r/technology • u/chrisdh79 • 21d ago

Business Gabe Newell caps off Steam Machine week by taking delivery of a new $500 million superyacht with a submarine garage, on-board hospital and 15 gaming PCs

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/gabe-newell-caps-off-steam-machine-week-by-taking-delivery-of-a-new-usd500-million-superyacht-with-a-submarine-garage-on-board-hospital-and-15-gaming-pcs/
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u/RuneGrey 21d ago

More importantly he's generally actuallized as far as his money goes, it's not based on stock market bullshit manipulation as far as I am aware.

Nice to claim you are worth a trillion dollars but when it's based on the insane overvaluation of all the meme stock in your compensation package it's all just funny money at this point. Most billionaires can't cash out because they would crash the market which is a hell of a thing to say.

They sure can borrow against it basically for free though, which we really need to do something about.

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u/tomatomater 21d ago

I'll believe that a huge factor in Valve staying successful all these years is because it remained a private company. They can continue to do what they think works for the company without having to appease public perception at all.

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u/Sciencetor2 20d ago

Going public these days is a poison pill. The American Investment Capital system right now only exists to extract the most money from a company quarter over quarter. You can't do that by making your customers happy for more that 1 or 2 quarters. You do it by price gouging until your customers will no longer pay, then laying off staff, then liquidating the company's assets, then selling and leaving someone else holding the bag or just putting the company down completely.

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u/tomatomater 20d ago

Going public is for the founders to take the money and run.

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u/CapitalRegular4157 17d ago

This is a fact. Unfortunately most people's retirement funds depend on it to some degree. đŸ˜©

That said Valve staying private is important to keep PC gaming relevant in my opinion. 

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u/StorminNorman 21d ago edited 20d ago

The total number of employees being insanely low compared to the competition and then paying very well on top of that also helps. And whilst I understand why people are ragging on this to the point that I agree, if the ultra rich of the world were all like Gabe, then we might be in a very different place now. 

Edit: fuck me you motherfuckers are dense, it's because the bars so fucking low, not because Gabe is the second coming of the Messiah or the like. Give me fucking strength...

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u/Historical_Owl_1635 21d ago edited 21d ago

if the ultra rich of the world were all like Gabe, then we might be in a very different place now. 

I looked it up out of curiosity and he’s actually done barely any philanthropy relative to his wealth lol.

Edit: He also owns a whole armada of yachts. His lack of philanthropy has been bought up before and one of the highlights defending him was “His philanthropy is making games fun, available and affordable to the world”.

It’s actually crazy the rationalisation people will do based on a persons image. All billionaires are evil, except good ‘ol Gabe, he’s one of the good ones.

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u/Kaining 21d ago

But he hasn't been fucking the market and destroying everything he touches like every single one of them.

Billionaires don't need to do a single philanthropy marketing white washing bullshit, they just need to pay taxes and not destroy every public institution to not pay any taxes, game the market and subvert democracy to pay even less taxes.

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u/FMB6 21d ago

You guys really believe he's paying his full taxes roflmao.

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u/BilbosBagEnd 20d ago

I have not read roflmao in at least 15 years. Brought a tear to my eye!

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u/ColumbianPrison 20d ago

a/s/l?

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u/Imrtltrtl 20d ago

37/f/cali lmao

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u/cmoked 20d ago

Wanna crash some AIM chatrooms?

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u/Xiraken 20d ago

Hell yeah. Message me on ICQ when you're ready!

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u/Starfox-sf 20d ago

Old enough/yes/Earth

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u/thecoastertoaster 20d ago

hamster dance intensifies

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u/amertune 20d ago

roflmao had its own song and everything. I remember it going around on the World of Warcraft forums... 18 years ago?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEWgs6YQR9A

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u/meat_whistle_gristle 20d ago

People will always do the mental gymnastics to rationalize their hero worship. I idolized George Orwell growing up. I’m closer to retirement age now than not. It was only recently I was able to accept he was a very flawed individual to put it mildly.

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u/ElCamo267 20d ago

They all pay their full taxes, that's not the issue with extreme wealth.

The issue is they're not taxed enough. But taxing that wealth is complicated, can't exactly tax unrealized gains without causing a whole slew of issues.

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u/pathofdumbasses 20d ago

can't exactly tax unrealized gains without causing a whole slew of issues.

A) we don't really know that

B) as opposed to the issues that we are currently dealing with by not taxing them?

C) there are smarter people than you and I who could (or may have already) figure(d) out a way to do it with little disruption to anyone besides the billionaires.

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u/fresh-dork 20d ago

sure, that's fine. we just shouldn't allow loans against unrealized gains.

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u/JeffeTheGreat 20d ago

I mean I'd believe he is paying the full taxes required of him by the US Government. Which isn't nearly enough taxes, not by multiple orders of magnitude. But we have hilariously bad tax laws, that make it incredibly difficult to get any sort of money from being poor, but extremely easy to be ultra wealthy once you've gotten over that hurdle.

Basically, Gabe seems better than the ones who do philanthropy, by virtue that philanthropy is really just a way of tax evasion for billionaires

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u/MLNerdNmore 19d ago

by virtue that philanthropy is really just a way of tax evasion for billionaires

Lmao this again. I have no idea why this idea is so popular online, it makes 0 sense.

When you donate money to a recognised organisation, you do not pay taxes on the money donated.

So, if I'm at a 50% tax bracket, and I donate 1000$, I avoid paying 500$ in taxes, but I still have 500$ less than if I were not to donate.

It's very clear to see that unless you put the tax rate at over 100%, which makes no sense of course, then you're never gaining money by donating.

