arent monk suppose to be peaceful, how does being peace and understanding work with painful marks on ones back

No one is questioning the legality of this; of course they were within their rights to fire her.

The issue I'm criticizing is the lack of leadership shown here. To put it bluntly: a hardware department was created with the intent of hiring people with new expertise to produce new kinds of products, then other managers started veto'ing hardware-related hires and projects because they felt it didn't fit within the company's culture. That's a failure of management, period. You can be perfectly within your rights and still be stupid about it. Anti-Steam? Maybe, you could certainly make an argument for that, but her criticisms are also narrowly focused (as much as is possible without crossing confidentiality lines) so dismissing them out of hand would be disingenuous. As for anti-corporate, I'd disagree. If anything, the message to take home from her interview is that large companies need more structured hierarchies and communication to function smoothly; that's a pro-corporate position. Really, that's just a silly proposition. For one thing, she indicates she has already obtained the rights to her work from Valve, so the deal is done and sealed. Second of all, blackmail isn't very effective when you use it up and then make your demands. Third of all, this news will never be read by 99% of Steam users, and of the remaining 1% there will be mixed opinions, so what does it matter? @_@

Sorry man, but I have a hard time taking you seriously if you really believe this. A corporation isn't a machine, it's a group of people, and people are emotional and often irrational. Sometimes people are ambitious or even vindictive. Yes, people will become enemies in a corporate environment, and the bigger the corporation the more likely that is to happen.

Self whipping? Or whatever it's called.

Good, no problems, then.

Look I could lay it all out and explain why you're wrong, but that whole exercise will be excruciatingly boring. The fact that you would think me naive or trolling for saying what I did is telling of the level of understanding we're dealing with here. So, sorry I started this.

Clearly I'm interested in this discussion, otherwise I wouldn't have continued it. Up until now you've been beating a straw man, so I'd be fine with engaging you on my core point. I apologize for that comment; I scrubbed it out in my edit in the time between that post and your response. I was taken aback by your assertion that corporate culture cannot produce enemies.

I guess that too. Valve probably just decided that their hardware activities have no chance of winning and therefore scraped them. Just a business decision. However I guess there is some truth about her side of the story too:

- Often you have informal hierachies - the people the boss is listening to or to whom he/she trusts. Finding these out is tedious.
- Investing millions in devices but not enough in manpower could be a sign of inefficient management. They probably weren't sure /hadn't a clear vision and then invested in hardware only half-heartedly. Probably they could have done better (either more or less).
- Peer reviews that decide about salary can start a really bad wave of bad behaviors. Maximizing your own salary is the most important thing, so personal relations are more important than good work if your peers decide about your salary.
- Refusing to hire someone because he/she doesn't fit into the "corporate culture" is quite a general phrase and most probably not the real cause. The real cause should be much more specific. Again a sign of possible mismanagement.

But even then Valve still will be a quite successful company and of course they can sack some employees at any time. Working like crazy while at the some time assuming you cannot get fired or there aren't intriques going on (like it happens everywhere) is very naive.

Sounds very similar to most large corporates. Flat hierarchies aren't all they're cracked up to be - in the end, cliques come to dominate and the only people who progress are those who suck up to the right people.

The correct term is self-flagellation :)

God, I'd love to work at that kind of place.

No seriously, maximizing your known potential whilst having a large amount of freedom to do what project you are passionate about coupled with the need for sale and negotiation skills all without some dickhead life failure of a manager trying to overbear you sounds like a dream job.

Yeah it'll be bloody hard at times, but eh, I like a good challenge. You'll earn bags of money to. I hope GoG's management is somewhat similar too this. It could explain the success they have kept up.

The funny thing about this account is that it's almost a stark contrast to what an anonymous Valve employee (or at least he claimed that he was an employee) revealed about IceFrog in this blog post over 2 years ago: That said, assuming that claim was true, it doesn't technically contradict Ellsworth's statement. Unlike her, IceFrog is a (major) software guy, so maybe they saw him as too valuable to let go.

What a surprise, the person that made MoBAs what they are today is an asshole, probably king of the assholes. I guess it's "like father, like son" aye?
Although look at DotA 2 now, looking to, quite possibly, become THE MoBA, so I guess giving him all that control turned out fine. Or Valve has a safety wall the US nuclear arsenal couldn't breach.