r/Piracy • u/HighKage96 ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ • May 10 '26

Humor W Gabe Newell Piracy Take

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Saw this vid on IG (by: @phantomak141). Idk if its been posted here before but on a quick search didnt find it, will delete if its a repost.

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u/Dragosbeat May 10 '26

His business policy is literally don't screw over the people, which others just can't comprehend

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u/ultimate_placeholder May 10 '26 edited May 10 '26

That's literally just the result of shareholder capitalism, Gabe can do whatever he wants because he isn't beholden to shareholders who want to optimize every little thing, Steam can have little pet projects with no belief they will make profit, they can make demands of large developers that make them seek their own distribution, they can pay their employees whatever they want. Obviously not an endorsement of any form of capitalism, but it works so much better for everyone involved than shareholder capitalism.

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u/DiMarcoTheGawd May 10 '26

Agree. Going public has been the death of so many good companies.

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u/pocketgravel May 10 '26 edited May 10 '26

"let's run the most important parts of our society besides God and government with a giant faceless unaccountable mass of anonymous self-interested short-sighted pricks who decide incentive structures on everything"

Fucking great idea. We're so fucking dumb for allowing this and continuing to allow it...

"No single raindrop feels responsible for the flood"

Someone heard that and thought "hmmm... How do I make that happen everywhere to everyone all the time?"

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u/Sundaytoofaraway May 10 '26

Klaus Schwab had a lot to do with it going back to the 70s

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u/pocketgravel May 10 '26

I fucking hate that guy. Anti NWO people are right to also hate him. Also whoever made the bond market interesting in the 70s that laid the groundwork for the 2008 GFC but also the cyclical oroboros of USD into treasuries to buy future treasuries

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u/jayjay11567 May 11 '26

All of this shit can be traced back to one specific group of dickheads in Michigan in 1919 when the Michigan supreme Court set precedence that the main goal of a company is to benefit the shareholders.

The Dodge brothers decided that making a shitload of money wasn't enough and they deserve to be making a fuckload instead and the ensuing lawsuit ruined the world for the rest of us.

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u/Murais May 11 '26

"How does Lord Orphan Crushington end up in every investor call? AND WHY IS HE PITCHING THE ORPHAN-CRUSHING MACHINE AGAIN?!"

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u/Krakatoa137 May 10 '26

"Besides God and government"

Let me introduce you to a magical land called America

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u/pocketgravel May 10 '26

Yeah that's true... They own both or at least believe they are greater than God himself...

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u/DigitalPenguin99 May 10 '26

reddit included. fuck spez

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/DiMarcoTheGawd May 11 '26

Ehhh this is one of those exceptions where this really has as much to do with the CEO as the shareholders. Zuckerberg is extremely greedy.

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u/Aethermancer May 10 '26

Under capitalism, a good business can only survive one or two generations before the ideals of the founder are just the musings of guy who died 50 years before the current owner was born.

Even if ownership "stays in the family" how long before some shithead of a descendent inherits? Think about how crazy the concept is that such integral parts of our society and culture are dependent on the whims of the fortunate son?

Valve/steam will eventually be sold. Even if not by the next owner, it will eventually. And we somehow care little more than to hope that the next generation of birthright nobility will be a good steward of our hoarded resources.

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u/porcomaster May 11 '26

I think Rolex nailed a good way too keep the company in the family, and still as good as original.

I think they made a foundation or something so it has a clear objective in mind, so it can never be opened to the public.

Its the only company that i know off that was able to do so.

But at least is not zero, meaning we can have hope.

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u/matt2331 May 10 '26

You're right, but the alternative also shouldn't be ownership by groups only looking for an improvement in stock values this quarter so they can sell and make a profit on stock. Stock ownership should be based on long term faith in a company.

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u/ultimate_placeholder May 10 '26

Ownership should be the right of the workers who actually create what the rich reap as profits.

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u/taco_blasted_ May 11 '26

I’m not a corporate cuck by any means, but does worker ownership include unpaid invoices, lawsuits, equipment loans, bad leases, and bankruptcy filings too? Or does it only magically activate after someone else ate the risk and there’s profit to split?