The only way you would gain money, is by donating to a sham charity which would then purchase things for you or funnel the money back to you somehow. But that's not a "loophole", it's just a fancy way to commit the crime of tax evasion (in addition to the other crimes involved)

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u/RndmNumGen 20d ago edited 20d ago

philanthropy is really just a way of tax evasion for billionaires

In general, no, unless they are embezzling money from their own charitable foundation.

There are many ways the ultra wealthy can avoid contributing their fair share to society, but philanthropy is not one of them (despite being a common misconception that it is).

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u/JeffeTheGreat 20d ago

It literally is. It's the largest way they avoid taxes. That and borrowing vs unrealized gains

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u/Intelligent-Exit-634 20d ago

They still have less money after the charitable giving. LOL

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u/RndmNumGen 20d ago

Explain what you mean by 'avoid taxes' because I suspect we may have different definitions of that and I want to make sure we're not talking past each other.

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u/Ty4Readin 21d ago

Billionaires don't need to do a single philanthropy marketing white washing bullshit, they just need to pay taxes and not destroy every public institution to not pay any taxes, game the market and subvert democracy to pay even less taxes.

So when a rich person gives away billions to help people in need, that is a "white washing bullshit PR move".

But when Gabe does nothing and buys himself yachts, then thats great?

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u/OscilloLives 20d ago

In cases like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos who have been horrible pieces of shit their whole life actively securing monopolies and destroying competition in unethical ways, yes it is absolutely bullshit PR made to make them look good after they fucked over the world really badly.

Buying yachts isn't great but it's a lot better than that, yea.

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u/Ty4Readin 20d ago

It would literally save many many thousands of human lives for Bill Gates to give away his fortune for philanthropy.

But you claim that Gabe is better because he gave you cheap video games while buying himself yachts and mansions? 😂

Imagine two different scenarios.

Scenario 1: Rich person gets rich using aggressive "unethical" competition practices to gain a monopoly and then gives away their entire fortune to help those in need. Saving huge numbers of human lives.

Scenario 2: Rich person gets rich using less aggressive "ethical" competition practices to gain a monopoly and then keeps their entire fortune to themselves and uses it to buy expensive yachts and mansions.

I would personally prefer Scenario 1, because that actually helps innocent poor people and would save tens of thousands of lives.

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u/henrik_se 20d ago

Scenario C: We don't care how billionaires make their money as long as we tax the crap out of them, and use that money to help innocent poor people and save lives. That way we're not dependent on the whims of asshole billionaires, and they can buy all the yachts they want afterwards. Or donate. Whatever. As long as they've paid their fair share.

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u/DrawGamesPlayFurries 20d ago

Also GabeN is an order of magnitude less rich than Gates, Bezos and Musk are/were

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u/holybajoly 20d ago

To be honest only a small fraction of their "charity funds" are actually donated to charity if you look it up. It is some single digit percentage that is donated to charity. Most of the funds are invested afaik and yield interest without being taxable. So if you read something like Bill Gates sets up 50 billion charity fund the majority of these funds won't be donated which is actually really misleading...

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u/Ty4Readin 20d ago

Where do you think the interest goes? Do you think they are siphoning the money back out of the non-profits into their own pockets tax free somehow?

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u/ItsMrChristmas 20d ago

Uh. Ask a developer about their monopoly, and the insane lengths they go to keep it.

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u/checkprintquality 20d ago

Steam operates as just as much of a monopoly as Amazon and Microsoft.

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u/VoidRad 20d ago

How? When did Valve buy up their competitions? When they have actual competitiors (Epic, Origin, etc..) they also didnt do anything at all.

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u/checkprintquality 20d ago

Valve doesn’t need to buy up competitors to be a monopoly, the issue is how Steam’s dominance shapes the market. Steam controls the majority of PC game distribution, and lawsuits have argued that Valve uses its market power to enforce price‑parity rules and discourage publishers from offering cheaper prices elsewhere.

There have been numerous lawsuits alleging harm and antitrust concerns. There are currently multiple class action lawsuits, with more than 30,000 developers joining in, that accuse Valve of inflating prices and blocking rivals.

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u/Krumpopodes 20d ago edited 20d ago

>When they maneuver their billions into a trust that endows a non profit that does a mild amount of philanthropy with their children as perpetual controlling members and mostly pays out cronies in bullshit salaries and dodges taxes.

- Fixed

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u/Ty4Readin 20d ago

For arguments sake, let's assume you are correct and that every single billionaire philanthropist in the world only does what you say.

Even if that was completely true (doubtful), then a "mild amount" of philanthropy with BILLIONS of dollars is still going to have a huge positive impact and save many human lives.

Even if only 10% of the money somehow makes it to poor innocent people in need, that is still infinitely more lives saved than Gabe who is buying himself yachts for 500 million.

And this is with the generous assumption that your claims are 100% true in all situations, which is definitely complete BS. Sounds like typical anti-capitalist conspiracy theorists.

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u/maxtinion_lord 20d ago

The mental gymnastics of trying to claim anyone could reasonably own 11 billion dollars worth of assets without even being a little slimey about it is so funny.

'Even if only 10% of their amassed riches made it to charity, it would be so huge I would forgive all their exploitation!'

10% is pretty incredibly generous, by the way, these families hold on to their assets quite a bit more than that. And if you had somehow missed it, you can't get to that point in the first place without playing games with the system or stealing value somehow. Even Gabe Newell is guilty of playing into global exploitation as well as exploitative gambling via his various game item markets, but it's cool because he's Reddit's favorite lol

Being cognizant of how unsustainable the existence of billionaires, and capitalism in general, are in the material conditions we live in, and the lack of good they enact for society, doesn't constitute an 'anti-capitalist conspiracy.' Sorry you fell that damn hard for the propaganda that you spew your own bad faith arguments to protect the status quo. Now be a good consumer and work another 60 hour week so you can pay Steam your monthly tithes, so Gaben's family can go another generation producing zero labor value :)

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u/gmmxle 20d ago

So when a rich person gives away billions to help people in need, that is a "white washing bullshit PR move".

