From Ken Birdwell - the author - linkedin summary [1]: Valve is the place to go as the culmination of a career. It's filled with 90% senior people, people who

From Ken Birdwell - the author - linkedin summary [1]: Valve is the place to go as the culmination of a career. It's filled with 90% senior people, people who have run their own companies, not just projects or products. It's not uncommon to meet people here who have been here "only" 10 years. We lose fewer than 1 person every 2 years, and that's been true over the entire history of the company. Once you're here, you'll stay forever, there's no reason to ever leave. We're also a family oriented company. You're expected to work 40 hours or so a week. Maybe a 3-4 weeks of crunch time a year, but it's all voluntary. We'll actually send you home if we think you're spending too much time away from your real life. Vacation time isn't tracked. If you need to take time off, take time off. We don't care, it's up to you. Your colleagues are keeping track of your contribution anyway, we don't need some stupid accounting trick to know if you're valuable. On top of that, our schedule is our own. We have no outside investors. We own all of our IP. We have no "publisher". We do work with external folks to make and ship retail boxes for us, and they do a great job, but they have zero influence over what we do or when it's done. It's totally up to us. We're in control of our own success or failure. It's ours to make. Why anyone would want to work anywhere else is a mystery to me. [1] http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ken-birdwell/3/997/95a http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ken-birdwell/3/997/95a