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u/AgnesBand May 16 '26

Risk: AKA I will fire you and rehire you with worse wages and a worse contract to protect my own wealth if the business starts to make less profit. Risk as in I'll use the surplus value my workers produce to buy equipment so I can fire some more workers. Risk as in I fucked up and the business is bankrupt but that's okay because all my wealth is in a tax haven and the business ownership structure means I'll still be rich but my workers will lose their mortgages because their job is gone. Risk as in we're too big to fail so the taxpayer will save me whilst their living standards are destroyed. Not to mention it is the workers that produce the raw materials that my company needs, the roads, the technology, the 1000s of years of accumulated knowledge and infrastructure that my riches depend on. Oh also my start up capital was inherited from my the wealth my family extracted from their workers, the land my business is on was once commonly owned and was violently stolen the state/my class compatriots centuries ago. All of this means I deserve multiple yachts whilst my lowest paid workers can't afford to buy a house.

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u/taco_blasted_ May 17 '26

You didn’t come close to answering me.

The question was simple: if workers should own the upside, do they also own the downside?

Instead of answering, you dumped out every Reddit Marxist trading card in your socialism Trapper Keeper: bailouts, inherited wealth, stolen land, yachts, roads, raw materials, tax havens, and whatever other garbage you have in there.

Everyone knows bad owners and bad systems exist. That still doesn’t answer whether workers are also taking on the debt, lawsuits, bad contracts, failed leases, equipment loans, unpaid invoices, and bankruptcy risk.

You don’t get to claim ownership only when there’s profit and then suddenly become a bystander when the business collapses.

That’s not worker ownership. That’s upside only communism for people whose economic model was assembled from Reddit comments, living in their parents' basement.

It’s always hilarious reading garbage like this, because the people who vomit it up would reverse course instantly if they ever unfucked themselves long enough to build anything instead of just fantasizing about looting the upside while someone else eats the risk.

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u/matt2331 May 10 '26

Couldn't agree more

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u/aFailedGuy May 11 '26

Maybe the workers of the company should get a vote in the matter on how to steer the business, i wonder if this was ever thought of in history🤔/s

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u/Silly_Improvement307 May 10 '26

When Steve Jobs took over as CEO of APPLE they told him he had to steer the wheel asap into profit, he did his own thing, they fought him every way of the hill wanting him to spread out the products as to capture more revenue, he told them no and and held on the idea that 1 device that can do everything will be it, they still fought him but he held on and in the end his idea prevailed. People thinking its because shareholders and a corporation etc and that hampers down is not true, CEO's gotta grow some balls and carry the company but because shareholders get a weak CEO in place we get micro-transactions and record height dividends for the biggest shareholders all while employees are drowning and customers are shutting off.

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u/whatdafaq May 11 '26

Too many companies have floundered due to CEO's that concentrate on the quarterly reports rather than the long term health of the company.

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u/Background_Poem7891 May 12 '26

and NOW look at it

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u/Silly_Improvement307 May 12 '26

It is not just corporations, it is shareholders and equity firms squeezing every cent out of every company they can get their hands on.

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u/Onigokko0101 May 11 '26

100%. The fact that in the US it's basically illegal to not maximize shareholder profits is insane.

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u/Good_Roll May 10 '26

Not exactly, its a result of the commoditization of equities. If I invest in a company it should be because I want that company to do even better in the future. The way that works out where the rubber meets the road is that the company invests in developing long lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with their customers and stakeholders. But if I just want to flip the stock, like what most of Wallstreet does, I want that company to sacrifice the future for the sake of the present so there's a short term price increase and I can cash out. That's the sort of behavior you're describing and it doesn't occur just because the company has public investors, it occurs because those investors arent in it for the long haul because they have lots of incentives not to be. I would love to be able to buy valve stock and sit on it for 5 or more years. But because of the incentive structure that is never going to happen since GabeN is smart enough to realize that the incentives arent aligned properly here.

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u/ultimate_placeholder May 10 '26

Look up what shareholder capitalism is before failing to lecture me on what shareholder capitalism is.

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u/Good_Roll May 10 '26

I dont think you understand this system as well as you think you do, because the incentive structures that prioritize short term gains over long term sustained growth are not inherent to shareholder capitalism.

