but they are
open to platform disruption, even in their VR space where they have (more than
Oculus) tried to be the open platform. Eventually the market will figure out
that they don't need to pay Steam 30% of sales to host files on a server. If
this view is right right, Steam is about to find out that the PC world wants
to be even more open than they are offering. Of course, the board of investors
will certainly find a way to use Valve's intellectual capital regardless of
whether they stay on top.

~~~
aoeuasdf1
Dota 2 isn't going anywhere. The current tournament has an $18+ million prize
pool (and rising) - meaning Valve was paid about $72 million in compendium
sales.

This is for a tournament that runs every year and is growing in popularity and
size.

~~~
debaserab2
I think you're right but I also can't help but think how the very existence of
Dota 2 underscores Valve's lack of innovation in the past half decade or so.
They literally took a game built on the back of their biggest competitor and
basically recoded it on their own gaming engine (Yes, I know there's plenty of
quality of life upgrades they brought to the series, but it was nothing that
wasn't too obvious or already in place by another MOBA).

In a business sense, this was an innovative move only in that it made Valve
tons more money, but from an industry perspective, they couldn't have done
less to move the needle.

It's one of the most uninteresting safe bet moves I've seen a company make in
the gaming industry since Madden.

~~~
robryan
The actual innovation in Dota 2 was on the esports side. From setting up the
$1 million International before the game was even released spawned an industry
of professional players, sponsors, casters, personalities and production
companies. The competitive Dota scene before Dota 2 came out was tiny in
comparison.

Twitch was central to this as well, bigger tournaments meant increased
viewers, increased viewers meant that Twitch could in turn sponsor even more
tournaments.

~~~
debaserab2
Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't league of legends more responsible for building the
robust esports scene for moba's? It was already there when DotA2 came around,
wasn't it?

~~~
Strom
League's first championship was held in June 2011 with a prize pool of
$100,000 [1], and the first Dota 2 International was held in August 2011 with
a prize pool of $1,600,000 [2]. Not that big of a time difference, and the
difference in prize pools has only increased since then in favor of Dota 2.

Twitch was in baby shoes back in 2011 as well. Game streaming overall was
still really small, and sites like own3d.tv held a large market share back
then.

In addition, Valve built in-engine spectating into the game since day 1. You
can watch other games live, or download replays and jump to any moment in
time. League doesn't have similar tech even in 2016 [3], they are definitely
far more focused on their casual players. League does have an extremely large
playerbase in total, so their esports achievements are still remarkable due to
sheer scale, but it's much more of a side-part of League than Dota.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Legends_World_Champi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Legends_World_Championship#Season_1)

[2]
[http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/The_International/2011](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/The_International/2011)

[3] From what I understand there is no replay system at all, and the League
spectator mode is very basic and lacks most of the features that Dota 2 has.

~~~
passthefist
Per point #3, it's even gotten as far as becoming a meme in the League
community. It's one of the most talked about missing features other than a
sandbox mode, which Dota also has.

Any time a new feature is released, especially smaller ones, there's usually a
good number of 'We got this but no <replay|sandbox> mode' comments.

------
sebastianbk
As a Microsoft employee I am so happy that we got rid of stack ranking a few
years ago. It encourages a bad behavior and goes against helping your
coworkers with whom you are essentially competing for compensation. I am
surprised to see that a company like Valve, which seems to be held in high
regard by many developers in the industry, still operates with this
compensation system. It's system of the 80's if you ask me.

~~~
dpweb
Wouldn't it make sense to just pay everyone (in the same type of role)
essentially the same amount and then bonus people from time to time on
particular outstanding achievements. Nothing is a more powerful inducement
than financial incentives and a bonus gives an impact that the ongoing salary
doesn't. People don't give a crap about annual reviews unless they think its
low enough to get them fired.

My sense is performance evaluations should be banished from the corporate
world, for the most part. Usually a waste of time, but that is where managers
can be helpful as they are carrying an ongoing assessment of the value of each
of their employees at all times.