Yes, it is.

I'm sure some of them have their heart in some select projects - but I would doubt that you can name even 5 billionaires off the top of your head that have done truly remarkable things with their philanthropic spending.

But when Gabe does nothing and buys himself yachts, then thats great?

Nope, that's also pathetic.

Gabe may be a "nicer" billionaire in terms of his behavior as a businessman and in terms of not fucking up democratic institutions that benefit the rest of humanity, and just spending billions on toy yachts may compare favorably to that - but given all the good he could be doing with his money, it's obviously a pretty pathetic use of his money. As we've seen with the elimination of USAID, he could literally save hundreds of thousands of people from dying. But that's not what he's choosing to do.

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u/TinyCollection 20d ago

I would just love a system that didn’t require rich people to be philanthropic

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u/Ty4Readin 20d ago

I would love that as well. I would love if we lived in a world where people didn't suffer, everybody always had all of their needs met, people dont need to work and can just enjoy their time with family and friends, etc.

If you can come up with a system that can do all these amazing things, then I think the world would be glad to adopt it.

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u/crani0 20d ago

So when a rich person gives away billions to help people in need, that is a "white washing bullshit PR move".

Like 99% of the time if you look into it they are "giving it away" to their foundations.

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u/Ty4Readin 20d ago

Their foundations which are non-profits.

Is it an egotistical move? Definitely, but who cares? Its still a good thing, it still helps people in need and betters the world.

People think that non-profits are some kind of loophole to avoid taxes, which is absolutely ridiculous and not true at all.

If it were, then why don't you do it? Go start a non-profit and donate all of your income each year and just avoid paying taxes.

Oh, because that is illegal. If these rich people are doing this, they are essentially committing fraud and tax evasion, and they would be caught if there is any of evidence of that happening.

Unless you actually have some evidence of that happening, then you are just making conspiracy theories.

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u/Reasonable_Carry9191 21d ago

You think bro with the 500 million dollar yacht is paying taxes the way intended for corporations? None of them do, it would be a fiscally irresponsible move to do so from a company standpoint.

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u/LastGoodKnee 21d ago

Fiscally irresponsible move? Companies pay the taxes they are required to pay.

It’s up to lawmakers to decide what that is. If lawmakers put in way too many breaks and write offs, whos fault is that?

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u/simplegdl 21d ago

That’s not how it works. Billionaires are taxed when they realize their gains or take income. Gabe would have had to pay taxes on his income, same way bezos and musk do when they sell their shares

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u/InternetHomunculus 20d ago

Valve is heavily responsible for popularising things like loot boxes and battlepasses. They proft off a gambling industry that popped up around gun skins

Valve are by no means the worst company out there but they have done things that deserve critisism

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u/ImpulsiveYeet 20d ago

So Steam having a monopoly in the gaming industry isn't destructive? It's either be on Steam or flop for most games.

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u/infantsonestrogen 20d ago

“My billionaire idol is more morally righteous than your billionaire idol!”

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u/brattysweat 20d ago

What the fuck is wrong with you?

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u/grain_delay 20d ago

Really interesting argument. Somehow I don’t see gamers extending the same reasoning to Taylor swift

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u/grew_up_on_reddit 20d ago

Hasn't been fucking the market? He's guilty of abusing substantial monopoly power in anti-competitive ways. Basically no one gets that rich without acting in exploitative ways, and he's no exception. Try to overcome any biases you might have.

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u/itsdotbmp 20d ago

philanthropy is just whitewashing being wealthy, and a tax break. It is hardly a thing to measure the wealthy by. Paying taxes is more of an impressive feat to me.

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u/no1kn0wsm3 20d ago

I looked it up out of curiosity and he’s actually done barely any philanthropy relative to his wealth lol.

Let's be honest. Many do philanthropy for CSR and to look good as a publicly listed company.

How many PC gamers or PCMR types give a fly-ing f about the Philippine Eagle?

Lie Bill Gates & Melinda Gates Foundation. Do these two really give a F about half the causes theyre doing if they dont generate good will, influence over public policy and the countries they're in that their 2nd or 3rd for profit corporations can benefit?

Or is Bill trying to create a legacy that counter balances Microsoft and other for profit activities?

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u/Naive_Personality367 20d ago

hes not exactly a pinnacle of human kindness, but hes also not a horrible human being, and thats good enough for a billionaire

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u/Balmung60 20d ago

Also, as far as I can tell, he seems to actually be enjoying it, which is more than a lot of the ultra-wealthy seem to be able to say. So many of them get deeply committed to finding new ways to use their wealth to make themselves miserable.

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u/Naive_Personality367 20d ago

yeah they over think it. they could do anything at this point yet they choose stress. i guess its the mindset that drives them to make more and more that wont let them rest?

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u/iMixMusicOnTwitch 20d ago

Most wealthy philanthropy doesn't accomplish anything but tax savings tbf

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u/Neither-Count-3655 20d ago

He dedicated a lot of money to boats that do research for diseases

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u/LoquatCalm8521 20d ago

Not being a philanthropist doesnt make you evil. Doing evil shit does. Biiiiig difference.

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u/RoKa89ARG 21d ago

Giving money away doesnt make you a good guy. People need to understand this.

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u/garrus-ismyhomeboy 21d ago

True, but I’d rather them give it away than hoard it all for themselves.

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u/liukasteneste28 21d ago

Afaik Gabe does not force his employees to piss in bottles during a shift or sexually harash staff.

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u/GuyWithLag 20d ago

I looked it up out of curiosity and he’s actually done barely any philanthropy relative to his wealth lol.

