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Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

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Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#11

Post by aaarrm »

This thing has always been a treat to look through; it's made with so much effort and care. I haven't read through it in a bit though and don't plan to read through it again currently so I may be off in some of the rest of my comment.

I think Valve's flat structure strategy has mildly failed and they should try something else. Unless they still desire to all-in on the strategy of creating products and hoping to land a another billion dollar baby, then sure, this strategy is good for that. However Valve kind of advertises itself as a video game company, and if someone is interested in making video games I feel like they'd actually be a bit disappointed after a while of working at Valve, simply because it seems so unlikely for them to actually ever release a video game.

And the bonus structure that I recall also seems dated. iirc it was setup in a way such that delivering new projects would land you a bonus. But this incentivizes creating things, but there is no incentive to continue supporting or updating or iterating on it. In my opinion the bonus structure should be done in such a way so that if you deliver something new, you would land a bonus, and then you'd get larger bonuses at the 1 year mark, 2 year mark, etc, if that thing has been updated and improved.

Many things these days are not just a single product that you release and that's that. They continually live on, they're a service, they're interacted with for years. Valve has fallen behind in this regard. Even smaller things like mini-features in Dota 2 for example would be released, which likely earned someone a small bonus, then left by the wayside to fall apart.

I love Valve conceptually but I really wish they'd iterate on their company design instead of thinking they've "solved it" I guess. I wish they were more video game focused. Obviously I don't know how it actually is in there these days, but things like this manual and other hearsay / rumors are the best I have to go off of.

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#12

Post by ARandumGuy »

thrwaway1985882 wrote: post #5
helloplanets wrote: post #3

I wonder if this is still the same handbook new hires get today. Would be interesting to see the current version, if there is one.

I wonder if Valve is still the same as described in this handbook, or if it ever truly was. The section on stack ranking is really fascinating ... seeing how that sausage was made would let you know exactly who is in the secret cabals the handbook says don't exist ;-)

If you want some more insight into what working at Valve is actually like, People Make Games released a great video last year [1] where they talked to a bunch of current and former employees.

While there are people who can thrive at Valve, their structure doesn't set people up for success. Valve has a many pseudo-managers, people who have a lot of influence at the company, but aren't designated as such. Doing well at Valve often requires trying to figure out what sort of things these people want, which they often don't make clear. Getting meaningful feedback is difficult, with employees often having little idea on what they need to do differently to improve things.

It really seems like Valve is kind of a mess internally, and they probably wouldn't still be around if it wasn't for the enormous success of Steam.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#13

Post by jsheard »

gumby wrote: post #9

The reasulting reality of the managerless approach hasn’t been good. As the they say, “if you don’t have any managers you have politics”. I have several friends who used to work at Valve none of them hate the place, they still have friends there, etc. But they tell similar stories as to why things that normal companies do successfully are impossible at Valve. Perhaps it’s best summed up by something one friend said a…

For anyone who seeks to emulate Valves internal structure you have to ask yourself one question - do you already have a core product with a near-unimpeachable monopoly which consistently brings in enough money to keep the entire company afloat, with enough left over to bankroll moonshot R&D projects on top? If not, you can't afford to operate like Valve. They cancel 10 projects for every one they ship, if not for Steam bringing in endless billions of dollars they would have gone out of business a decade ago.

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#16

Post by FrustratedMonky »

jsheard wrote: post #13
gumby wrote: post #9

The reasulting reality of the managerless approach hasn’t been good. As the they say, “if you don’t have any managers you have politics”. I have several friends who used to work at Valve none of them hate the place, they still have friends there, etc. But they tell similar stories as to why things that normal companies do successfully are impossible at Valve. Perhaps it’s best summed up by something one friend said a…

For anyone who seeks to emulate Valves internal structure you have to ask yourself one question - do you already have a core product with a near-unimpeachable monopoly which consistently brings in enough money to keep the entire company afloat, with enough left over to bankroll moonshot R&D projects on top? If not, you can't afford to operate like Valve. They cancel 10 projects for every one they ship, if not for Ste…

So did they have a different structure before Steam existed? And then post-Steam, now there is total freedom to organize however they want?

You're saying that this organization doesn't lead to success, but because they accidentally have a successful money maker, now they can run like this?

I think there is disconnect here. There are successful companies that can operate like this, because this is a good way to get to success.

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#17

Post by slumberlust »

aaarrm wrote: post #11

This thing has always been a treat to look through; it's made with so much effort and care. I haven't read through it in a bit though and don't plan to read through it again currently so I may be off in some of the rest of my comment. I think Valve's flat structure strategy has mildly failed and they should try something else. Unless they still desire to all-in on the strategy of creating products and hoping to land…

It depends how you frame success. Game development seems to have slowed in the post-Steam boom world, but it's still there! DotA2, Artifact, Alyx, and currently Deadlock are all examples of relatively recent gaming products.

From a purely financial perspective, they SHOULD continue to focus on marketplace dominance via STEAM. Whatever game is made for HL3/TF3 will ultimately fail to meet fan expectations (Duke Nukem anyone?).

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#18

Post by ric2b »

jsheard wrote: post #13
gumby wrote: post #9

The reasulting reality of the managerless approach hasn’t been good. As the they say, “if you don’t have any managers you have politics”. I have several friends who used to work at Valve none of them hate the place, they still have friends there, etc. But they tell similar stories as to why things that normal companies do successfully are impossible at Valve. Perhaps it’s best summed up by something one friend said a…

For anyone who seeks to emulate Valves internal structure you have to ask yourself one question - do you already have a core product with a near-unimpeachable monopoly which consistently brings in enough money to keep the entire company afloat, with enough left over to bankroll moonshot R&D projects on top? If not, you can't afford to operate like Valve. They cancel 10 projects for every one they ship, if not for Ste…

Steam isn't an unimpeachable monopoly, their competition is just so much worse.

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#19

Post by Shekelphile »

adamrezich wrote: post #10
helloplanets wrote: post #3

I wonder if this is still the same handbook new hires get today. Would be interesting to see the current version, if there is one.

Back in 2012, did this “employee handbook” actually “leak” to begin with? Or was the whole thing just a calculated corporate PR stunt? Everyone just takes it at face value, but I've always wondered.

The prevailing opinion since then has definitely been that it was an intentional release.

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#20

Post by larsiusprime »

The thing everyone misses about Valve in all the endless back and forth whenever this handbook is listed is that it is, at its core, a lifestyle company. It is optimizing for a certain lifestyle. It has pros and cons and tradeoffs and ways reality is different from imagined utopia, but in general it succeeds very well at this goal.

It does not succeed at a number of other goals that people attribute to valve (or imagine that valve should have), but that always strikes me as beside the point.

This is all without passing any judgment on whether valve is good or bad - it just seems like the best model the fits the available facts.

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