~~~
ck425
'Nothing is a more powerful inducement than financial incentives'

Actually there's a lot of research that contradicts this. Essentially as long
as people have enough money that they don't worry about money ie a comfortable
middle class lifestyle for country/area, and they don't think they earn
significantly less that their peers, money is very inefficient and
occasionally negative incentive for tasks that require a decent level
cognitive ability.

~~~
thenomad
IIRC Peopleware showed that financial bonuses were tremendously effective - at
reducing peoples' investment in their work.

------
gavanwoolery
I researched Valve quite a bit before applying there (I did not get in, but
one of their senior team members wrote me a nice message). Some interesting
bits I found:

\- The average engineer there makes at least $400k/year with bonuses, although
it could be much more (or less, if they somehow wind up in a bad project).
IIRC Valve makes around $2m of profit for every head in the company (they only
have ~300 employees or so).

\- In spite of the seemingly ideal flat organization, many people find
themselves unhappy there. One former employee hints at some reasons here:
[http://richg42.blogspot.com/2015/01/open-office-spaces-
and-c...](http://richg42.blogspot.com/2015/01/open-office-spaces-and-cabal-
rooms-suck.html) From other employees, I have heard that the flat organization
and bonus structure leads to unnecessary drama/rivalry, poor communication (or
even fear of communication), lack of innovation (creating your own project is
discouraged, and teams have financial incentive to stick with projects that
pay the highest bonus), etc. This is not to say Valve is a "bad" place to work
at, I am sure it beats the hell out of many other job environments, even
ignoring the excellent pay.

\- If you do want to work there, you will probably have had to shipped
multiple titles AND be recommended by an existing team member (alternately,
writing a popular mod is equally lucrative). Typically, applying through their
website will not get you a job - they usually hire by actively looking through
a pool of candidates that they already know of. They also look for candidates
who are good at producing high amounts of customer value - they care more
about this than technical ability.

~~~
serge2k
> In spite of the seemingly ideal flat organization,

Why does this seem ideal? A flatter hierarchy is almost always preferable, but
taken to an extreme it seems like inevitable chaos.

~~~
mwfunk
Agreed. When I hear people talk about how great they think it would be to work
in a flat org, they always seem to think that it means they will exist in a
meritocracy free of politics where they can use their own judgement about what
to do and how to do it. I don't see how it could be anything but the exact
opposite of that in every respect, and anecdotally that seems to be the case.

------
MIKarlsen
I find the whole "You are a person who spend every waking hour optimizing
yourself to become the best YOU you can be"-frame of mind very intimidating.
Maybe it's because I'm not american, but even though I like to work with
complex issues, I also like a 9-17 job with a decent income, and the ability
to go home and relax when I'm not working. And by relax, I don't mean working
on side projects, doing volunteer work or earning a second degree in
something. But playing board games, working out/running or even just watching
mindnumbing TV. I feel like the "100 % dedicated 100 % of the time"-thing has
become the only way to really make it in tech-life.

~~~
whatever_dude
You're right - it's very much an American thing. Maybe not exclusive to the
US, and it may vary by state or background, but still very common there from
my experience with family and friends.

In American culture, unless you're financially constrained, you grow up with
someone hammering down the idea that you have to be doing something productive
and getting better 100% of the time. If you're a kid, you have to be involved
in clubs or teams for everything. You have to make friends. You have to be
good, you have to be popular. You have to get awards. You have to play a
couple of sports competitively. On holidays, you have to go to summer camp,
shock full of controlled activities. You have to do a lot of "voluntary" work
because it will look good in your resume, not because it's helping someone
[1].

As a result, your schedule is controlled, you are being judged 100% of the
time, and the loudest, more outwardly energetic people are the ones who
strive. The idea is that if you're not having Mandatory Fun, you're doing
something wrong.