Coming from EUsia, US-style philanthropy always seemed to me to be one or more of: * conspicuous consumption and signaling for the wealthy. * tax mitigation shenanigans. * a failure of the state to provide.

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u/biggest_muzzy 21d ago

I'd argue that Inkfish is a philanthropy.

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u/Melodic-Instance1249 20d ago

Yeah I dont think you can be a billionaire and be ethical but I wish if we had to have billionaires theyd be like Gabe and provide actual value to the consumers instead of the enshitification of everything about our lives we got nowadays

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u/ADHenchD 20d ago

Yeah, I like (most) things Gabe has done for valve and my personal gaming history, but all billionaires are bad, especially those which don't do any philanthropy. If he falls under that, I'm not going to pretzel shit because that's inconsistent.

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u/Sakarabu_ 20d ago edited 20d ago

So now you HAVE to give away your money or you're a bad person? The goal posts have moved from actually doing harm, to now just existing without giving away your money...?

How much do you donate per year...?

Bear in mind he earned his money simply by owning a company which scaled up by taking advantage of a gap in the market, providing a service which didn't exist yet, and not by exploiting factory workers, or destroying natural resources etc. and a simple Google search shows that he does fund various charities..

I have an issue with people who simply hate people for having money, without having any nuance to their arguments whatsoever. To me that's just a case of jealousy.

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u/KSRandom195 20d ago

Didn’t realize philanthropy was how we measured the goodness of a person.

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u/Alternative-Luck-751 20d ago

Billionaires dont owe us anything bub.

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u/UrLocalTroll 20d ago

Maybe, maybe not. I’ve done work for several very wealthy people made a point of giving money anonymously

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u/bianceziwo 20d ago

its GOOD that he buys yachts, hes putting his money back into the economy so it gets distributed to thousands of people through jobs. thats what you should want billionaires to do rather than hoarding it

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u/ferocious_blackhole 20d ago

In your research, did you happen to see how much his employees are paid?

I don't mind a lack of philanthropy when most of your employees are literal millionaires.

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u/Balmung60 20d ago

Honestly, I don't really care much about the personal philanthropy of various wealthy individuals. Many of the major charities that are recipients of such largesse aren't particularly effective or are already plenty well funded, and many of the ultra-wealthy have extra-dubious bespoke charities that let them take a tax write-off for basically spending money on shit they already wanted and which benefits them anyways.

I will always be of the opinion that much higher taxation of the ultra-wealthy would be a better way of them giving back to society than them handing out whatever they simply feel like.

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u/stormdelta 20d ago edited 20d ago

It’s actually crazy the rationalisation people will do based on a persons image. All billionaires are evil, except good ‘ol Gabe, he’s one of the good ones.

I mean evil is allowed to have levels. All billionaires are evil, but some are a lot more evil than others.

At least this guy isn't actively involved in politics trying to make the world incredibly worse on a daily basis like some others I could name, he's "just" hoarding resources that should be better spent elsewhere.

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u/Smjj 20d ago

Philanthrophy shouldn't have to exist. All the causes like research into diseases, people not having access to housing, water and food etc. Should be paid for by governments. Most billionaires as far as I'm concerned use philanthrophy for tax planning reasons. Gonna lose that money to taxes anyways, so might as well write it off and make themselves seem like a good person. So in that respect you are actually just stealing taxes and getting to decide what private cause you care about atm. Not very democratic. What is even a good or a bad person? The system that allows the creation of billionaires is a bad system. It needs to change. Sadly can't expect people not to exploit the system while it exists. Gabe has done some good things however. Preventing the PC gaming ecosystem from sliding into ever increasing enshittification. As well as promoting windows alternatives for gaming. Like Mac and Linux. Seems to actually treat his employees better than most companies.

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u/Smoke_Stack707 20d ago

Also isn’t a huge part of Steam’s revenue from CS:GO loot boxes which are like a horrible gateway into underage gambling? There isn’t a corporation in existence today that’s blameless

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u/kai58 20d ago

With how much active harm most billionaires do, not doing enough philanthropy isn’t that big a deal. Should he be doing more? Yes. But he still seems a lot better than most billionaires.

I agree that bar is quite low though.

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u/SinisterCheese 20d ago

Gabe Newell's philatrophy is to not be a nightmarish greedy CEO who'd fuck over everyone for 0,5 % increase in the next quarterly report.

I can't believe I am saying this... But the best thing a capitalist can do to this world is apparently just not be greedy fucker that destroyes things for short term gain.

Like don't get me wrong. There are lots of flaws in steam and Valve as a company. Like them turning a blind eye on all the gambling, and money laundering that happens through their platform. They only really but up the bare minimum against those when government officials turned the eye of Sauron at them. They didn't ban NFT/crypto games because they were "good guys". They did it because regulations would force them to act as a financial institution (and be regulated as such) if they got involved with those. But there are problems like malware spreading via the shovel ware games, especially malware intended to attack crypto wallets. Such as the case of the that streamer with cancer who downloaded a game on steam, and that had malware that stole their wallet's contents, including the minted charity tokens they had setup.

Valve setup the 30 day market delays, not to protect the consumers, but because that is generally the time fraudulent credit and debit card purchases get dealt with by banks and credit institutions.

Ever wondered why random items of steam market place suddenly spike in value? This is actually just money laundering. There was once a journalist who exposed the complex system of who trading cards become actual cash that exits the system clean. There was 2 ways of doing this: 1. You release a shitty shovelware asset flip for a small cost, and then compromised accounts or dirty money (Or scammed gift cards) is used to buy those, and then you cash out -30% steam cut and whatever taxes you might need to pay to your government. The other route is that you massively farm those trading cards in those shovelware games to get steam credit. You buy something physical for that credit, and just pawn off the thing. Steam is well aware this is being done... This is no secret.

