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Main milestones
Early Life and Education
Valve Corporation: Founding and Early Years
Personal Interests and Hobbies
Valve: Continued Growth and Expansion
Relationship with Mike Harrington
Controversies and Criticisms
Valve: Recent Years and Future Directions
Microsoft Career
Impact on the Gaming Industry
Technological Contributions and Innovation
Gabe Newell's Public Image and Persona
Gabe Newell's Philanthropy
Gabe Logan Newell (born November 3, 1962), also known by his nickname Gaben, is an American video game developer and businessman. He is the president and co-founder of the video game company Valve Corporation.
Newell was born in Colorado and grew up in Davis, California. 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. In 1996, he and Mike Harrington left Microsoft to found Valve and fund the development of their first game, Half-Life (1998). Harrington sold his stake in Valve to Newell and left in 2000. Newell led the development of Valve's digital distribution service, Steam, which 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 $9.5 billion as of 2024. He is also the owner of the marine research organization Inkfish and the neuroscience company Starfish Neuroscience.
Newell was born on November 3, 1962, in Colorado, and attended Davis Senior High School in Davis, California.[4][5] He worked as a paperboy, and later a telegram messenger for Western Union.[6] He enrolled at Harvard University in 1980, but was convinced to drop out to work at Microsoft by the head of sales in 1983.[4]
Newell spent 13 years at Microsoft as a programmer and technical executive, and produced the first three releases of the operating system Windows.[7][8] 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.[9]
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."[10] At Microsoft, Newell led development on a port of Doom for Windows 95, which is credited for helping make Windows a viable game platform.[11]
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.[8][4] Newell opted to found Valve instead of retiring as he felt working with "other really smart, motivated, socially orientated people to create product that would affect millions of other people" was "the most fun I could have".[12]
Newell and Harrington funded development of the first Valve game, the first-person shooter Half-Life (1998),[13] which was a critical and commercial success.[14] Harrington sold his stake in Valve to Newell in 2000.[7] Newell gave Valve no deadline and a "virtually unlimited" budget to develop Half-Life 2 (2004), promising to fund it himself if necessary.[15] He and Valve came close to bankruptcy during a legal battle with Vivendi Games, which ended when an intern discovered an email revealing that Vivendi was destroying evidence.[16]
During the development of Half-Life 2, Newell spent several months developing Steam, a digital distribution service for games.[17] By 2011, Steam controlled between 50% and 70% of the market for downloaded PC games and generated most of Valve's revenue.[18] 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.[19]
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".[20][21] 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.[22] Newell also criticized the Xbox Live service, referring to it as a "train wreck",[23] and Windows 8, calling it a threat to the open nature of PC gaming.[24] 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.[25]
In 2009, IGN named Newell one of the top 100 game creators, writing that it was "almost impossible to gauge" Valve's influence on game design, technology and the video games industry.[26] In December 2010, Forbes listed Newell as "A Name You Need to Know", primarily for his work on Steam and partnerships with multiple major developers.[27] In 2013, Newell was added to the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame[28] and received the BAFTA Fellowship for his contributions to the video game industry.[29] As of 2024, Newell had become less involved in Valve and was spending more time on personal projects.[30]
In 2022, with Philip Sabes, Newell co-founded the neuroscience company Starfish Neuroscience to develop neural interfaces.[30] In May 2025, Starfish announced that their first chip would release in "late 2025."[31] Newell is the owner of the marine research organization Inkfish, which owns several ships and submarines.[32][30] In November 2022, Inkfish purchased the Hadal Exploration System, a private deep-sea exploration platform, from the undersea explorer Victor Vescovo.[33]
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.[34] In the same year, Newell worked with Weta Workshop and Rocket Lab to send a gnome figure from Half-Life 2: Episode Two into space. Newell donated $1 for every person who watched the launch video in 24 hours. The money went the pediatric intensive care unit at the Starship's children hospital in Auckland, New Zealand.[35]
In October 2017, Forbes listed Newell among the 100 wealthiest people in the United States, with an estimated net worth of $5.5 billion.[36][37] In December 2021, Forbes estimated that Newell had a net worth of $3.9 billion[37] and owned at least one quarter of Valve.[37] 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.[4] In 2024, Forbes estimated that Newell owned 50.1% of Valve and had a net worth of $9.5 billion.[7]
Newell formerly suffered from Fuchs' dystrophy, a congenital disease which affects the cornea. He was cured via two cornea transplants in 2006 and 2007.[18] On the same day he founded Valve with Harrington, Newell married Lisa Mennet.[4] They have two sons.[38] The birth of their first son in the late 1990s inspired the final boss of Half-Life, as the couple considered childbirth the most frightening thing they could think of at the time.[39] As of 2019, Newell and Mennet had divorced.[40]
In 2011, Newell said his favorite video games included Super Mario 64, Doom, and a Burroughs mainframe version of the 1971 Star Trek game, which was the first game he ever played.[41] Doom convinced him that games were the future of entertainment, and Super Mario 64 convinced him that games were art.[41] Newell was a fan of the animated series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.[42][4] He also recorded a voice pack for the Valve game Dota 2, which referenced many previous statements and phrases from himself in a humorous manner.[43]
Within the gaming community, Newell has the nickname Gaben, derived from his work email address.[44] Newell said that he tried to grow into his public image: "[Fans] hug me when they run into me. I'm not a hugging person, but that's what they want. I was with my kids the first time that happened in public, and my kids were pretty cool with it. But I wasn't. 'Dad, roll with it.' Even now, I'm learning from our customers."[45]
Newell was visiting New Zealand with friends when the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, and elected to stay in Auckland once travel restrictions were eased.[46] As an expression of gratitude for New Zealand's hospitality, he and others arranged a free event, We Love Aotearoa, with live performances from musical artists across New Zealand. It was accompanied by VR stands for Valve games such as Half-Life: Alyx and The Lab.[47] The event was postponed from August to December due to a lockdown induced by a second wave of COVID-19.[46][48] Newell applied for permanent residency in New Zealand in October 2020, but had returned to Seattle by 2021.[49][50] Newell owns several ships, and has lived mostly at sea since the pandemic.[7]
If Your Birthday Is Today [November 3]: Video game entrepreneur Gabe Newell (1962) shares your birthday.
Media related to Gabe Newell at Wikimedia Commons
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