It creates this idealistic culture where everyone is trying to be better all
the time, or pretending they are. The reality is that most people live in a
constant state of anxiety. For the most part, it's very hard for kids to find
what they like, and get better at it by sheer initiative; they never have time
to do it. Instead, they do what they do because they're told to.

Little surprise kids have no time for introspection, and that's the way people
can actually get better.

Science is just starting to understand that Rest is not Idleness [2]. The idea
is not new [3]. But our culture, specially the fast-moving tech culture, is
not ready for it.

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/college-
admissions-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/college-admissions-
volunt_n_1129917.html)

[2]
[http://pps.sagepub.com/content/7/4/352](http://pps.sagepub.com/content/7/4/352)

[3]
[https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozio_creativo](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozio_creativo)

~~~
chucksmash
I think you're overgeneralizing a bit when you say it's an American thing.
Maybe you and your peer group were out in the hard-charging long tail of the
distribution and you assume life looked the same everywhere else?

As someone who dropped down from honors courses sophomore year of high school
to "college prep" and earned a thoroughly mediocre GPA in an easy major at a
state school, I'll just say that there are allllll kinds of America out there
in addition the one you describe. I don't have the numbers at my disposal but
I'd be willing to bet that even that level of academic attainment puts me
ahead of more than half of the population.

Just a different perspective on the matter.

~~~
ctrlalt_g
yeah but mainstream culture is always defined by a small group. and it is
recognizably American. like having a million of those ribbons and plastic
trophies from science fairs or organized sports. or republicans calling poor
people "freeloaders".

------
stevebmark
This is a wonderful read, thank you for sharing it. I'm genuinely curious
about this, if any Valve insiders have insights:

> _That’s why Valve is flat...You have the power to green-light projects. You
> have the power to ship products._

Is this really the case? On paper this sounds great. I've worked at companies
that have a similar motto. Power to the employees, power to the developers.
But it usually just means the hierarchy is unspoken and assumed. No structure
means no one to go to with disputes about your job, problems with co-workers,
etc. It can be worse than a traditional hierarchy because everyone sells the
"flat" motto to newcomers, but as soon as you join you learn the hidden
politics. The cognitive dissonance can be soul crushing.

So is Valve truly flat? Are there any examples of relatively new employees
spinning up teams and shipping unique ideas? If it works, how do you handle
inter-personal employee issues?

~~~
akiselev
You're absolutely spot on. You have to remember that this is an employee
manual and, as such, is more like marketing and recruiting material than a
precise description of reality. While Valves heirarchy is officially flat and
very different from the norm, the usual office politics muddy the waters.

A few years ago there was a lot of news articles coming out about a shakeup at
Valve where a lot of people were fired, allegedly due to internal power
struggles. I'm having trouble with finding them on Google due to Valves name
but the gist of it is that Valves culture resembles that of a high school with
distinct social "elites" and their cliques [1][2]. There is also a wealth of
HN comments that provide some insight [3][4][5].

[1] [http://www.wired.co.uk/article/valve-management-jeri-
ellswor...](http://www.wired.co.uk/article/valve-management-jeri-ellsworth)

[2] [http://kotaku.com/weird-paranoia-at-valve-says-former-
employ...](http://kotaku.com/weird-paranoia-at-valve-says-former-
employee-700121951)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6036385](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6036385)

[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5215891](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5215891)

[5]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6015182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6015182)

------
kuharich
Previous discussions:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3871463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3871463)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8818893](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8818893)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9250527](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9250527)

~~~
chriswwweb
Year over year over year somebody posts a link to this PDF since 2012 ...
source:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Valve%20Handbook&sort=byPopula...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Valve%20Handbook&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

------
maho
_We value “T-shaped” people. That is, people who are both generalists (highly
skilled at a broad set of valuable things—the top of the T) and also experts
(among the best in their field within a narrow discipline -- the vertical leg
of the T)._

This is a nice metaphor. I try to be T-shaped, but I wonder how useful I am
becoming... My expertise in high-precision mass spectrometry is not something
companies are looking for....

~~~
ComodoHacker
Just wait for upcoming asteroid mining startup bubble.