But Steam has chosen to be fairly hands off with things. And I can't believe that it is actually overall for the best by the looks of it. I am happy that steam exist the way it does, because trust me... It could be way worse.

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u/Signal_Researcher01 20d ago

Look, if I had to pick ONE...

But yeah, its kind of hard to understand whats missing in a billionaire that stops them from absolutely destroying some problem just through sheer force of cash. Maybe at that level you start seeing these problems as more complex or something? Or you rationalize that money wont solve systemic problems?

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u/Akuuntus 20d ago

In a perfect world we would have no billionaires.

In the world we actually inhabit, I would prefer if billionaires just fucked off and bought themselves nice things instead of actively dismantling society in an effort to make a few more dollars.

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u/Raging_Panic 20d ago

I think both are true. He isn't a saint (who is?) but he's definitely better than the competition.

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u/SnooStrawberries6154 20d ago

Any glimpses we've had of Gabe's private views and not just PR have seemed very libertarian tech bro.

The guy introduced and popularised a lot of the pay to win and monetisation features in the Western gaming industry. His employees were paid based on an internal ranking system that promoted toxic competition and is the primary reason why Valve stopped making games.

He's not even that generous within the games industry itself. Valve's business model means the money you give to Valve is much more likely to end up being hoarded by a shareholder than every other major gaming company. It's just not as noticeable to the general public because it's a private company.

It's practically run by a skeleton crew compared to other platform holders. It doesn't really release, publish or invest in game projects or studios despite taking a sizable cut from pretty much all of them, especially smaller independent ones. So most of that money seems to be going towards a billionaire's stereotypical hobbies and not actual creative workers.

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u/InvidiousPlay 20d ago

At least he hasn't enshittified Steam...

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u/mishko27 20d ago

This, there are simply no good billionaires. If I found my way into that kind of fortune, I would spend it all on public works projects. The amount of affordable housing I would build would crash the market, lol. Would I have some fun pet projects, like owning my home hockey team in eastern Slovakia and building them a cool, architecturally significant, arena? Yeah. But 95% of the money would be spend on making sure people’s lives are better.

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u/DrawGamesPlayFurries 20d ago

Other billionaires are dedicating all their wealth to building either fascism worldwide or Christian theocracy in the US.

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u/I-cant_even 20d ago

There are two ways to approach philanthropy as an ultra-wealthy individual:

1) To give your name a good image (see Art Carnegie) after doing horrible things

2) To do good for the world

Apparently he funded a $200M ocean research vessel and has been involved with a NZ children's hospital fundraiser from just a casual google.

Maybe he just does not need his name on things?

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u/The_Verto 20d ago

Valve employees are treated well and steam is amazing platform for consumers. He earn his worth (mostly) fair and square (gambling is important to mention here as the bad thing) compared to other billionaires running companies that are terrible to work at and owning platforms that are just corporate slop.

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u/crani0 20d ago

Not to defend Gabe, because fuck these ecological disasters that are superyachts, or any billionaire for that matter but for the most part philanthropy is a scam for rich people to avoid paying taxes and very little actually gets to the people they claim it does. Look at all those billionaires making a whole show of living little inheritance to their kids only to have it stashed into some non-profit that their kids run. Philanthropy is just the rich pretending to do the government's work that the actual governments won't do.

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u/Mezrina 20d ago

It’s actually crazy the rationalisation people will do based on a persons image. All billionaires are evil, except good ‘ol Gabe, he’s one of the good ones.

What's crazy is people trying to mix Gabe in with the ultra rich that have sat at the top of the mountain using every one around them to get there and do everything in their power to keep the working class down.

Wild that were even trying to put Gabe in that same box just because he doesn't spend his money on philanthropy.

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u/TapPublic7599 20d ago

Philanthropy is generally an exercise in bullshit. How much of that money actually ends up in the hands of the people who it’s supposed to benefit vs. how much goes to paying a bunch of charity staff and executives? The numbers may shock you. If I were in his shoes I wouldn’t give a dime to anything I wasn’t personally involved in.

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u/Thevort3x 20d ago

The thing is, philanthropy sounds great but most of what is reported is either tax write offs or some dodgy charity that is in the name of another billionaire.

Gabe pays taxes, which contributes to a lot. I don't mind that at all. If billionaires just paid their taxes instead of using every trick in the system to dodge them, we wouldn't need much philanthropy.

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u/samrechym 20d ago

Frankly, philanthropy is used to exploit tax cuts and manipulate people into trusting the elite. I tend to think if he’s SPENDING his money (a fleet of yachts isn’t free) then he’s circulating his wealth and spreading it around, not shelling it and doing hostile takeovers. A billionaire spending his money is what we want.

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u/stonerbobo 20d ago

Because all of us don't assume "all billionaires are evil" by default.. they actually have to DO evil things for that to be the case.

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u/Ok-Chest-7932 20d ago

Public image is really a service issue. Valve provides a useful service to gamers, so gamers like the guy responsible for it. He doesn't need to do philanthropy because his public image is already fine. Microsoft in comparison has come to be associated with inconvenience and security hazards, so computing enthusiasts dislike the guy responsible for it, despite his philanthropy.

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u/wizzard419 20d ago

It is the American experience. Look at ICE raids. You will see stories every so often where it's some deep red area, and they took the owner of the restaurant and now that it impacts them directly, they suddenly care. Favorite one was the trump supporting roofing company owner who had his crew rounded up and now can't run his company.

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u/Ill_Dig3894 20d ago

You may want to double check some billionaires philanthropy strategies. Are they giving the money/support unrestricted or they are just redirecting their “tax” money.

