Gabe Newell

Gabe Logan Newell (born November 3, 1962), also known by his nickname Gaben, is an American businessman who is the president of the video game company Valve Corporation.

Newell was born in Colorado and grew up in Davis, California.

Newell was born on November 3, 1962, in Colorado, and attended Davis Senior High School in Davis, California.

He worked as a paperboy, and later a telegram messenger for Western Union.

He attended Harvard University in the early 1980s but dropped out to join Microsoft, where he helped create the first versions of the Windows operating system.

He enrolled at Harvard University in 1980, but was convinced to drop out to work for Bill Gates at Microsoft by the head of sales in 1983.

Newell spent 13 years at Microsoft as the producer of the first three releases of the Windows operating systems.

Newell later said he learned more during his first three months at Microsoft than he ever did at Harvard, which was one of the primary reasons why he dropped out.

In late 1995, Doom, a 1993 first-person shooter game developed by id Software, was estimated to be installed on more computers worldwide than Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 95.

Newell said: "[id] ... didn't even distribute through retail, it distributed through bulletin boards and other pre-internet mechanisms. To me, that was a lightning bolt. Microsoft was hiring 500-people sales teams and this entire company was 12 people, yet it had created the most widely distributed software in the world. There was a sea change coming."

At Microsoft, Newell led development on a port of Doom for Windows 95, which is credited for helping make Windows a viable game platform.

He and another employee, Mike Harrington, left Microsoft in 1996 to found Valve, and funded the development of their first game, Half-Life (1998).

Inspired by Michael Abrash, who left Microsoft to work on the game Quake at id, Newell and another employee, Mike Harrington, left Microsoft to found the video game company Valve on August 24, 1996.

Newell and Harrington funded development of the first Valve game, the first-person shooter Half-Life (1998), which was a critical and commercial success.

Harrington left in 2000.

Harrington left in 2000.

Newell led the development of Valve's digital distribution service, Steam, which was launched in 2003 and controlled most of the market for downloaded PC games by 2011.

As of 2021, Newell owned at least one quarter of Valve.

He has been estimated as one of the wealthiest people in the United States and the wealthiest person in the video games industry, with a net worth of US$3.9 billion as of 2021.

He is also the owner of the marine research organization Inkfish.

Newell gave Valve no deadline and a "virtually unlimited" budget to develop Half-Life 2 (2004), promising to fund it himself if necessary.

Meanwhile, he spent several months developing Steam, a digital distribution service for games.

Newell formerly suffered from Fuchs' dystrophy, a congenital disease which affects the cornea, but was cured by two cornea transplants in 2006 and 2007.

In 2007, Newell expressed his displeasure over developing for game consoles, saying that developing processes for Sony's PlayStation 3 was a "waste of everybody's time".

In 2009, IGN named Newell one of the top 100 game creators of all time, writing that it was "almost impossible to gauge" Valve's influence on game design, technology and the video games industry.

On stage at Sony's keynote at E3 2010, he acknowledged his criticism but discussed the open nature of the PlayStation 3 and announced a port of Portal 2, remarking that with Steamworks support it would be the best version for any console.

Newell also criticized the Xbox Live service, referring to it as a "train wreck", and Windows 8, calling it a threat to the open nature of PC gaming.

In December 2010, Forbes listed Newell as "A Name You Need to Know", primarily for his work on Steam having partnerships with multiple major developers.

By 2011, Steam controlled between 50% and 70% of the market for downloaded PC games and generated most of Valve's revenue.

At a technology conference in Seattle that year, Newell argued that software piracy was best addressed by offering a superior option rather than pursuing anti-piracy technology.

He cited Steam's success in Russia, where piracy is rife, as an example.

At the 2013 LinuxCon, Newell said the Linux operating system and open source development were "the future of gaming".

He accused the proprietary systems of companies such as Microsoft and Apple of stifling innovation through slow certification processes.

In 2013, Newell was added to the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame and received the BAFTA Fellowship award for his contributions to the video game industry.

In October 2017, Forbes listed Newell among the 100 wealthiest people in the United States, with an estimated net worth of US$5.5 billion.

In December 2021, Forbes estimated that Newell had a net worth of US$3.9 billion and owned at least one quarter of Valve.

According to Charlie Fish, the author of The History of Video Games, as of 2021 Newell was the richest person in the video game industry.

Newell is the owner of the marine research organization Inkfish.

In November 2022, Inkfish purchased the Hadal Exploration System, a private deep-sea exploration platform, from the undersea explorer Victor Vescovo.

In 2020, Newell and the Valve employee Yahn Bernier created a car racing team, the Heart of Racing, to raise funds for children's charities in Seattle and New Zealand.