An interesting tidbit about Valve is that for some time, Yannis Varoufakis worked there, before he became the finance minister of Greece. He became of course (i

An interesting tidbit about Valve is that for some time, Yannis Varoufakis worked there, before he became the finance minister of Greece. He became of course (in)famous for his work in the left-wing government, his rejection of the "troika"'s demands, and being one of very few influtential economists with a Marxist background (not to speak of his unconventional style). But before that, he was advising Valve on virtual enconomies (I think for Team Fortress 2). So, I wonder if there is any connection between Valve's unconventional organisational structure, and the fact that they attracted this influential left-wing thinker. What I heard about Valve reminds me of some left-wing cooperatives I know in Europe (factories, shops, farms, ...), where the employees share ownership and decision making. Unfortunately, many of those struggle with similar problems - but not all, some are also fairly successful. I don't think there is neccessarily a left-wing or liberal political idea going on at Valve, but probably there was a kind of co-evolution of this hierarchy-less idea in tech and in leftist circles? A quick google search suggests that Varoufakis (who blogged about his time at Valve) was aware of this similarity.