Gabe Newell

About half the people at Valve have run their own companies, so they always have the option not just to take a job at another game company, but to go start their own company. The question you always have to answer is, 'How are we making these people more valuable than they would be elsewhere?'

Most people who end up being successful have good grades, but it's orthogonal - there's no extra information than if they put together a website and have bunch of fans who love coming and seeing what they're doing.

I remember back in the early days of Microsoft that from the day that you decided that you were just going to put out an ad to a customer - and all you were usually able to tell them was that a new product was available - it was about nine months before you could actually reach the first customer.

Photoshop should be a free-to-play game. There's not really a difference between very traditional apps and how they enhance productivity and wandering around a forest and killing bears.

I have no direct knowledge of this, but I suspect that Apple will launch a living room product that redefines people's expectations really strongly, and the notion of a separate console platform will disappear concurrent with Apple's announcement.

A store is just a collection of content. The Steam store is this very safe, boring entertainment experience. Nobody says, 'I'm going to play the Steam store now.'

I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we'll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people.

One of the things that's important about family is the narrative history they create for themselves.

The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates.