Valve’s Gabe Newell Crosses the Billionaire Barrier


Valve CEO Gabe Newell has debuted as 854th out of 1,226 global billionaires after a stellar 2011 has left Mr. Newell with a cool $1.5 billion. I can say without hyperbole that this couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. This is the kind of person we want to think of when we hear billionaire. His company’s work to bring digital distribution has been a godsend. They even got Russia to pay for video games. Russia, a country that owes what freedom they have to bootleg Beatles records smuggled in on grooved X-ray images. Valve has done more to kill piracy than any moronic piece of legislature the guardians of old media can come up with. They’ve proved that Piracy is a technological problem, and if you give consumers an easy way to pay for digital goods online, and you’re not a douche about it, you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.

Source:Forbes