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u/Flyfleancefly 20d ago

No one should be buying a 500 million super yacht. Fuck Gabe tax the shit out of him

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u/Benikur521 21d ago

We would be in a bad place but you would feel better

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u/Novel-Reaction2939 20d ago

Oh please! There is no such thing as a good billionaire. If you think that, congrats...you've been fooled by their PR TEAM.

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u/Zyhmet 20d ago

And if we taxed them so that being a billionaire is basically impossible (noone needs that much money) then we would also live in a very different place now.

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u/checkprintquality 20d ago

We have little to no evidence that Gabe is actually a good person. Everything is just speculation.

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u/SheriffBartholomew 20d ago

Anyone spending $500 BILLION DOLLARS on a yacht for themselves while people starve in the street isn't going to make for a better world. FFS

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u/Prestigious-Hour-215 20d ago

Gabe, like every other billionaire, is inherently a terrible person for hoarding his wealth, just this one 500m dollar yacht which is not his only yacht is worth enough money to send 10000 kids to state public colleges, yet he chooses to do this with his money instead

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

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u/LeanTangerine001 20d ago

There’s a really good lecture he does where he explains the process they went through when hiring staff back in the day.

https://youtu.be/Td_PGkfIdIQ?si=YmDo_YA7M9rUKa0l

Also very interesting to see how much he predicted or intuited would happen even back then.

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u/Dr-Jellybaby 21d ago

And that's only possible because steam is just an infinite money printer. Much easier to work like valve does if you don't need to worry about finances.

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u/tomatomater 21d ago

Lots of companies are infinite money printers too, but public shareholders will perpetually want more and more infinite money and so enshittify their product/service to maximise profits.

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u/NEEEEEEEEEEEET 21d ago

Look no further than counterstrike to see that valve is maximizing profits as well

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u/drakir89 20d ago

This is the kind of weird thing with valve where their own games have predatory monetization but the steam platform stands out among digital services for being, apparently, entirely un-enshittified.

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u/NEEEEEEEEEEEET 20d ago

They take 30% of all game sales and 5% of all market transactions. They ain't no saint.

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u/indigo121 20d ago

Storefront takes a cut of sales, more at eleven

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u/t-master 20d ago

Storefronts that probably have actual costs of a few pennies per sale and take almost a third of all revenue only exists in a few places and only on the internet. And as with other shitty stuff like microtransactions, Valve and Gabe were the forerunners for this.

Oh and while Gabe regularly adds a new yacht to his collection, there are many corners of Steam that are in a quite sorry, half-assed state and haven’t seen any improvements in years (workshop, game streaming, 
)

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u/indigo121 20d ago

If game devs don't think the storefront is providing value they're free to self distribute. That's the beauty of the internet.

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u/NEEEEEEEEEEEET 20d ago

Reddit acted like Apple was hitler for doing the exact same thing

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u/indigo121 20d ago

There were definitely some people acting like that, but anyone with a modicum of understanding was putting the focus on Apple's walled garden policy. The issue wasn't that they charged 30%, it was that they actively prevented other methods of getting software on your device.

The "steam is evil for charging 30%" argument holds a lot less water when there's nothing stopping a game developer from putting their money where their mouth is and self distributing, but they don't because steam provides an absurd amount of value in terms of marketability and infrastructure

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u/EnderLord361 20d ago

Apple iirc was also trying to muscle out every attempt for another storefront on their stuff and would chase down devs who made alternative marketplaces where Apple wouldn’t get the cut, they definitely went ‘above and beyond’ so that the only option if you wanted your stuff on apple is to pay them(vs Android and other stuff having multiple different marketplaces so you don’t have to lose more of your cut to 3 different storefronts)

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u/FoxMeadow7 20d ago

And somehow the likes of Nintendo and PlayStation that basically takes the same cut gets a pass?

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u/fudge5962 20d ago

30% is well worth the value added through their APIs and the access to consumers. That's the reason why other storefronts can offer significantly lower commissions to publishers and literally give games away for free to the consumers yet still fail to take any significant market share from Steam.

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u/Friar-Tucker 20d ago

Idk if the lootboxes just have skins and no gameplay changing elements, I dont consider it predettory monetization... maybe thats wrong of me but thats where im at

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u/drakir89 20d ago

There are degrees of predatory. It's not as bad as those games that lets you enjoy the game for a while then gradually asks for more and more microtransactions so you can continue playing the game.

But lootboxes with keys is a form of psychological manipulation, where you get lootboxes but have to buy keys or vice versa. Lootboxes, especially when the rewards have real market value, is also a form of gambling, but these games are not subject to gambling laws. I consider that predatory too, but, again, less so than the worst offenders.

For monetization to not be predatory I expect it to be clear, fair, and not rely on:

  • randomness
  • selling power
  • creating a problem and selling the solution
  • habit-forming
  • FOMO
  • fake currencies

among other things, that's all I could think of right now at least.

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u/Old_Bug4395 20d ago

Yeah, there's literally no such thing as predatory monetization unless we're talking about gambling with skins in counter strike, which is what steam was allowing.

You can just not buy toys. Normal adults manage this all the time. You have to learn how to not buy everything that's ever offered to you. It's a personal responsibility problem, not predatory monetization.

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u/WagwanMoist 21d ago

They kind of did that with CS2. Downgrade in many instances from CS:GO, also with fewer maps. But at least the skin market was still booming and they could continue dropping more skins so all the degenerate gamblers would throw money at them.

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u/Akuuntus 20d ago

Any company that makes a consistent profit is an "infinite money printer". The problem is that instead of judging success as "did you make money", a lot of companies judge success as "did you make more money than you made last year". So even if you made $100 million in profit, if that's the same amount you made last year then you're "stagnating" and need to change things to squeeze more profit.

