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I never really thought about it this way. Nothing will probably ever stop Valve from being successful, but I do think they would be more successful if they con

• jacques_chester 14y ago
  Creating a caste system can lead to unhealthy social dynamics. The only thing that works is deliberately cultivating a culture where driving out the old bads is as important as creating the new goods. Put another way: for self-direction to work, the culture needs to rank improvements as highly as novelty. Possibly higher.
  • svdad 14y ago
    > Put another way: for self-direction to work, the culture needs to rank improvements as highly as novelty. Possibly higher. Which it never does. At least, I have yet to experience or hear of a (software) engineering culture in which that's true.
    • jacques_chester 14y ago
      I began to write about Toyota and Admiral Rickover's "Nuclear Navy" cultures, but then stopped. I'm not sure if cultures like Toyota or the Nuclear Navy can be considered under this heading, as they mostly worked at a procedural-improvement level, rather than a product-improvement level.
  • kevingadd 14y ago
    They've already got a caste system, actually. If Valve hires you to do customer support, the only thing you can ever do at Valve is customer support. They don't allow sideways-promotion from their support department like many game companies do with QA/support staff because they don't want there to be a 'back door' into the company.