What just happened? Valve cofounder Gabe Newell has an enviable life. Not only does he love his job, but he also lives on a boat and scuba dives daily. Newell said that if being retired means doing something fun and entertaining instead of a horrible job, then he’s been retired for years.
In what seems like a major coup, Zalkar Saliev, a YouTube channel that had just 19 subscribers, managed to briefly speak to Newell. You’d be forgiven for thinking this was some sort of AI trickery, but Valve has confirmed that the interview is the real deal.
Saliev shares “powerful interviews and lifestyle stories with successful men across the US” on his channel, which features only seven YouTube shorts and no full-length videos. It’s unclear how he managed to secure his brief chat with Newell.
“What is the daily routine for Mr Gabe?” Saliev asks.
“My daily routine,” Newell replies, “I get up, I work, I go scuba-diving, work some more, [then] either go on a second scuba dive or I go to the gym and work out. I live on a boat so I just hang out with everybody on the boat. Then I work.”
That alone sounds like the perfect life, assuming you’re a fan of boats and scuba diving. But it gets even better for Newell.
“I work seven days a week: I’m working from my bedroom as you can tell. I like working, it’s fun, to me it doesn’t feel like work. The kinds of things that I get to do every day are super-awesome.”
All the scuba diving and working out has certainly helped Newell slim down over the years.
The Valve boss then compared his lifestyle to being retired. “I’ve said it before, but when you retire, you want to stop doing your horrible job and then go do what is sort of most fun and entertaining. So, in that sense, I’ve been retired for a long time.”
Newell has other interests outside of Valve. One of these is Starfish Neuroscience, a brain-computer interface firm looking to rival Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Starfish has been quietly developing its technology for several years, with the aim of creating minimally invasive, distributed neural interfaces capable of simultaneously connecting to multiple brain regions.
“Brain-computer interfaces are incredibly cool and all of the associated neuroscience is incredibly cool.”
Newell’s also working with a company on an aerosol pathogen detection device, “so you can see all the pathogens that are in the air.”
In another short on Saliev’s channel, Newell talks about generative AI and its impact on programming.
“I think the more you understand what underlies these current tools, the more effective you are at taking advantage of them,” Newell said. “But I think we’ll be in this funny situation where people who don’t know how to program who use AI to scaffold their programming abilities will become more effective developers of value than people who’ve been programming for a decade.”
The final short contains some advice from Newell for anyone looking to launch a business. He says starting with a pitch document to raise capital from investors is a “deeply distracted” way to start an organization. Instead, new businesses should focus on “creating value for people,” and the capital will come their way, probably at a reduced cost.
It’s unclear how long Saliev’s full interview with Newell lasted, so he might release a few more snippets of Gaben’s wisdom later.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(471x244:473x246)/CNN-New-Years-Eve-with-Anderson-Cooper-123124-9952e5f00fc1425f87113ba2bfb97b29.jpg "Anderson Cooper Says He Once ‘Hated’ New Year’s Eve While Co-Hosting CNN Broadcast")
