Gabe Newell

Newell spent 13 years at Microsoft as the producer of the first three releases of the Windows operating systems.[7] 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.[8]

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."[9] At Microsoft, Newell led development on a port of Doom for Windows 95, which is credited for helping make Windows a viable game platform.[10]

Newell accepting the Pioneer Award at the 2010 Game Developers Conference

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.[7][4] Newell and Harrington funded development of the first Valve game, the first-person shooter Half-Life (1998),[11] which was a critical and commercial success.[12] Harrington left in 2000, leaving Newell as the sole owner.[11]

Newell gave Valve no deadline and a "virtually unlimited" budget to develop Half-Life 2 (2004), promising to fund it himself if necessary.[13] Meanwhile, he spent several months developing Steam, a digital distribution service for games.[14] By 2011, Steam controlled between 50% and 70% of the market for downloaded PC games and generated most of Valve's revenue.[15] In December 2010, Forbes named Newell "A Name You Should Know", primarily for his work on Steam having partnerships with multiple major developers.[16]

In 2007, Newell expressed his displeasure over developing software for game consoles, saying that developing processes for Sony's PlayStation 3 was a "waste of everybody's time".[17][18] On stage at Sony's keynote at E3 2010, he acknowledged his criticism of console development 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.[19] Newell also criticized the Xbox Live service, referring to it as a "train wreck",[20] and was also critical of Windows 8, calling it a threat to the open nature of PC gaming.[21] At the 2013 LinuxCon, Newell said that 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.[22]

In 2013, Newell was added to the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.[23] That March, he received the BAFTA Fellowship award for his contributions to the video game industry.[24] In October 2017, Forbes listed Newell among the 100 wealthiest people in the United States, with an estimated net worth of $5.5 billion.[25][26] In December 2021, Forbes estimated that Newell had a net worth of $3.9 billion[26] and owned at least one quarter of Valve.[26] 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]

Newell is the owner of Inkfish, a marine research organization.[27] In November 2022, Inkfish purchased the Hadal Exploration System, a private deep-sea exploration platform, from the undersea explorer Victor Vescovo.[28][28] In 2020, Newell and 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.[29]