~~~
talmand
Why wait? Start it yourself. With a little imagination you can get it started
before we even have the capability to achieve asteroid mining.

After all, there's a star naming registry that will name a star of your choice
to be recorded in their books for a nominal fee.

------
Thaxll
From what I heard from ex employee working at Valve it's not what you think it
is. i.e: it's very political.

~~~
oblio
Any group of more than 2 people is always "political" :)

There's a reason all Olympic sports where you can interact with your opponents
only have 2 teams/opponents facing off at the same time.

~~~
matthewowen
On the face of it, this seems like a reasonable comment. But it has basically
no relationship to reality:

    
    
        Many track cycling events
        Road cycling
        Every track event
        Marathon
        Marathon swimming
        Triathlon
        Sailing
    

This is a non-exhaustive list off the top of my head. They all involve
tactical interaction with a group of opponents.

~~~
oblio
I'm totally in the dark here. How are you interacting (legally) with other
competitors during a marathon?

~~~
PascLeRasc
Run an 800m by yourself and then with your friend who's really into running.
You'll do better the second time since you'll push yourself to be as good as
he/she.

~~~
oblio
I'm still kind of in the dark. Are you saying that during a marathon there
will be some "sacrificial" runners (I think they're called "rabbits")? That's
like playing in a team, they're not really opponents.

You can't interact with the real opponents, as far as I know.

~~~
matthewowen
So, there are a few things:

1\. Drafting has benefits

2\. Different runners have different strengths. Some have a stronger kick at
the end of the race, some have a weaker kick but can maintain a higher pace.

One example of how this can play out in a marathon (and, to a greater extent,
in something like the 5000) is that a runner who has a faster overall
potential but a weaker finishing kick wants the pace to be run at a higher
tempo. However, if the runner tries to do this unilaterally, weaker athletes
may be able to draft and use the physical and mental benefits to hang on,
before winning using their kick.

However, if there are multiple endurance oriented athletes, they're typically
more able to enforce a higher tempo throughout the run that will drop those
athletes that have a stronger kick.

You'll often notice this in the 5000, where the winning time might be well
below the personal or seasonal bests of many of the participating runners.
Tactics prevent them from running their optimal race, and then a stronger
kicking runner wins.

------
elthran
Is there any change here, or is this just the fairly common repost of this?

~~~
Waterluvian
Also, is it still accurate? I heard its way off now.

~~~
DasIch
I doubt that there are many, if any, organisations capable of creating such a
handbook and have it be accurate.

------
sboselli
Yes, it would be really interesting if someone could get a person from Valve
to give us an idea of how this all looks as of today.

Can anyone make it happen?

~~~
nkassis
It's from a few years ago but here is Michael Abrash's experience with working
at valve [http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/valve-how-i-got-
here-w...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/valve-how-i-got-here-what-
its-like-and-what-im-doing-2/) \+ some interesting tibits about his past at Id
and MS.

------
hochchristoph
High-res edition [25MB]:
[http://media.steampowered.com/apps/valve/Valve_NewEmployeeHa...](http://media.steampowered.com/apps/valve/Valve_NewEmployeeHandbook.pdf)

------
ixtli
I think anyone who likes what they see here needs to honestly ask themselves
how they believe this applies to their world. Whenever this PDF is posted on
HN I am disappointed to see comparisons between how people perceive Valve and
their own companies. Does your company have a total equity > 2 billion us
dollars? Probably not. Much of this flows from the ability to invest in an
incentivize your employees at this level.

As another aside I do not think there is causal evidence that Valve became
successful because of these ideals. On the contrary they seem like the result
of success.

~~~
demonshreder
> As another aside I do not think there is causal evidence that Valve became
> successful because of these ideals. On the contrary they seem like the
> result of success.