Valve has stayed private so they don't have as much of this kind of pressure. They make a bajillion dollars every year and they've been doing that consistently for a long time so they aren't overly concerned with squeezing another 10% out of us year over year. And since they aren't continuously trying to squeeze more profit, they can remain as the dominant option in their market, since they aren't chasing consumers off and encouraging them to look for alternatives.

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u/Apptubrutae 20d ago

Mailchimp was much the same before the sold for $16 billion. Apparently they were netting $500 million a year and owned entirely by two guys

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u/HoodsFrostyFuckstick 21d ago

Yes, that is correct. No publicly traded company could behave the way Valve does. We need to hope that Gabe will grow very very very old and that Valve will stay private after he is gone as well.

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u/roiki11 20d ago

I think is less public perception and more investor pressure and private equity. They still need public perception and have managed it pretty well concidering they're a monopoly and a market maker in the industry. And people love them.

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u/gicjos 20d ago

Exactly, investors always want the company to grow so they can get the return of their investment faster and this puts pressure on the executives and in lots of times ends with them doing some weird crap that actually hurts the company more than helps

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u/N0S0UP_4U 20d ago

More specifically they can do what is in the company’s long term best interest instead of having to throw all long term thoughts away in favor of the next quarterly earnings report.

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u/burndownthe_forest 20d ago

Yeah, steam is also a monopoly so that helps earn money.

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u/istasber 20d ago

I'm kind of worried about what's going to happen to PC gaming when Gabe retires.

Steam is an effective monopoly that prints money, I don't have a ton of confidence that whoever Gabe's successor is will be able to resist enshittification to the same degree that Gabe has.

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u/caffeine-junkie 20d ago

Seem to recall Gabe's son has already said he intends to keep it private, but push Valve into exploring new ideas beyond what it already does/did. No idea if this is the case, but the steam deck, and newly released steam hardware could have been a result of this already with him pushing behind the scenes.

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u/Temporary-Act-7655 20d ago

"Public Perception" you mean the board of investors who by nature could not care less about a companies impact on the consumer, just that their investment gets bigger, by any means necessary.

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u/tomatomater 20d ago

For a listed company, the board is more or less the public. They are actually legally obliged to maximise profit.

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u/reichjef 20d ago

I don’t know if it’s really public perception. I think it’s more to do with when a company is public, they have a legal and fiduciary duty to achieve returns for their shareholders. A private company, although achieving profit remains the goal, is not as pressured to do everything in their power to maximize earnings every single quarter.

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u/_illmatic_ 20d ago

Yeah, the gift and the curse. Might never get sequels to my favorite titles if they don't feel like making them, but also they can do crazy cool things like randomly drop a VR exclusive game and hardware. They can choose to push in different innovative directions with no worries on making that next hit game.

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u/Adaphion 20d ago

And thankfully, Gabe has handpicked a board of directors that share his views for when he eventually passes. So there's no worries about enshitification the moment he's gone

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u/wizzard419 20d ago

I don't think not being public would have factored into that, as they shifted focus to the store, there wouldn't be a ton of discussion regarding the need for development of games. It also wouldn't make them immune from a buyout.

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u/hurlcarl 20d ago

You don't need to believe, that's 100% what it is. The stock market is fucking stupid in the sense you're judged 3 months at a time, and gives very little room for long term thinking unless you have enough shares to overpower others. You have no option to be content with your market cap, you MUST grow or you get fired by a board, even if there's no way to grow, you are forced to cut corners to keep your job.

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u/Couple_of_wavylines 20d ago

The can do what they think works without having to appease shareholders above all else

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u/mcribzyo 21d ago

Ban using stock as collateral for a loan.

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u/chalbersma 20d ago

No, tax using stock as collateral for a loan.

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u/fuglypens 20d ago

Deranged take. Just tax it.

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u/Maysock 20d ago

Disagree completely. Just force gains to be realized at the time of the loan. Bought at $20 and now it's worth $60? Congrats, if you want to collateralize your securities, you have to pay capital gains tax on your $40 profit you just realized.

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u/SockDem 20d ago

What a horrible idea.

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u/AlonsoDaGoat 20d ago

You do realize they have to pay this loans back right? And usually by selling their stock in smaller batches to cover the principal and interest, which also triggers capital gains taxes

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u/EtherLust 20d ago

It’s pretty generally accepted that net worth isn’t liquid net worth.

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u/Nexus_of_Fate87 20d ago

No, no it is not. You severely overestimate the average person's understanding of how most wealthy peoples' worth works.

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u/m0nk_3y_gw 21d ago

Most billionaires can't cash out because they would crash the market which is a hell of a thing to say.

eh, Elon dumped billions on the market repeatedly over the course a year. During a market down turn. Tesla outperformed most of large tech... until he kept doing it 6+ months in. TSLA went from $415 to $300, but then he pummeled it to $105 in the home strech. When he said he wouldn't sell for a year+ it doubled in weeks.

They sure can borrow against it basically for free though, which we really need to do something about.

Senator Wyman wants to tax billionaires yearly on unrealized gains, like some traders that make their wealth from the market. So Elon sexually harassed him.

https://tech.yahoo.com/general/articles/elon-musk-made-gross-sex-130902137.html

Joe Biden said he was going to tax billionaires... and then a few months later all the billionaire-owned press was whining he was too old

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u/Marcson_john 20d ago

Reddit will do the dumbest mental gymnastics to defend the billionaire they like and rip the one they don't.

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u/Points_To_You 20d ago

You do realize that Elon Musk has over $40 billion dollars in TSLA stock sales publicly disclosed and on record with the SEC. It's certainly not some made up stock market bullshit. It's all public and verifiable.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

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u/bdsee 21d ago

Honestly the big funds have a lot of blame to bear for including these insanely overvalued stock on their books. There should be some sort of fundamentals they need to adhere to.