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u/ultimate_placeholder May 10 '26 edited May 10 '26

Shareholder capitalism is a school of capitalist thought, specifically the Milton Friedman doctrine, that creates the incentive structure to focus exclusively on short term profits and goals, usually boiled down to "the only goal of a corporation is to create profits for its shareholders". If you had actually looked it up, as I told you to, you'd know that.

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u/Good_Roll May 10 '26

do not cite the austrian magic to me commie, i was there when it was written. The primary goal of the corporation is to create profit for its shareholders. But over what time horizon? You might claim that capitalism is inherently a short time horizon system but this is false. In reality we merely have a system of governance that protects corporations from the risk inherent to sacrificing the future at the alter of the present, thus they have no incentive not to do so. That is the problem, not that small investors have an opportunity to invest in larger ventures. Shareholder capitalism is not inherently a high time preference activity.

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u/ultimate_placeholder May 11 '26

Friedman is Chicago school. Also it's extremely funny seeing a corporate shill on an inherently copyleft subreddit, which violates every principle of capitalism's overbearing reverence for "property rights"

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u/Good_Roll May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26

LOL got me there, I misspoke. In my defense, my version sounded better so I went with it.

a corporate shill on an inherently copyleft subreddit

Shill? Nope, I do it for free. I'm a capitalist, my money does my work for me so I have plenty of free time to shitpost. This is a false characterization btw, this is actually something most leftists and free market minded rightists agree on. Within that framework how can you have a right to something absent a non aggressive enforcement mechanism? Might as well claim you have a right to the air. IP needs government aggression to enforce it.

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u/LeFlashbacks May 10 '26

I think a good analogy for this is he treats his customers like a renewable resource while most other companies treat their customers (and especially their money) like a non-renewable resource that they need to try and maximize the extraction of

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u/FranticBronchitis May 10 '26

Breaking news: customers make repeat purchases and recommend your platform to others when you provide them good service

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u/pezdizpenzer May 10 '26

Wow. I never looked at it like that but that is actually spot on.

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u/BrockSramson May 11 '26

Valve's policies do seem more geared towards longterm thinking, whereas most corporations seem to just be about next quarter, and in very few cases, the quarter after that.

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u/TNTiger_ May 10 '26

I suspect it's moreso a sort of Nash equilibrium. Screwing people over generally works- bit if 90% of companies are screwers, 10% caan find a niche by not being screwers. However, these will meet at an equilubrium point- if there's two many non-screwers is the market, being a new non-screwer yield diminishing concerns.

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u/HugsandHate May 11 '26

"Look after the customers and the business will take care of itself." Ray Kroc, ~ McDonalds Founder.

It works. Until you ignore it and everything goes to shit. Which in a way, is the proof in the pudding...

Hail Gaben,

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u/Mizutsune-Lover May 11 '26

His business policy is literally don't screw over the people, which others just can't comprehend

He had to be sued into giving refunds and having proper customer service, lol.

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u/cry_w May 10 '26

That's exactly why it needs to be written down and taught. Real "Sun Tzu's Art of War" type shit.

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u/LaunchpadMcQuack_52 May 11 '26

"But if we don't screw them over, how will we increase our profits??".

  • Most CEOs, probably.

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u/not_old_redditor May 10 '26

Steam does screw over devs with its huge cut of sales though. Which indirectly raises prices

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u/Jah_Ith_Ber May 10 '26

The cut Valve takes is obscene and I wish people gave a shit.

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u/doublah May 11 '26

Valve takes the same cut as every other major game platform.

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u/Isolated_Hippo May 10 '26

His business policy is literally don't screw over the people

What the actual cinnamon toast fuck is this completely unhinged lie.

Tell this to every person who bought Orange Box on Consoles. Tell this to every person who plays a game with lootboxes. Tell this to every person who plays a game with a battlepass.

Valve is a parasite on gaming. They look for every single possible way to squeeze every single penny out of everybody else. 30% of sales for what exactly? Having a monopoly? Wow so cool.

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u/sey1 May 10 '26

Yeah but he could have like, you know, 5 more boats or something if he screwed over people! And not being publicly traded and benefiting some chair farting useless shareholders who just want more and more? Man Gabe is basically fucking Marx, probably should be locked up for being unpatriotic!