Valve also hired really heavily from the mod community. I spent a good portion of my youth in that scene and the people that they hired they really went far for

Valve also hired really heavily from the mod community. I spent a good portion of my youth in that scene and the people that they hired they really went far for(relocation, visas, etc). I think most of the leads for the more popular mods(outside of CS obviously) ended up there in one form or another if they were interested in it.