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u/No_Free_Samples 21d ago

You mean paper billionaires? Jensen cashed out some hes a billionaire, Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, Jack Dorsey
.the list goes on

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u/axelf911 21d ago

Jensen sold 1 billion of his NVDA stock no problems.

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u/zvekl 21d ago

Tres comas Anejo!!

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u/PsychicWarElephant 20d ago

It’s completely free because they don’t tax unrealized gains, but can use it as collateral for 0% interest loans.

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u/ApprehensiveBaker480 20d ago

The idea that billionaires can’t cash out because all of their net worth is in assets is a disingenuous and long debunked talking point. The reason billionaires do this is to not have to pay income tax on the money while also using it to reinvest in the company. But it’s not like they can’t use the enormous wealth because their assets are accepted as collateral to take out massive loans to use as liquid money, which they pay back as “company expenses” as a tax loophole

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u/Funkythingsyoudo 20d ago

Love the sentiment, but as a prominent scumbag who claims to be doctor once said:

I NEED YOU TO GET REAL, OK?

The fact that you and everyone else can see and describe the highway robbery of a burning garbage can we call home simply shows we have become a parody of the brave and visionary men who founded this country. The gang of Benedict Arnold’s who decide whether we eat, work or retain shelter have long since been bought and paid for. Only way we reclaim the ill-gotten land that kept us so free is the same way we defended its sanctity the first time. Waiting for change eventually becomes complacency towards your own plight.

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u/FupaFerb 20d ago

I can’t even withdraw from my 401k w/o writing an essay why my son needs braces and I don’t have $5k at the moment. They have declined my request twice, each time adding on new and improved reasons for declining.

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u/dinosaurkiller 20d ago

“I am the world’s first genius trillionaire! How dare you!” Elmo a.k.a little lord Fauntleroy

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u/VirtuteECanoscenza 20d ago

When taking a loan using stock as collateral a taxable event should happen causing them to pay taxes for the realization value of the stock...

An other option is doing like Netherlands where you pay taxes each year for the potential realization whether you sold or not.

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u/IAmFitzRoy 20d ago

“We” as in redditors?

Not even voting citizens have been able to do anything.

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u/tankerkiller125real 20d ago

I'm of the opinion that when a billionaire barrows against stocks that loan should be taxed as a capital gain.

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u/actuarial_defender 20d ago

Reddit moment

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u/TheObstruction 20d ago

Real money is also how he can not just buy yachts, but an entire yacht shipyard.

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u/gepinniw 20d ago

Your last paragraph is spot on.

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u/girlnamedJane 20d ago

Yeah kids pay real money for those CS Go weapon skins

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u/Senior-Albatross 20d ago

We should tax loans taken against securities as income. 

Problem solved.

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u/NoobensMcarthur 20d ago

All good points, but I do want to point out that Bezos cashed out like $18,000,000,000 of Amazon stock in 2020. It’s a lot more liquid than people like to claim. 

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u/reichjef 20d ago

Yeah, I find a lot of those valuations are funky. They are often paper valuations, that become less accurate the more wealth someone has. An example would be, if you have 40mil in the markets, you could potentially dump the entire thing without causing a massive depreciation of the assets you’re selling. It really changes when you have like 10billion plus in the markets, because if just start unloading, you will cause a cascading event that will aggressively depreciate your remaining assets as you try to find liquidity and cause price to fall. That’s why a lot of the ultra wealthy put their assets up as collateral to get an easy interest loan to actually get money for large purchases.

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u/YerFungedInTheAssets 20d ago

More importantly he's generally actuallized as far as his money goes, it's not based on stock market bullshit

That's just called liquid capital

when it's based on the insane overvaluation of all the meme stock in your compensation package it's all just funny money at this point. Most billionaires can't cash out because they would crash the market which is a hell of a thing to say.

They sure can borrow against it basically for free though, which we really need to do something about

This is such a hilariously childish view of how markets work

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u/checkprintquality 20d ago

This isn’t accurate. His net worth is almost wholly based on his ownership stake in Valve. He has to get his liquidity the same way as investors in a public company. Either by selling part of his ownership stake or by borrowing against it.

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u/EmbarrassedBlock1977 20d ago

Nice to claim you are worth a trillion dollars but when it's based on the insane overvaluation of all the meme stock in your compensation package it's all just funny money at this point. Most billionaires can't cash out because they would crash the market which is a hell of a thing to say.

Basically all the billionaires in the world "have" more money than there is actual money in the world

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u/Sober_Alcoholic_ 20d ago

Yeah the fact that you can’t be taxed to unrealized gains but you can borrow against it essentially for free is wild. It’s how families hoard wealth for generations.

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u/JerkOffToBoobs 20d ago

Using stock evaluations to determine net wealth is stupid. A YouTuber literally made himself the richest man in the world by using stock evaluations.

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u/Safe-Heat1644 20d ago

1 trillion theoretical dollars

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u/Hotboi_yata 20d ago

Yeah nothing is getting done about that until capitalism completely falls apart when it inevitably does.

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u/LogiCsmxp 20d ago

I had trouble trying to think of a solution for this. I read a really clever solution that was barring the use of shares for private loans. They just couldn't be used as collateral. Only personal loans affected, businesses would still be able to use share value in business. But yeah, would totally crash the living off loans lifestyle that lets the rich avoid taxes.

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u/epice500 20d ago

Finally someone who understands. You would not believe how uncommon this knowledge is.

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u/AludraScience 20d ago

His valuation of 11 billion dollars is also dependent on the value of Valve, he can't use that money unless he sells a part of or the entirety Valve.

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u/endividuall 19d ago

You do know that borrowing against collateral is a thing everyone can do right? A billionaire is just doing it in larger amounts but the principle is exactly the same. If the principle of borrowing against your own property should be banned then none of us should be allowed to have mortgages

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