In the following link, Gabe Newell explains some of ideas behind how Valve
works. He argues that the way Valve works has been a conscious decision based
on his experiences while working at Microsoft and interacting with other
companies at that time.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QEOBgLBQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QEOBgLBQU)

------
ebbv
This is quite old, and paints an overly rosy picture. After this was published
a lot of the SteamBox project people got canned and were less impressed with
the reality of Valve:

[http://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-
ellsworth/](http://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/)

~~~
xigency
"We were having a difficult time recruiting folks. We would interview very
talented people but they would be rejected by the old timers at Valve as not
fitting the culture."

This sounds like a terrible environment to develop in.

~~~
Bjartr
If done "right" it could also maintain an environment that is excellent to
develop in iif you do fit in the culture.

~~~
xigency
This quote was talking about the Steam Box team, a hardware team that was an
enclave inside of a software company. It sounds really hokey for this team
developing new hardware to be unable to bring in necessary talent for whatever
reason.

It might be different if the new hires did have day-to-day work with these old
software or video game developing fogies.

------
rsp1984
The problem is in almost every group of people lacking a formal hierarchy, an
informal un-official hierarchy will start to emerge with a higher likelihood
of manipulators, sociopaths or other political climbers on top. I'd rather not
be part of one of those.

~~~
sliverstorm
This is, tangentially, my objection to my friend's dream of anarchy. Maybe the
world would be better off without government- but the power vacuum will always
be filled, so it's almost certainly better to fill it deliberately.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Another way to look at anarchism is just favoring the smallest possible power
structures. So maybe there is someone who runs the oven, and everyone knows
they're in charge. But you don't have someone in an office 1000 miles away
making decisions about 1000 ovens.

Another way of thinking about it is that any and all power structures are
allowed, they just have to be opt-in. If you want to be a 4th tier worker in a
6 tier command-and-control structure, that's fine. You just have to be there
by choice.

~~~
sliverstorm
The power vacuum which is filled by government today is, I think,
fundamentally not a power structure you can opt out of. Aside from moving,
which is already how it works today.

------
swanson
Let me start by saying that I love reading these kind of handbooks from
various companies.

One thing that stuck out to me was multiple mentions about "raising the issue"
for the tough topics (compensation issues, feeling uncertain) -- who is the
issue "raised" to if there is zero hierarchy and I have no
manager/adviser/councilor? Does the flat structure only apply to "individual
contributors" and is there a more traditional HR/operations structure that is
not shown?

------
perseusprime11
What worries me about this handbook is that it rarely gets updated. For a
healthy culture to sustain, rules have to evolve based on all the new
employees who join Valve.

~~~
AimHere
Is Valve expanding all that quickly? I suspect it still has well under 1000
employees.

~~~
swsieber
Somebody cited roughly 330 elsewhere on this page.

~~~
AimHere
Cough, that was me. Between posting this, and posting that, I went to
Wikipedia :)

------
bishops_move
Even if it's not accurate to Valve of today, it's a helluva reach goal for
most dev-oriented companies.

------
denzell
Keen to know how they are different now.

------
Xyik
How is pay handled if there is no hierarchy? Who decides how to spend the
company's money? This type of recruiting-marketing is almost as bad as
Google's.

------
edpichler
Anyone knows what software is good for doing a beautiful styled book like this
one?

------
Pinatubo
The "flat structure" at Valve reminds me of the"unlimited vacation" policy at
Netflix. It sounds liberating, but also offers the potential for employees to
be judged by rules that are no longer clearly spelled out.

~~~
aphextron
"Unlimited PTO" Is a hallmark of most tech companies. And yeah, it's total
bullshit. Give me my 4 weeks a year and let me take them without any
judgement, thank you.

~~~
gozur88
Heh. Unlimited PTO is unlimited in the same way ISPs provide unlimited data -
it's unlimited for people who don't use it.

------
esaym
I'm going to assume they don't have any remote software dev positions?

------
cdevs
I wish my company was this organized

------
roddux
Honestly I only skim read this wondering if there was a policy not to talk
about Half Life 3! Interesting read, though.

